Little did Chris Fennimore know when he planted three bush zucchini plants in a community garden way back in 1993 that the lowly squash would propel him to culinary stardom.
Yet as anyone who’s ever grown it can attest, zucchini can quickly take over.
The director of programming for WQED Pittsburgh, Mr. Fennimore ended up being so overrun by the fruits of his labor that summer that, on a whim, he talked the station’s then-director of continuity, Nancy Polinsky, into asking viewers for their favorite zucchini recipes. They were more than happy to oblige.
Dozens of letters poured in, and Mr. Fennimore quickly realized he was onto something. But it wasn’t just the list of ingredients and directions that inspired him.
“We got so many stories about how they celebrated special occasions, and who brought this dish, and why they had to have it,” he recalls. “It was all the things that characterize our family and ethnic traditions in every way.”
He decided to do a zucchini show to raise money for the station, and offer the recipes in cookbook format to those who called in as a thank-you.
"Zucchini Cheese Cake and Other Ways to Prepare Summer’s Most Abundant Vegetable" debuted in August 1993. It was so successful that "C Is for Cookie” aired the following December. In the 25 years since, some 120 “ABC Cooking Marathons,” as they’ve come to be known, have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the public broadcasting station. And ’QED’s “cooking guy” and his “QED Cooks” show became popular parts of the city’s culinary scene.
To celebrate its 25th birthday, the WQED kitchen on Saturday will do a live show from 10 a.m. to noon. It will feature some of the show’s most popular dishes, including the winner of an online contest between six favorites that runs through Aug. 3. Viewers will also enjoy clips and montages from past episodes.
Mr. Fennimore said he and his co-hosts have received tens of thousands of recipes from viewers over the years, and cooked with more than 700 different people — and not just with professional chefs such as Lidia Bastianich, Bill Fuller of Big Burrito and Uncle Charlie of Uncle Charlie’s Sausage. Viewers, too, have joined him on the set -— along with his son, Joe — to share their recipes and traditions. Each show has generated its own cookbook, though they’re professionally printed now (for the inaugural zucchini show, he typed, photocopied and stapled together the recipe pages on his own to mail to viewers).
The show continues to work, Mr. Fennimore says, because it’s not just about the food.
“It’s really about the sharing,” he says, adding, “Who would’ve guessed it would catch on and become a thing unto itself?”
Zucchini Cheesecake
WQED’s Rick Sebak came up with the name for this recipe, which isn’t really a cheesecake but a cheesy casserole. It works with all different sizes of zucchini.
1 pound chopped beef or pork
1 large onion, chopped
1/2 teaspoon fennel seed
Salt and pepper
4 tablespoons butter
1 loaf Italian bread, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
4 large zucchini, trimmed and sliced
1 cup shredded mozzarella
1/2 cup grated Romano cheese
Saute chopped meat and onion in large pan over medium heat until meat is browned and onion is tender. Season with fennel, salt and pepper.
Butter bottom and sides of a 9-by-13-inch deep casserole. Cover bottom with bread cubes and put down a layer of zucchini slices. Pour meat and onion mixture on top and sprinkle with mozzarella and 1/2 of the Romano cheese. Top with another layer of zucchini and bread cubes. Dot top with butter and sprinkle with remaining Romano.
Cover with aluminum foil and bake in 350-degree oven for 40 minutes. Remove foil and bake another 20 minutes, until casserole is bubbly and top is nicely browned.
— Chris Fennimore
First Published: August 1, 2018, 3:46 p.m.
