Mr. Hawthorne Fixes Dinner.

Mr. Hawthorne came home from the produce stand the other day with this:

It's a chayote squash. And we've never had one before.

First, Mr. Hawthorne peeled the skin off.

He then sliced the squash into pieces and put them in salted water. He simmered, poking every now and then, testing for tenderness. I had a bite of the raw chayote and it had the texture and slight taste of a pear/apple. It would be quite good raw in a salad.

After cooking the squash, he just added a bit of butter to this and it was delicious. It was a totally unique flavor. Mr. Hawthorne described it as "tasting green."

We have a bunch of crab cakes in the freezer. We bait our crab pots and throw them into the canal and Mr. Hawthorne, as always, gets the "shit detail," i.e., he picks the crabs. Then he patties the crab meat out with his other ingredients and individually freezes each cake. That was our Thursday night dinner. Chayote and crab cake with a Remoulade sauce.

Very simple.

And very good.