“When I pass a flowering zucchini plant in a garden,” Gwyneth writes, “my heart skips a beat.” I, on the other hand, have never seen a goddamned zucchini flower in my life. Until yesterday.
Out of all the baffling ingredients in My Father’s Daughter, one of the most difficult to track down over the last near-decade(!) of this project has been zucchini blossoms (second only to purple sprouting broccoli, whatever the hell that is). For years, I’ve searched every produce section of every grocery store I’ve ever walked in, and every farmer’s market I’ve strolled through. I’ve downloaded apps that keep you up-to-date on when items of produce are in season (naturally, no apps list zucchini blossoms). I’ve searched far and wide, and the consensus around the best way to get these damn flowers is, basically, befriend a farmer or grow them yourself.
Yesterday, on a mercifully slow day at work, I skipped out a bit early and headed home, sweating through the nasty hell of late-August NYC. Just a few feet away from my subway entrance, I passed a completely random single tent with fresh produce, a one-man farmer’s market. “That’s weird,” I thought, and there I saw it, scribbled on a piece of paper taped to a cooler: “squash blossoms, $.75/ea”. After all these years, I couldn’t believe it so I kept walking, down into the 140-degree subway station, but I stopped. I knew I had to go back. I couldn’t wait another 7 years for this opportunity.
The Danny/Gwyneth Project 