While Paul, Debra, and Sam are glamming it up on the continent, we’re keeping it real here down on the farm. A few fat eggplants challenged us to make some baba ganoush. Could we get any where near the smoky deliciousness of Fatoosh on Hicks Street in Brooklyn? We were willing to humiliate ourselves trying so………….I’m usually a Jamie Oliver throw-it-all-together-and-see-what-happens kind of guy but Baba ganoush mystified me. I knew it was a roasted eggplant dip with garlic and lemon but that was it. So, I turned to the New Book of Middle Eastern Food by Claudia Roden. This book has inspired me many times. She had a great recipe for baba ganoush which I’ll get to later. We through the eggplant on the grille. While we had the grill going, I put some garlic in to roast and, why not?, some edamame to see what would happen. Toss it with salt and pepper and roast it (rather than steam it) OMFG – so delicious. It took on some of the smoke of the eggplant and was magnificent. I bet they don’t do THAT in Ittly……….

Raw Wolfe Spring Farm soy bean pods (edamame) in our fantastic dumptique grille pan

Eggplant and edamame

WSF Eggplant and WSF garlic

Beautiful, grill-roasted edamame. Toss with sel-gris and devour. I did.

cuz close-up, naturally-lit food photos look classy

Grille-roasted Wolfe Spring Farm garlic. (Platter available at Bergdorf Goodman, NYC – shout out to David (“hubs” in Reganischqke) ) So useful……always have some around.