My Neighbor Gave Me a Bag of These—Nobody Could Tell Me What They Were, Until I Finally Asked

When my neighbor knocked on my door, she was carrying a large paper bag.

“Here,” she said with a smile. “We have too many.”

I thanked her and accepted it.

Then I looked inside.

I had absolutely no idea what I was looking at.

The bag was filled with strange green vegetables I’d never seen before. They were knobby, slightly curved, and covered with little bumps.

“Thank you!” I said, trying not to sound confused.

She smiled.

“Just cook them!”

Then she walked away.

I stood in my kitchen staring into the bag.

My first thought was that they looked like something from an alien garden.

I picked one up.

It was firm, cool, and heavier than I expected.

I searched my memory for anything similar.

Nothing.

I considered calling my neighbor immediately, but I felt silly admitting that I didn’t know what she’d given me.

So I put the bag on the counter.

And there it stayed.

For three days.

Finally, I decided enough was enough.

I walked next door and knocked.

My neighbor opened the door.

“Everything okay?”

I held up one of the vegetables.

“I have a confession.”

She laughed.

“You don’t know what these are.”

“No.”

She laughed even harder.

“They’re chayote!”

Apparently, she’d grown them in her backyard.

She explained that chayote is a type of squash commonly used in many Latin American and Asian cuisines.

“You can cook them several ways,” she told me. “They’re very easy.”

She showed me how she prepared them.

First, she washed them thoroughly.

Then she cut them in half and removed the central seed.

She sliced the flesh into thin pieces.

She heated a pan with a little olive oil, added garlic and onion, and tossed in the slices.

A little salt.

A little pepper.

Then she covered the pan and let everything soften.

Within minutes, the kitchen smelled incredible.

I tasted a piece.

It was mild, crisp, and slightly sweet.

“That’s it?”

She nodded.

“That’s it.”

I couldn’t believe I’d spent three days staring at them.

That evening, I cooked the rest.

I roasted some with olive oil and herbs.

I added others to soup.

I even chopped a few into a stir-fry.

They worked beautifully.

But the best part wasn’t discovering a new vegetable.

It was realizing how easily embarrassment had stopped me from learning something simple.

The next morning, I knocked on my neighbor’s door with a container of the roasted chayote.

She smiled when she saw it.

“You liked them?”

“I did.”

She laughed.

“I knew you would.”

And that’s when I realized the bag wasn’t really just a bag of vegetables.

It was an invitation.

An invitation to ask questions.

To share food.

To learn something unfamiliar.

And maybe to become a little less afraid of saying: