Get yourself two acorn squashes.

Go on. Do it. What? I don’t mean later. I mean now. Christ, you people. Don’t question the Wendig.

Okay, you have your acorn squashes. Well-done. You’ve just saved yourself from the coming pogrom. Warm your oven. Go to 400F. Now cut those bastards in half. A serrated knife can be good, but I just cleave them in twain with a French knife as if I were bisecting the skulls of my foes. Gut ‘em. Eviscerate. Scoop out the seeds and leave them on your wife’s pillow while she sleeps, and tell her when she awakens that she clearly sneezed her brains out while she slept.

Fill a roasting pan with a half-inch of water.

Put the acorn halves — squishy bisected brain-side down — into the water.

Enter them into the belching maw of your oven.

Leave them be for 40 minutes.

While they’re doing their thing, it’s time to make That Which Will Stuff Thine Squashes. You need something awesome to cram in there. You need something squashworthy.

This is what you do.

Soften some chopped onions and a little sliced garlic — I used two small onions and two cloves.

Take ‘em back out of the pan.

Now, brown up three-quarters of a pound of sausage. One pound is too much. Half-pound ain’t enough. Go figure. And when I say “brown up,” don’t think I mean some fetish where you poop into the squash. Do not poop into the squash. That’s fucked up that you’d even think that. You should really reevaluate things in light of this recent transgression.

Oh, and use whatever kind of sausage makes you happy. I used unseasoned ground uncased sausage. If you have it encased in a tube, un-tube it. Free it from its intestinal shackles.

Anyway, when that’s all brown, or getting close to it, you’re gonna put a whole bunch of stuff up in that pan, bam:

• Two small carrots, shredded.
• One apple, shredded.
• One small gnarly celeriac (celery root), shredded.
• 1/2 tsp sage (I used dried, fresh is potentially better).
• Dash of salt.
• Grind of some kind of peppercorn.
• Pinch of cayenne pepper.
• Sprinkling of thyme.

By this point, you’re probably rescuing the screaming squashes from the oven. That’s cool. Do that. Their howls of misery will please you. Do not, however, turn off the oven. Just lower it to 350F.

Now, it’s time to stuff ‘em. Mmm. Nnnngh. Yeah. Make it happen. Stuff them hard, just the way Daddy likes –

Uhhh.

Yes. Yeah. Right. Moving on.

Now, spoon that stuff into the squash. Mound it up a little bit, but not too much.

Get yourself 1 TB of butter, and 1 TB of genuine maple syrup, and melt them together in the microwave for 15-30 seconds. Stir ‘em up, yum.

Paint the tops of the stuffed squash with this oozing butter-syrup-deliciousness. Just a light painting. With whatever you have handy — paintbrush, basting brush, your fingers, tongue, your dog’s tail, your scrotum, your dog’s scrotum, I don’t care.

Now, cheese.

I used Colby Longhorn. Note that I didn’t say Colby Jack. What are you, a savage? A pedestrian savage? Stop it. Don’t even think it. Don’t make me put your name back on the pogrom list. The Longhorn is mild, and a little sweet, but it still has that nutty dairy edge I want in the end product.

How much cheese? Fuck if I know. Just grate it until it covers the top of your freshly-painted squash halves. Like snow-capped mountains of dairy delight.

Back into the oven for 15-20 minutes.

That’s it. Eat it. And give thanks not to God, but to me, for providing your mouth with a cheek-bulging tonguegasm. Squee. Mmmph.

Next recipe will be my spaghetti sauce. With fennel. Yeah, suck it. I said “fennel.”