I’m sitting on my front porch, watching the parade of suburban humanity on its walk to a nearby park, where my tiny town will stage its annual fireworks display. Towns here are bunched up next to each other. Last night, on Independence Day proper, more than half a dozen towns or cities close by set off cacophonous displays well into the night that pissed off pets up and down the Northeast Corridor. My cats huddled on top of me, hoping for reassurance and fishy treats. Tonight, the big booms won’t go on for seeming eternity, but they’ll be closer. You bet your ass I have my hand on the bag of fishy treats.

So let’s talk about vegetables.

This year, the unnamed university furloughed its workers for one day per week for ten weeks. My union settled on an agreement last so I had time to plan for this hit to my wallet. In the spring, I bought into a CSA with my favorite organic farmers. In practice, this means I march over to the farmers market on Fridays, where the farmer hands me a bag of vegetables, I spin on my heel and march homeward. This arrangement paid for itself five weeks into the season when I wasn’t making a weekly pilgrimage to the credit union to drain my checking account to pick up cash. Hooray! Related: holy smokes, my fridge is full of vegetables. How am I going to get Pete to eat them?

Pete, a chef, regards most vegetables on his plate as personal insults. What are they doing there, taking up valuable space where spaghetti could be? No one knows! You may think I am exaggerating, but no. As I laid this fresh haul on the counter last Friday, I could see immediately Pete would never touch summer squash, kale would be a struggle and cucumbers would require some careful planning. I love summer squash. I sauteed it with butter and sliced onions and froze it for winter, when these flavors will remind me of hot sun and bare feet. I peeled and sliced the cucumbers with some onions and quick pickled them with sugar, gentle spices and apple cider vinegar. After 24 hours, they were ready to taste. Another cucumber from last week’s CSA became creamy tzatziki sauce. This afternoon, I piled pickled onion slices on a lengua taco and was insufferably pleased with my handiwork. Tomorrow, I will trim the kale and simmer it gently for a long time with some salt pork, as I would collards. If that sits on a plate next to a delicious protein, Pete will eat that and feel virtuous describing it to his doctor.

Last night, I made a stir fry with leftover chicken and Canton noodles that included the broccoli, which I steamed before frying. I would eat Canton noodles off a hair brush, but Pete is more circumspect. Parsnips from our garden, celery, garlic, garlic scapes and fennel from the organic farmer, onion and pepper from a neighbor’s garden came together nicely enough with soy sauce, ponzu and toasted sesame oil. Though broccoli is not usually a problem at dinnertime, I do feel like I got away with something, and I do not regret it.

Every summer, I buy a mess o’ beets from this same organic farmer. I roast beets with olive oil and salt, drop them into jars with brine and process the jars in boiling water. It’s messy, sweaty, sticky work that pays off all winter long. My whole family, including my beet-resistant stepdad Tom, will eat the beets I jar. Pete eats them regularly, so I was looking for a fresh take on fresh beets. In the Joy of Cooking, I found a recipe for roast beets with apples, but I had pears, courtesy of a neighbor. I thought the combination as a warm salad sounded promising. And it was. I guess. Will I make that again? [Insert mumbling here,] by which I mean probably not, no.

The last thing on the table is an onion. It looks nervous, doesn’t it? We were in a bar once and Some Guy asked Pete, “As a chef, what one ingredient could you never be without?” Immediately and with conviction, Pete said, “Onions.” My guess is this onion knows it has entered the lair of its enemy.

Ah! The fireworks have started. I’m ready with fishy treats.