While I was at my local market, I spotted them, in a produce box, plunked down in the middle of the aisle. But it’s November, hardly the time for squash blossoms, and beautiful ones at that. They were perfect, large and delicate flowers, unblemished, each firmly affixed to a burgeoning, little zucchini. Every person at the market simply walked past the blossoms, glancing at the contents of the box, then moving right along to the string beans beside them. Now I like string beans as much as the next guy, but when posed with the alternative of a more rare, fresh looking bit of produce, I’m going to go for the rarity.

I guess the general lack of clamoring proved to be a good thing for me. I wasn’t really up for an out and out battle over produce at the market. But I would have gone to fist and cuffs if need be– anything to prepare a new vegetable. I knew what I would do with these precious flowers when I got them home, fry them up and eat them straight from the pan, unadorned save for a dusting of Parmesan cheese.

I had prepared squash blossoms before, just not in the classic, artery-clogging way. I had just moved back to Berkeley, and I think that I let the spirit of Alice Waters enter a bit too much into my brand of cooking. I loosely followed her recipe for stuffing the blossoms with fresh ricotta cheese and herbs, steaming the stuffed blossoms in a basket steamer, and them simmering them gently in a clear chicken broth. I imagined a vegetal dumpling of sorts, what I got instead was a watery mess. It’s not that this recipe didn’t work, the cheese remained neatly enclosed in the orange blossoms, it’s just that the end-result was rather blah, and far too labor intensive.

So you can imagine my glee when here the venerable blossoms were again. Now I could try them once more– new state, new recipe. I dipped the blossoms in egg, then in a mixture of flour and finely ground cornmeal, seasoned well with coarse salt and pepper. Then came the frying in a shallow pool of olive oil, and moments later, my fried goodies were ready. A quick dusting of Parmesan cheese, and before I knew it, the blossoms were gobbled down faster than you can say, “Long live Alice Waters, but I prefer my blossoms fried!”