This is called “Pattie’s Eggplant” as all the ingredients come from Plant Grow Eat, a small but very important farm in St. Lucia owned and run by Pete and Pattie Dillon. In addition to supplying many restaurants and hotels, Pattie sells their produce from a lovely little stall every Tuesday and Friday afternoon for us local people with domestic kitchens. We never know what’s going to be “on the table” as the vagaries of organic farming mean that a bit of it is in the hands of God.
Just as an aside, as I’m sure many of you experience, life in a small community means that relationships with people in your life are multi-faceted and various. I’m thinking now of the fact that Pete is an organic farmer but he is also one of my Triathlon training buddies. Pattie may be his wife, but I also see her at the gym and yoga (during the times when I think I really must try again to be more grown up in my fitness regimen). You would think the smaller the community the simpler. My experience is exactly the opposite. Life in London is far simpler than life in St. Lucia. Go figure. I guess its more “real” in that our interactions are necessarily more connected and often.
So, I come home with my bag of goodies from Pattie’s table and I simply feel a connection between all the ingredients. There’s the lovely eggplant and rocket what does generic neurontin look like (arugula) which are staples from Pattie and banana peppers which I had never tried before and “cranberry” tomatoes which give the sweetest little pop in your mouth. I promise all I added was 2 cloves of garlic, a splash of olive oil and some salt and pepper. The flavour combination was outstanding.
Remember all of these vegetables and fruits are organic and reared with love. None of them gives off a stinky smell or taste associated with chemicals. They’re harder to grow because you can’t just fling any of the “cides” at them to kill pests or fungus or all manner of irritations that like to attack juicy, healthy plants.
The message from this post is once again to allow your own creativity to flourish. If something feels right with something else, allow it, even if there isn’t a recipe for it. I have deliberately not given quantities so that you can freely create.
All I did was heat some olive oil in my large frying pan and seared first the eggplant, then added all the other ingredients except the rocket and tossed until they were al dente. The leaves were thrown in after I had turned off the heat and tossed gently just to wilt.
We ate Pattie’s eggplant as an accompaniment to grilled fish with steamed sweet potatoes “poor jdab” which in kweyol means poor devil, standing a close second.
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