High School English and Eggplant

I adored my junior and senior English teacher so much so that we still keep in touch. She even came to Ben's baby shower. A petite barrel of energy she made books come alive and introduced me to authors that I still treasure. We didn't only read the classics but she also helped us explore newer authors. The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver was one of the books in which I fell in love. I developed a Kingsolver connection and have since read everything with her name on it. In 2007 she wrote Animal, Vegetable, Miracle a witty exploration of Kingsolver's family as they moved from Arizona to Virginia with the goal to eat locally for one year.

When I read the book four years ago I turned into a "locavore." We were living in Hamburg, NY at the time and it was easy. I spent hours in the grocery store staring at labels to find out where different foods were made. In New York it was easy to do. We bought nearly all of our food from local sources. What we couldn't get locally I bought organic. We were so committed in our efforts that Andrew's grandmother worried he was going to get scurvy because I wouldn't "let" him eat oranges or bananas in the winter because there wasn't a local source. (In the winter we ate a lot of New York apples). When we moved to Morgantown it was harder to eat locally because of our location. Now that we are back we are enjoying the farmer's market, local produce stands and a small market that makes its own sausage.

Today, when it came to finding a recipe for dinner, I looked on the book's website and found a recipe for Eggplant Papoutzakia.

The simple recipe involved sauteing eggplant and topping it with sauteed onions, garlic, and tomatoes before melting mozzarella cheese on top in the oven. I added Italian sausage and we enjoyed our meal with a side of pasta and some red sauce with the leftover sausage.

While we enjoyed our delicious dinner, Ben enjoyed his role as the cutest baby ever.