The Legend of The Phantom Zucchini

What is a Phantom Zucchini?

Well, a zucchini is a vegetable, a very mysterious vegetable.  Many people like it, but they don’t know why  - because it really has very little taste.

Just like most vegetables, it is supposed to be a healthy choice but...a phantom zucchini is different.    It looks and acts like the real thing, sort of  like a phantom arm or leg (one that was amputated and yet the owner claims to still feel it from time to time) but don’t be fooled.  It is not what it appears to be.

At first, it's like eating any other kind of Zucchini, pretty dull, really. No taste.  Funny texture.  Kind of like eating water.  But then, you will begin to crave it.   You hear it calling to you the minute you enter the supermarket and before you know it you are making all kinds of things with it - casseroles, pizzas, salads.  You start throwing it into chili, soup, omelets. You make sure to always have at least 5 or 6 zucchini in the fridge at all times. When you make your first zucchini bread, that’s when you know you are in trouble. You are hopelessly addicted. You have lost your soul, and  are helplessly under the spell of The Phantom.   (As as far as I know, there is no rite of exorcism that will banish this zucchini.  It’s a bad ass, and not afraid of crucifixes.  Some  of my readers have told me that they’ve had some luck  wearing garlic necklaces to the supermarket and while reading this blog though, so you might want to give this a go.  )

Who is this phantom? Well legend tells of a man who loved zucchini,  and who was also a very well respected organist at the local church.  He was hired to be the back up organist, available when the regular guy couldn't make it.  But he used his satanic powers to brainwash the congregation into believing he should be the one and only person to play that scary sounding instrument.  He had them believing that no one else had ever managed to play quite so hauntingly.  And also?  He brought the choir a little treat every Sunday.  Some homemade sweet cake or bread or cupcakes or cookie or pie all made with one ingredient in common.  Yes,   ">ZUCCHINI!!!!!    Eventually the whole choir and some of the other churchgoers became The Disciples of Phantom Z.  (You might have heard of them,) zombie-like beings  wearing raggedy clothes who walked dragged themselves through the streets at night and broke into houses looking for a zucchini fix.  The jilted choir director, who, interestingly enough,  read a lot of occult fiction, and had a library of old scary looking hardcover books that he was especially proud of, had heard about the legend of The Phantom Zucchini and knew that something had to be done, something big, something quick and something with a lot of fiber.   So he invited the Disciples over to his house for a "No Hard Feelings" get together and served them a cocktail spiked with carrot juice, garlic salt and some holy water and they all walked home without dragging and changed their clothes.

Now, what does this all have to do with my blog? Well, nothing really and ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING!!!!! Yes, you guessed it.  I, too, fell under the spell of the Phantom Zucchini and I tried everything to break the hold this vegetable had on me.  At certain times of the day I would find myself rushing to the supermarket, buying a zucchini and not even bothering to cook it.  No, really, I'd eat it raw while driving home.  I spent all my money on Zucchini and my car was repossessed.    I started growing zucchini myself.  It grew as large as trees, and crept into the neighbor's yards.   Finally in a dream the Phantom Zucchini came to me and said "Thou Shalt Change Your Name to Princess Stupidhead, and  Create a Blog in My Name and Post Regularly About  - Well, Anything, Really, and as long as that blog Shalt Please Me, I Will Let You Remain Free of My Quite Awesome  Powers of  Possession  and Your Head will no longer twist round and round, and you will start to like carrots again.

Yeah, so I'm in the clear, but you guys - well they say after a while you no longer smell the garlic.