Part 38. A Squash And A Squeeze

Butternut squash, Chinese artichokes and battleships.

If you like butternut squash, please stick a like at the end. If you don’t like butternut squash, please stick a like at the end.

Hi there, you OK? Good. Right, story time, and this week we’re going to tell you about the joy of being a local restaurant.

The city of York is actually quite a small place, it doesn't feel like it when you visit as a tourist, but once you find your way around, it ain’t that big. The snickleways help you get from one side of the city to the other pretty quickly.

So when you have a restaurant in a small city, you quickly gather a crowd of regulars, the once a weekers. And they usually visit on the quieter days when tourists aren't clogging up the streets. York city centre is pedestrianised, but tourists don’t seem to realise, so they cling to the narrow pavements, while the locals walk on the road.

Having regulars was a nice thing, they would be with us on a Wednesday lunchtime and they would chat with Donna about what they’d been up to all week. They would fill Donna in with the gossip, tell her which restaurants they’d been visiting, and rave about any bargains they’d picked up whilst shopping in the centre.

Some of these regulars would bring in fruits and vegetables for us to use in the kitchen. You know, half a dozen pears or an armful of apples from the tree in their garden. This was a nice thing, but to be honest, six pears wouldn't make enough desserts for a day, but we politely accepted them anyway.

Now one particular day, Donna came to the kitchen to tell me that one of the regulars, let’s say Alan, had some butternut squash* and would we like them.

First of all, you need to remember that butternut squash were fairly unusual twenty years ago. I mean, yes they were in the supermarkets, but they were nowhere near as popular as they are now.

“Butternut squash, yea we’ll take a few off him.”

Donna suggested that I say hello to Alan, “Come and meet him, they’re a nice couple.”

I didn’t want to meet Alan, but only because I had a lot to do. So I took off my apron and dragged myself from the prep list.

“Look after everything Lozza.”

Alan and his wife were nice people, “Hi nice to meet you Alan, I’m Andrew”

Alan was a narrow chap, he smiled a lot also, “Hi Andrew, this is my wife, Helen.”

“Helen and Alan, nice to meet you both.”

It always felt strange meeting regulars, they knew a bit about you, we had been in the same building together many times, Donna knew them quite well, but they were aliens to me.

“Look Andrew, I’ve been growing some butternut squash, I was wondering if you’d like some, they’d be great on the menu.”

And I’m stood there thinking, if he brings two butternut squash in, I split them and that gives four portions. So they would go on the menu, then within ten minutes the menu would have to be changed because we would have sold the four portions.

Helen jumped in, “They’re lovely in a curry, nice and sweet.”

Oh Helen, don’t start with the veg curry thing.

So did I politely decline, “Brilliant, thanks Alan, that would be great.”

“OK, I’ll drop them off in the morning, I can bring the car into the city centre up until 9:30. Will you be in then?”

“Yea, we’ll be here Alan. See you tomorrow.”

Donna and I assumed that he would be driving in to drop them off on his way to somewhere else, he wouldn't make a special trip just for us.

“Hey Donna, I like Helen and Alan.”

“Yea, I told you they were nice.”

“Hey Lozza, some bloke is bringing us some butternut squash in.”

“Oh that’s good.” Lozza wasn’t too bothered.

Then when Briggy arrived to work, we told her also.

“Hey Briggy, a bloke called Alan is gonna bring some butternut squash in for us, for free.”

“Oh that’s nice, I saw Jamie Oliver using them on the telly.”

“Oh, well they must be good then. Hey Briggy, there won’t be enough to put on the menu, you may as well take one home.”

Briggy was chuffed, she liked simple things, “Oh yea, that would be lovely.”

And true to their word, Alan and Helen arrived at the restaurant the next day at 9:30.

“Morning Donna, Morning Andrew,” he said as he poked his head through the door.

“Hi Alan.”

“I’ll bring the squash in, where would you like them putting?”

For my liking, Alan was making this whole butternut squash thing a big deal. Just drop the bloody squash anywhere Alan.

“Oh, anywhere Alan, thanks.”

These are butternut squash.

Donna got back to organising the restaurant and I went back to the kitchen.

And about thirty seconds later Donna come to the kitchen, “You need to see this.”

Then she left the kitchen.

Lozza and I walked through to the restaurant floor. And there was Alan, struggling with a cardboard box which was so big we could hardly see him.

“Hey Alan, let me help you with that.”

“Yes, thank you Andrew, they're very heavy.”

Between us we carried the box into the kitchen. There must have been over thirty, very large squash in the box, that’s a lot of butternuts for a small restaurant.

Alan puffed a little, “Oh thanks Andrew, I’ll go to the car to get the rest of them.”

The rest of them? Bloody hell Alan. Did this bloke have a farm? We assumed that he had a plant in the back garden and him and Helen were sick of eating butternut squash curry so wanted to palm a couple off on us.

Two more boxes arrived, both with the same amount of squash in them.

That was over a hundred squash!

“Alan, we need to give you some money for these, there’s loads.”

“No Andrew, it’s fine, honestly. It’s the first time I’ve grown them and I didn't realise how many I would end up with.”

Donna grabbed a couple of bottles of wine and gave them to Helen, “Please Helen, take some wine.”

They took the wine, thanked us, then off they went.

Me, Donna and Lozza, just stared at the three boxes.

Lozza looked at us, “What are we going to do with all these?”

I had the answer, “Briggy can take them home.”

And when Briggy arrived to work, she couldn't believe it, “There’s more there than in the supermarket.”

“You can have them all Briggy.”

“Oh no, I’ll take a couple though.”

“No no, take them all, and give some to Jamie Oliver.”

If you like reading this and fancy buying us a three quid coffee, then that purple button will let you do that. If not, no worries.

And we all took a couple of butternut squash home. Tricky Vicki made some butternut squash and orange soup, she brought some in for us to taste. It was errrr, OK. A bit like drinking warm Fanta. If you're reading this Tricky, don't deny it.

Lozza took some home for her parents and Blackhead took some home for her parents.

“Bud, do you want a couple of butternut squash to take home?”

“No.”

We had to use them, we couldn't just let them sit around staring at us. But, we couldn't do anything like stuffing them with rice and sultanas, or plonking them in a Balti, that would have been a bit too vegetarian.

But Donna came up with a suggestion.

“Could you use them as the vegetables in the side dish?”

You see, on an evening every main course came with a choice of either spuds and veg or salad. They were served in little ceramic dishes, seems a bit cringy now, but it was a while back I suppose.

So that’s what we did, we peeled and cut them into small wedges, then roasted them in a little olive oil and a salt sprinkle. People loved them, and because they were fairly new to the public, having them as a side vegetable instead of a main course actually seemed a bit fancy.

Actually, butternut squash were so new, some people thought that they were carrots.

So we worked our way through the squash, luckily they had a good shelf life.

A few days later Helen and Alan were in the restaurant, they were chuffed to see their butternuts being used and obviously lunch was on us.

Now, luckily for us, Alan had been growing something else, Chinese artichokes, or crosnes, and joy of joys he had brought a little bag of them in to show us.

We had never seen them before, they looked like little tubers, about half the size of your little finger. They were a mucky white colour and they were gnarled and twisted, Lozza thought they looked liked maggots.

There they are, Chinese artichokes. Found this excellent image on a site called Green Suburb. Some of Alan’s were smaller than these, and a lot muddier.

“Oh they’re funny looking Alan, what do they taste of?” I was intrigued.

“They’re quite nutty Andrew, you can eat them raw or cooked.”

And then the question came, “Would you like some Andrew, we can drop them off on Friday if you want?”

I didn't want them, what were we going to do with them, we still had a battleship full of squash to use, these little maggotty things would be rotten by the time the squash had gone.

But Donna was looking at me as if to say, “Be polite,” so we agreed to take the gift of Chinese artichokes.

“How many is there Alan?”, hoping he’d say a couple of handfuls which Briggy could take home.

“Oh, I don’t know until I’ve dug them up.”

But on Friday we found out how many there were. Helen and Alan brought in boxes stacked to the top with these little weird things. There must have been fifteen kilos, that’s over thirty pounds, of these little gnarled stumpy vegetables. And they were covered in soil, damp sticky soil.

“There we go, and look how fresh they are, still covered in soil.”

“Yea, thanks Alan, you’re great.”

We gave Helen and Alan some wine again and and off they went, happy that they’d done a good deed.

Meanwhile we had thousands of little squatty things to get rid of.

Lozza had a question, “Where are we going to put them all?”

“On top of the butternut squash.”

Now I know someone is reading this and thinking that we should have been pleased with all this free food. Obviously we were, but this was a lot. And a restaurant doesn't work like that, imagine if a neighbour gave you fifty courgettes because they had a glut. After you’ve made courgette fritters, courgette and lemon cake, courgette and almond salad, courgette curry and of course, that full flavoured courgette soup, then what do you do with the forty four courgettes which are left? Similar thing.

But we gave them a go, we tried to use them as a side vegetable like we did with the squash. But it was difficult, they were very dirty so they needed a lot of washing.

This drove us round the bend, it was taking ages, they were gnarled and twisted so we had to scrub the soil from the creases and crevices. We calculated that each little crosne took ten to fifteen seconds to clean, if we had a good one, and because they were so small, we needed about ten to twelve per portion. That could be three minutes just to wash a portion of vegetables. Then the cooking, cooling and storing.

So half an hour just to wash ten portions, just washing them, nothing else.

And the weird thing, diners were more interested in the butternut squash, nobody cared about the Chinese artichokes.

“Hey Bud, take these home, that’s an order.?

“Yea, alright boss.”

So there we go, if you're ever thinking of opening a little local restaurant, don’t accept gifts from strangers.

And if you have a glut of courgettes this summer and have an idea that the local restaurant would like them. Don't be upset if they hit you with one of them, you were warned.

They’ll appreciate the gesture, as we did, but sometimes it’s just too much.

Righto, next week there's a new kid on the block and we grow some stuff.

Thanks for reading, Donna and Andrew.

*Butternut squash are not real, they're a hybrid. You see, round squash don’t have a lot of flesh inside of them, but the long necks have lots of flesh in the neck, but because long necks are all twisty, they didn’t transport well.

So a bloke called Charles Legett crossed two squashes together and over time came up with the Butternut Squash.

It had lots of flesh plus they stacked in the transport crates easier. And the name, well when they were first eaten they were declared ‘smooth as butter, sweet as a nut’.