I prefer dark green zucchini to pale green that has a less pronounced taste. Nothing matches the taste of freshly picked zucchini. Their refreshing taste, with almond and green flavors, is quite different from the tasteless and sometimes bitter zucchini sold in the supermarkets during the winter season. It’s one of my favorite vegetables in my garden, and every summer, I eagerly await the first zucchinis to bake a zucchini pie.

I cook small zucchini 6 inches (15 cm) at most, sautéed in olive oil and seasoned with garlic, salt and pepper at the end of cooking. The medium sized are used for the pie, the zucchini salad of my friend and cookbook author Michelle Gélinas if from her cookbook Tout Simplement. Large ( not more than 10 inches) zucchini “forgotten” in the kitchen garden are delicious in zucchini bread and soups. Sometimes disproportionate, I cut them in half and remove the seeds before cooking.