Last night I was at a new restaurant in my area that has a very veggie-friendly menu, which I'm cool with--I wish more restaurants served tasty veggie things so you could dine out but feel quasi-healthy (one of my favorite dishes at an Italian restaurant near me is lentils with goat cheese and sauteed spinach. Yum).

But this restaurant last night was offering an acorn squash entree special, and when I was told this, I thought, "Ick. Really?"

Let's face the truth. Squash doesn't taste good. You may tell yourself that it tastes good, because you've been coached into thinking it is, but if you were given the choice between squash and a delicious juicy crisp sweet apple, or squash and a buttery ear of grilled corn, or squash and a handful of grapes, you would never choose the squash.

Squash is so squashy. It tastes like cafeteria food, hospitals, old people. It's sad and flat and weird. It's gross.

Don't tell me that you really, truly like squash because I frankly don't believe you. I think you think you like squash, because it's fall and almost Thanksgiving and that's what you're supposed to like. Martha Stewart tells you you like squash and you think "I guess I do." But you don't. But you still buy it and cook it and display it because it somehow feels wrong, wasteful, unfestive not to.

So let's stop wasting our time with squash. There are so many other plants out there that are also edible that we don't eat because life is too short. Let's eat more things that taste good, like potato gratin or tomato bisque.

I need to stop writing now because the word "squash" is starting to look weird and lose all its meaning. Which is basically what squash already is: weird-looking and meaningless.

Squash the squash.