Butternut

A butternut squash has been sitting on the counter for at least a week now.    It's not mine, but gosh darnit, I'm going to do something with it.  And it's going to be good.  And I am going to fall in love with it.  So is the owner of the squash.

Thinking about this post, I realized that if a word begins with butter, I am automatically in love with it.  Butternut, butterbeer, butterbean, butterscotch, buttercups, butterflies, buttermilk, butter pecan . . . see what I mean?  These are words to fall in love with.

I'm not saying I am a fan of buttermilk, but I like the word.  I suppose there was a time when I loved the word butterball, but that was before I became a vegetarian and before people started posting stuff about the abuse of turkeys committed by a certain poultry company.  I don't think I've ever had a hot buttered rum, but damn, that sounds good, doesn't it?  Harry Potter and his friends ordered butterbeers when they went into town, and that sounded good to me.  (I could never figure out if there was actually beer in the butterbeers, though.  I'm guessing no.)

Buttercups were one of the first flowers I could name, so they have a special place in my heart.  Also, I have a pretty strong memory of going to my father's hunting camp and finding packages of butterscotch in the kitchen, which my sister and I would suck on for hours.

And who doesn't love butterflies?  What they have to do with butter, I have no idea.

My next-door neighbor, Sheila, is a hunter.  A serious hunter.  She has killed a bear.  But she gave me the best vegetarian recipe for butternut squash.  It's pretty simple:  butternut squash, garlic, Parmesan cheese, Panko bread crumbs, butter, salt and pepper, parsley.  Here it is, ready for the oven:

So that's what I made for dinner tonight.  Along with some gourmet aromatic whole grain brown rice.  And some roasted tomatoes, the last from the garden.

Buttery love.