2003-07-18 - 9:09 a.m.
Looks like I'm gonna be on the radio!
Not sure when, but I'm gonna be on "The Splendid Table".
(Yeah, par for the course. Food-obsessed liberal middle class geek calls into a NPR show and actually manages to talk to the host. What else did you expect?)
Not as simple as that, but you get the idea. About a month ago, I was grilling some eggplant for my vegetable caviar and listening to "The Splendid Table". For those not familiar with the show, it's an hour devoted to one of my favorite vices/pleasures. Half an hour of expository pieces on restaurants, odd foods and dishes, unusual beverages, that sort of thing, and half an hour of call-in questions. The site's at splendidtable.org, if you want all the gory details. Aside from the theme, I like the show because the host will be the first to admit she doesn't know something.
Anyway, just on a whim, I called in so see what advice she might be able to give me on grilling eggplant. Most recipes call for pricking the eggplant all over and then sticking it a slow oven until it collapses into mush. Every time I've tried that, I get this nasty, bitter, inedible yecch (that's the technical term for it; just ask Leo Rosten). You can get rid of the bitterness by peeling the eggplant and coating it in salt, but then you lose the flavor from the peel. It's a tradeoff, in other words. I called the number, left a message with my question and contact numbers, and forgot about it.
Tuesday, a staffer from the show called me at work and asked me to be available at 11 AM on Thursday to talk to the host. Sure thing, I said, and yesterday I actually got to ask my question. The response: some people just have bad eggplant karma, and I should try the sweeter Japanese eggplants instead of the globe ones. I told her about my vegetable caviar recipe, and she just about went nuts over it. "Oh, I'd never heard of that! Grilled onions, tomatoes and peppers, chopped up with the eggplant? I know what I'm doing this weekend!" Gave me a bit of an ego boost; this woman has some 20 years experience as a chef, cookbook author, and instructor, and she'd never heard of this particular combination. But if you listen to the show and hear somebody asking about roasting eggplants, that's me.
It was just the thing to turn around a day of otherwise major suckitude. I didn't set my alarm, so I woke up 45 minutes late. No time for a proper breakfast, let alone coffee. Found that the ginger cat had yarked a hairball on my briefcase as a token of her affection. Walked out without my keys. After 11 AM, things turned around. Got on the radio. Found new books by Kinky Friedman and Ursula K. Le Guin at the library. Had a good time with my daughter. (Rude girl in effect, y'all!)
Life is good.
