In the outskirts of Franklin take coffee and squash (7)
I believe the answer is:
flatten
'squash' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'in the outskirts of franklin take coffee' is the wordplay.
'in the' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'outskirts of' means to remove the middle letters.
'take coffee' becomes 'latte' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should believe this answer much more).
'franklin' with its middle removed is 'fn'.
'fn' enclosing 'latte' is 'FLATTEN'.
'and' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for flatten that I've seen before include "Even" , "Stop" , "Make smooth or level" , "Knock to the ground" , "Bulldoze" .)