Squashes, from the familiar acorn and butternut to weird and wonderful shapes in beautiful silvery greens, are valiant kitchen standbys. Nutritious, they can turn into a soup that tastes rich without help from creams and butter, or make an elegant stuffing for ravioli or sauce for pasta.

Graham Bartlett is executive chef of Zengo, where you can find almost everything from ceviche to sushi. He caught the “food bug” while traveling with his parents in Mexico. But Paris, not the States nor Latin America was where he went to learn the culinary arts.