Zucchini Fries — The Vegetables That Were There When I Needed Them

The writing is happening. Not fast, not in torrents, but steadily — the way water wears a channel in rock, not through force but through persistence. I write every morning from eight to ten, and the pages are accumulating, and the pages are about food and family and the Jewish kitchen and the women who stand in it, and the pages are, I am beginning to realize, good. Not perfect — nothing is perfect in first draft, I taught my students this for forty-three years — but good. The sentences do what sentences should do: they carry weight. They hold something up. They are, as Janet Chen said, architecture.

Marvin wandered on Wednesday night — two a.m., out of bed, through the hallway, down the stairs, which are a hazard I have been managing with a baby gate but which he somehow opened. I found him in the kitchen, standing at the stove, trying to turn on a burner. My heart stopped. Not metaphorically — I felt it pause, a genuine cardiac skip, the kind that happens when you see your husband standing at a gas stove in the middle of the night with no awareness that fire is dangerous. I guided him away. I turned off the stove. I led him back to bed. I lay awake until dawn, listening to him breathe, thinking about the stove, thinking about the stairs, thinking about the locks and the gates and the whole elaborate infrastructure of safety that is becoming insufficient, that is being outpaced by the disease, that will eventually fail entirely. The stove incident. The stairway. The night wandering. David and I need to talk. The conversation is coming. The conversation I have been dreading for four years is coming, and the coming is inevitable, and I am not ready. I will never be ready. Readiness is not required. Action is required. Action is coming.

I made a frittata for breakfast — eggs, whatever vegetables were in the refrigerator, cheese. The frittata is comfort food for the morning after a bad night, the food that says: the night is over, the morning is here, the eggs are real, the kitchen is safe. I made the frittata. I ate the frittata. Marvin ate the frittata. The stove behaved. The morning was kind. One morning at a time.

The frittata I made that morning used whatever vegetables were in the refrigerator, and that morning the refrigerator held zucchini — two of them, slightly past their prime, the kind you use because they are there and because using them is an ordinary act in an extraordinary morning. I have since made zucchini a fixture of my mornings, not in the frittata itself but alongside it, baked until they are crisp and honest and warm: a thing that behaves, a thing that does not wander, a thing that holds its shape. The recipe below is as simple as I needed it to be.

Zucchini Fries

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 22 min | Total Time: 37 min | Servings: 4

Ingredients

• 2 medium zucchini (about 1 lb total), trimmed
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 large eggs
• 1 cup panko breadcrumbs
• 1/2 cup finely grated Parmesan cheese
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1/2 tsp dried oregano
• 1/2 tsp kosher salt, plus more for seasoning
• 1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
• Olive oil cooking spray

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven. Set your oven to 425°F. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper and place a wire rack on top if you have one; this allows air to circulate and keeps the fries crisp on all sides.
2. Cut the zucchini. Slice each zucchini in half lengthwise, then cut each half into sticks roughly 3 inches long and 1/2 inch wide — similar in shape to thick-cut french fries. Pat them dry thoroughly with paper towels; moisture is the enemy of crispness.
3. Set up your breading station. Place the flour in a shallow bowl. In a second bowl, beat the eggs with one tablespoon of water. In a third bowl, combine the panko, Parmesan, garlic powder, oregano, salt, and pepper, and stir to mix evenly.
4. Bread each stick. Working one piece at a time, dredge a zucchini stick in the flour and shake off the excess. Dip it in the egg wash, letting any extra drip off. Roll it firmly in the panko mixture, pressing gently so the coating adheres on all sides. Place on the prepared rack or baking sheet.
5. Spray and bake. Once all the zucchini sticks are breaded, give them a generous spray of olive oil cooking spray — this is what turns the coating golden rather than pale. Bake for 20 to 22 minutes, flipping once halfway through, until the coating is deep golden and the zucchini is tender when pierced with a fork.
6. Season and serve. Remove from the oven and season immediately with a pinch of additional salt if desired. Serve hot, alongside eggs or as a morning side, with marinara or plain yogurt for dipping if you like.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 185 | Protein: 9g | Fat: 6g | Carbs: 24g | Fiber: 2g | Sodium: 390mg