Eggplant and Pasta

I had one too many eggplants in my refrigerator last week and after making melitzanosalata (eggplant spread) with the more traditional small purple eggplants my neighbor gave me straight from his yard, I decided to use the two white eggplants I’d bought from a farm stand to make this pasta dish. I used it here layered between pasta and tomato sauce. It was easy, quick (would have been quicker had I had a batch of the tomato sauce on hand) and made for great leftovers. The white eggplant was a pleasant surprise: a much less bitter type of eggplant than its dark

An Apple a Day …

Apple season is in full swing here in New York, the second largest apple producing state in America. My husband and I took the kids apple picking Upstate a couple of weeks ago and they had a ball. Our “Fall” outing was trumped by 85-degree-plus weather but we had some great photo ops among the pumpkins, the kids enjoyed a pony ride and my husband had the pleasure of picking 25 pounds of apples. We were able to gather what is my favorite of all apples, the McIntosh. The McIntosh is the most widely produced apple in New York State. Personally, I love its sweet yet

Phylla from Kalymnos

My family comes from a relatively small island in Greece’s Dodecanese known as Kalymnos. It’s a fairly dry island with rugged cliffs famous for rock-climbing. And those cliffs are latent with thyme which makes for a distinctly sweet aroma across the entire island—at least that’s how I see it. The thyme also makes for amazing honey, which I love and smuggle (shhh …) back to the States every chance I get (but that’ll be the topic of a later post). Personally, I think Kalymnos is the most beautiful island I have ever been to (Biased? Me? You think?!).