You know, there has been a butternut squash siting in my fruit dish for a week now. It’s to the left of the toaster. I have said it before. For the state I’m in, I may as well be wearing a robe, a hairnet, and smoking a cigarette.
I’m not.
But when the butternut squash starts talking to me, I ignore it.
“Forget it.”
or
“For your information, I have given up butternut squash.”
or
“Could you please not look at me like that? Stop looking at me.”
or
“What. What is it with you. Butternut squash.”

I never asked for this connection to food. I would rather stick to press on nails. With the press ons, the worst that can happen is red can freak a person out when they forget they have on press on nails because they think that their nails have spontaneously started to bleed.
Food wants you to love it and taste it and smell it and get all involved on a level not meant for someone who at the moment prefers to cement up.

It was only a little bit bigger than the size of my hand and thin skinned enough to peel with a peeler. I diced up a new red onion and sauteed it with a sprig of rosemary, a sprig of thyme, a pepperoncino and a halved clove of garlic. I gave it some of that damn sea salt from Brittany which made the whole thing taste like Autumn and tears. I peeled and chopped a red potato and added it to the onion, sauteing until it stuck to the pan. The squash went in, in cubes with a mist of freshly grated nutmeg. I barely covered the mess of it with water and set the lid on askew.

On the side: ground turkey sauteed with shallot, garlic, hand crushed fennel seed, and red pepper flakes tossed with pasta, sauteed spinach and garlic and grated cheese.