dinner with mr. eggplant

last week i was at star and saw an eggplant with a nose! perhaps this is old hat to you, dear readers, but for me it was a totally new experience. i thought briefly about buying it, but refrained. a couple days later i was back at star (i seem to go there a lot), and i saw another one! this time i decided i needed to purchase it, and let me tell you, it was three dollars well spent. and it was so noteworthy that i decided it was photo-worthy as well, hence the photo to the left.

mr. eggplant languished in my fridge for a few days as i ate my way through restaurant week and a lot of bread and cheese, including my first encounter with taleggio. (p.s. currently the cheapest butter in the city is at whole foods, for $3.49/lb.) oddly enough, the taleggio reminded me a lot of the caviar i had at both alinea and french laundry - where by "reminded me a lot" i mean it tasted exactly like the caviar. specifically, the caviar with the cauliflower panna cotta. isn't that weird? i feel like i was violating some sacred cheese trust, where i was supposed to taste x flavor in the cheese but didn't.

back to mr. eggplant. i wrapped him in a paper towel and stuck him in his plastic bag so he wouldn't get moldy before i wanted to use him ("eat him" sounds rather...violent). out of options today for dinner (cheese but no bread), i plucked mr. eggplant from the fridge with every intention of cooking him. and so it went: the demise of mr. eggplant.

having peeled mr. eggplant, i cut him up into thin strips. i also diced a bunch of plum tomatoes and a large clove of garlic. cooking was basic stuff: saute the garlic in olive oil, add the tomatoes, then the eggplant, then let it stew for a long time. i added chicken broth as a liquid to help the eggplant break down, which it did over the next hour. it took so long to cook down that i ended up eating hunks of brie drizzled with honey in the interim. when it was finally done, i just added it to castellane pasta and enjoyed a nice, leisurely dinner while watching the game.