First, summer squash, and now

Winter squash. Actually, I hate that name for the family of hard skinned squashes, because they are available as early as late summer, and of course, all through winter. Those big, beautiful, wonderfully clumsy vegetables like acorn squash, pumpkins of every type (and we'll talk more about pumpkins later), butternut squash, kabocha, blue hubbard, ALL of them. They all taste similar, but they all taste different. To me, the tastes are similar enough that I stick with only two when I cook: butternut squash, and pumpkin. And for the most part, I stick to butternut squash because it's easier to work with than pumpkin. Acorn squash is beautiful with the way it forms those wonderful, daisy like slices, but it's very hard to cut or to peel, and it's somewhat watery. Kabocha and blue hubbard are so big that it's hard to get a handle on them. Pumpkin is somewhat watery, but has its place.

I have no patience for spaghetti squash. This is "famous" because, when you cook it and scoop it out, the flesh comes away in strips that resemble thin strips of spaghetti. But it's watery, and needs a LOT of help to taste good. The only way I've ever found myself liking it, is by combining it with eggs, lots of spices and making pancakes out of it. Very good, but a LOT of work. So let me stick with butternut squash for now.

They have a beautiful color: that cross between yellow and orange and brown, and that wonderful bowling pin shape. And now, I'm going to destroy a myth: the best butternut squash are NOT shaped like bowling pins. We all love those thin necks, tapering in a big, wide bottom. What that means for you, as a consumer,however, is that you are getting a squash that is not as meaty as it could be. Those big wide bottom parts mean more seeds. Unless you're enamored of cleaning them , baking them, and sprinkling them with salt, these do you no good. On the other hand, if you buy one that is "boring" and sort of straight, up and down, you're getting more squash for your money.

Similarly, the smaller squashes are easier to work with. As these squash get larger, the skin gets thicker, and tougher. I have broken vegetable peelers on big butternut squash. When they are smaller and younger, you can almost eat the peel. I have, and don't care for it. But a swivel headed peeler will dispatch the skin from a few of them in very little time, leaving you with a peeled sqaush, which you now have to cut in half with a BIG knife (be careful), preferably lengthwise, and then scoop up all the "guts" of seeds and other gunk (I would explain what that stuff is but it's really gross. Trust me, you don't want to know).

So, you have all of this squash around, so what do you do? Well, there are many possibilities. And as a tribute to my friend John D, I'm going to talk about soup today.

Butternut squash soup. Now, does that say late fall, or what? You go out and do something autumnal, like rake leaves, or play touch football for an hour or so, or go antiquing, or whatever it takes to get you out in the air. You've got red cheeks, you feel invigorated, and until you walked into the apartment or house, you didn't realize HOW FREAKIN COLD YOU WERE. And there's a big bowl of butternut squash soup ready for you. Life is good.

If the soup is made well. And it's easy to make well. It's even easier to make an ok one. We're going to make a good one.

First, let's dispense of something that has no place in butternut squash soup: dairy. It's good, but if you add dairy to this soup, it will dilute what is a mild flavor to begin with. And having said that, I believe you will see that you also don't want to add things that are strong flavored and mask the flavor of the squash. No, you want simpler things, and simpler garnishes. I'll give you some ideas, after I tell you how I make my soup.

Years ago, I got a hint from someone. I used to roast my squash to get more flavor out of it before I made the soup. It took forever, and it always tasted too sweet for me. The roasting brought out the sugars in the soup, and no matter how I tried, I could have sworn there was brown sugar in it. Then, a friend of mine showed me how she made hers. She did the classic technique of boiling the squash, but before she did it, she made a broth, reinforced with those seeds and other yuckies, including the peel. She would wash the vegetable, peel it, clean it out and then dump everything into a quart or quart and a half of chicken stock, and simmer it all for about fifteen minutes. Then she drained it. I remember that there was a lovely, pinkish orange color to the stock, and it smelled of squash. So she had taken the garbage, and added more flavor to the soup with it. Brilliant. So that's what I do.

So you have your stock ready, now let's make the soup. Chop the squash into cubes, without getting too obsessive about it, and when you have about eight cups, you're fine. Now, let's get to work. You will also need an onion, chopped, and for me, a good handful of chopped celery and celery leaves. I find that there is a synergy between the squash and celery, but if you object to the flavor, leave it out. I sautee these in a few tablespoons of vegetable oil, with about a teaspoon and a half of saltand when they soften and the onion goes translucent, I add my squash and stir it through the oil . Then I add all the stock, bring this to a boil, and then down to a simmer. I check every fifteen minutes or so, until the squash is so soft that it's beginning to fall apart. I let it cool, before I put it through a food mill or the blender, to get one of those classic vegetable puree soups.

That is butternut squash soup at its purest. Which I almost never make. What I will do is add a chopped apple, or a chopped bosc pear when I sautee the squash, and then proceed with that. I don't add too much, because I want SOME flavor, but not an overwhelming sweetness. Sometimes, but not always, I add a big tablespoon of curry powder - a mild variety - when I'm cooking the onions. And you know what else goes well with this? Caraway seeds. Yup. You'd be surprised, but they work remarkably well with the soup.

So those are variations at the start, what about at the end? This is yet another of those soups that do wonderfully with some kind of smoked meat garnish. If you feel like cooking a few slices of bacon and crumbling it over a bowl of the stuff, you have my imprimatur. Same thing with slices of some garlicky sausage or chorizo. If you want to put the apples in at the end, for a sweeter soup, sautee a few slices in butter. This is one of the few places where I find golden delicious apples acceptable, so do that. If you're feeling really adventurous, whirl a teaspoon or so of balsamic vinegar through each bowl of it. It's really good.

Now, if I know my friend John D the way I think I do, he's gonna take notes on each variation, and he's gonna try each one. His friends are gonna start coming up with excuses not to come to dinner, because they know there's gonna be butternut squash soup. Their loss. John, you call me and I'll be there. For each and every bowl.