When I am planning a meal in the USA, I would break out my cookbooks and plan the menu, and then shop. In Italy, I do just the opposite.
The market is the heart of the city. It lets you know what is in season locally.
Shop first and plan the menu after- your dinner will be more delicious.
I remember once in San Francisco, as a young cook, planning a dinner party menu around salmon as the main course. When I got to the fish shop, there was no salmon! I never made that mistake again.
Moving to Italy also taught me to shop locally and buy seasonally. It is a problem not being able to have an ingredient year-round, but the reward is the flavor. When you eat something in season, you really don’t need to add a lot of other ingredients or you risk covering up the flavors.
My mother-in-law’s mantra:
“Spend more time shopping and less time cooking.”
I have built up relationships with the vendors and depend on their advice for what is best that day and often pick up new recipes as well.
This month, summer produce is bursting at the markets. Tomatoes, eggplant and zucchini. I find the ingredient that inspires me, then search for a recipe.
This week, eggplant caught my eye. Part of planning is also your personal culinary repertoire. I have so many food memories from my travels, not just Italian recipes.
I am inspired by the shapes as well as the color. I will always make baba ganoush , as well as a Chinese recipe for “strange flavor eggplant. Some of my favorite Italian eggplant recipes come from Sicily and Puglia.
When I was shopping, I found a dark black eggplant that wasn’t too “fat”. I remembered a recipe from Jacque Pepin, for a tempura fried eggplant. It was beautiful and simple, but it required frying. Too hot for that right now.
With this heat wave, baking was my choice. I can prep the recipe and pop in the oven, leaving the kitchen.
I remembered a simple, sauce-less, baked recipe from the south.
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