Eggplant Parmesan My Mother Would Love

Nothing's better on a crisp, blustery fall day than something cheesy, melty and creamy. Grilled cheese sandwiches with a steaming bowl of cream of tomato soup. A multi-layered lasagne infused with sauce, mushrooms and meat, its edges crusted with caramelized cheese. An eggplant parmesan, the meltingly tender purple-rimmed slices stacked in their casserole as carefully as a fieldstone wall, held together by roasted tomatoes and parmesan.

The definition of comfort food.

My go-to recipe for eggplant parmesan was one from "The Cooking of Italy," part of the Time-Life "Foods of the World" series that my mother had subscribed to when I was a child. It calls for salting the sliced eggplant to draw out moisture, then frying the slices in olive oil. It says to somehow limit the amount of oil, a task I've found impossible since the slices soak up oil like a shaggy dog in the rain. Plus it takes way too long to do, at least for this impatient cook.

That was when I started searching online and found a recipe by Food52's Nancy Jo that called for roasting the slices in the oven, which made much more sense since I could cook all of them at once. (Thanks, Nancy!)

Roasting, not frying? Brilliant!

The Time-Life recipe is extremely simple—other than its time-consuming eggplant prep—only calling for five ingredients: the eggplant, salt, flour, tomato sauce and cheese. I dispensed with the tomato sauce recipe it uses, since at the time it was published, cooks like my mother would have used little cans of not-very-flavorful industrial tomatoes that required some "doctoring" (another common phrase back in the day). I had my roasted Astiana tomatoes that require no zhooshing other than a few slices of garlic.

I had picked up some aged provolone to accompany the Parmegiano Reggiano and Pecorino Romano we always have on hand, so those were mixed and layered with the roasted slices and sauce. The result was a bubbling, rich, gooey, hearty casserole that I think my mom would have approved of.

Eggplant Parmesan

3 lbs. eggplant

6 oz. Parmigiano Reggiano, Pecorino Romano and/or aged Provolone, grated*

1 qt. roasted tomatoes

3 garlic cloves

Flour

Salt

Preheat oven to 450°.

Slice eggplants lengthwise into 1/4" slices. Salt both sides and place in single layer on paper towels to drain, at least 30 min. Pat dry and dredge in flour, knocking off extra flour that may be clinging to the slices. Line baking sheet(s) with parchment and lay the eggplant slices on the sheet in a single layer, lightly drizzling them with olive oil. Bake eggplant slices for 15 min., then flip slices over and bake another 15 min. Remove from oven and reduce oven heat to 400°.

While eggplant bakes, slice garlic cloves thinly. Heat olive oil in small skillet over medium heat. When the oil shimmers, add garlic slices and heat briefly, then add roasted tomatoes. When sauce just begins to boil, reduce heat and simmer.

Oil casserole or baking dish. Add a thin layer of tomato sauce in the bottom of the dish. Place a single layer of eggplant slices on it, then a thin scattering of grated cheese, then another layer of sauce. Repeat until all the eggplant is used, then top with a final layer of sauce and cheese.

Bake for 30 min. at 400° until bubbling.

* Can be a mix of any of these cheeses, though I used roughly half provolone, half Romano/Parmesan. Also (note to self) a smoked, aged provolone might be, as they say in Italian, perfetto!

Simple & Creamy: Mushroom chowder

In making the Choucroute Garnie featured in a recent post—it's an Alsation dish featuring sauerkraut braised for hours in chicken stock, with many meats added and then simmered some more—I apparently got a little over-excited estimating the number of potatoes that people might be hungry for. Then my husband and I got our wires crossed while grocery shopping and we ended up with an extra pound of cremini mushrooms.

To make a long story short, we had the aforementioned abundance of cooked potatoes and those mushrooms that were starting to look a little long in the tooth. Plus it coincided with our recent spate of late winter chilly temperatures hovering in the 20s and 30s. Always in the mood for a hearty soup—check out this 12-year collection of soup recipes if you don't believe me—I got the bright idea to make a mushroom chowder, albeit a vegetarian version since we're temporarily out of Dave's homemade bacon (a situation soon to be corrected).

To cut to the chase, this came together in about 40 minutes and was, frankly, the best mushroom soup I've had anywhere, including restaurants, that I can remember. (That opinion is backed up by those here who are not shy about criticism and not over-prone to praise, by the way.) And here's a wacky thought: If you should happen to leave out the potatoes, I'd even recommend it as a substitute if you've sworn off Campbell's cream of mushroom but still crave that comforting flavor.

Mushroom Chowder

4 Tbsp. butter
1 onion, chopped in 1/4" dice
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 c. celery, finely diced
1 lb. mushrooms, thinly sliced
6 oz. sour cream
3 Tbsp. flour
1/2 c. white wine
2 c. chicken stock
2-3 c. whole milk, depending on how thick you like your chowder
1/2 tsp. dried thyme
3 bay leaves
1 1/2 lb. potatoes chopped in 1/2" dice
Salt and pepper, to taste

In a large soup pot or Dutch oven, melt butter over medium heat.

Add onions and sauté until tender. Add celery and garlic and sauté until tender. Add mushrooms and sauté until tender.

Remove from heat and sprinkle flour over the mixture, stirring well to combine. Put back on medium heat and stir frequently to keep it from sticking, about 3 minutes. Add wine and stir, scraping any browned bits from the bottom of the pot, and allow to thicken slightly.

Stir in sour cream until smooth, then add chicken stock, milk, bay leaves, thyme and potatoes. Bring to a bare simmer. Reduce heat and simmer on low heat, just enough to keep it barely bubbling, for 30-45 minutes or until potatoes are tender. (As mentioned above, leftover boiled potatoes are entirely substitutable.)

If you have some excellent bacon (like Dave makes), start with 3-4 slices cut in 1/4" pieces. Place it in the heated pan before adding butter and sauté until it's cooked but not crisp, then continue with the rest of the recipe.

Chillin' in Summer: 15-Minute Ramen Salad

It looks like summer's heating up, which means the oven is getting a break and the stove is only turned on for a few minutes at a time, if at all. We'd just come back from a blessed few days off the grid camping on Mt. Hood and hadn't yet made a trip to the store, so I was rummaging through the leftovers from our cooler and peeking behind tubs in the fridge for something to make for dinner.

Fortunately our son, who was cat-sitting while we were gone, hadn't devoured all of the goodies I left in the fridge, so there was a box of fresh ramen noodles—my new favorites are Lola Milholland's Umi Organic—and a half jar of Choi's Kimchi. Adding a leftover Persian cucumber that still had plenty of crunch remaining, plus a delightful dressing using miso, again from a local producer, Jorinji Miso, and in about 20 minutes, dinner was in the bag. Or the bowl, as the case may be.

15-Minute Ramen Noodle Salad with Kimchi

For the dressing:
1/3 c. canola or peanut oil
2 Tbsp. rice vinegar
1 Tbsp. garlic
2 tsp. tamari
2 Tbsp. white miso
1 tsp. gochugaru (optional)
1 tsp. roasted sesame oil

For the salad:
12 oz. fresh ramen noodles (not dried)
1/2 c. kimchi, chopped
1 Persian cucumber (can substitute 1/2 c. chopped English cucumber)
1 Tbsp. chopped chives for garnish

Bring a pot of water to rolling boil.

While the water is heating, make the dressing by placing all ingredients in a blender and blend at high speed until well puréed.

When the water comes to a boil, gently pull apart ramen noodles while adding them to the water. Tease the strands apart with chopsticks while the water returns to a boil and reduce heat to simmer. Cook for two minutes, stirring occasionally to keep noodles from clumping. When they're done, drain them in a colander and rinse in cold water to stop them from cooking further.

Chop kimchi into bite-sized pieces. Quarter the cucumber and slice crosswise into 1/8” slices. Place noodles, kimchi, cucumber and dressing in serving bowl and combine. Garnish with chives.

(Cook) Book Report: Two Books That Define Eating Well

Two new cookbooks just came out that are perfectly timed to coincide with the peak of the harvest that is starting to flow in from local farms. Each is authored by veteran a cookbook writer known not only for the quality of her prose, but also the merciless testing of recipes, so you can depend on the accuracy of the descriptions and the measurements. (Why this type of rigor should be unusual in the cookbook biz puzzles me, but there you go…)

The first is the Portland Farmers Market Cookbook: 100 Seasonal Recipes and Stories that Celebrate Local Food and People by the inestimable Ellen Jackson, herself the author of several cookbooks (including co-authoring the Grand Central Baking Book) and a fine writer and chef in her own right. The book, released on the market's 25th anniversary, is as much a love letter to our region's producers and its bounty as it is a guide to cooking through the seasons.

As Jackson writes in her introduction, the book "represented an opportunity to capture both the agricultural glory of the Pacific Northwest and the pride of place we share as Portlanders. Nowhere is that ethos more evident than at our farmers' markets." Sing it, sister!

The book, arranged by season starting in the spring, is a terrific guide to seasonal cooking and eating for beginners and experienced cooks alike. Particularly useful to me is that the table of contents lists the season and then each recipe in that season by main ingredient, a helpful organization for those of us who hate flipping back and forth from the table of contents to the index in the back. From easy main dishes like curried chicken pilaf and deviled eggs to more complex flavors and textures like French-style scrambled eggs with morel-chive cream sauce or chestnut-tofu dumplings in matsutake mushroom sauce, there's something for every palate and occasion.

The second book is one I'm very excited to dive into, written by my friend and prolific author Marie Simmons. Titled Whole World Vegetarian, it is Simmons's paean to a life of international eating, from her mother's Italian-American table to the global table she explored in her early life in New York to the one that she now cultivates in her kitchen in Eugene.

"At the Saturday market in Oregon, where I now live, local goat and sheep farmers offer feta so perfectly creamy, with the right balance of sour and sweet, that it makes my knees weak," she writes, noting that our tables, not to mention our markets and stores, "are fed by globalization…fueled by mass immigration and our insatiable desire for travel."

Peanut vegetable stew…so good!

From Iranian Borani esfanaaj, a spinach and yogurt spread that is eaten out of hand with flatbread, to a shredded carrot and jicama salad that would be at home on a Mexican or South American table, to the deeply flavorful and delicious peanut vegetable stew, a dish emblematic of Ethiopian cuisine that includes a pungent blend of spices called berbere.

If you've been wanting to go beyond Meatless Monday and start including more fresh, seasonal vegetables in your meals every day, you can't miss with this book. And believe me, they're packed with so much flavor you won't miss the meat.

Read the review I wrote about Marie Simmons's book, Taste of Honey.

Chilling Out with Refreshing Chilled Soup

The last thing I wanted to do was turn on the stove when the temperature hit 90 degrees for the fourth day in a row. The house was already uncomfortably warm, and even with the AC unit in the upstairs window cranking on high and fans buzzing all over the house, the effort to create something like a wind chill effect felt more like a sirocco on the Sahara.

I could tell that crankiness was right around the corner, so taking inspiration from Mark Bittman's article on gazpacho in the NYT, I decided to turn that sweaty frown upside down with a chilled vegetable soup. Eschewing the idea of steaming or sautéing anything beforehand, I decided to try my luck with raw ingredients. A minimum of chopping, a bit of time in the blender and dinner was ready.

Very refreshing served with sliced heirloom tomatoes and a dry white wine, I was almost able to imagine myself dining poolside in the tropics.

Chilled Cucumber, Avocado and Fennel Soup

2 cucumbers, seeded

1 avocado, peeled and seed removed

1 fennel bulb, cored and quartered

1/4-1/2 onion, roughly chopped

1 clove garlic, roughly chopped

Juice of 1/2 lemon

1 c. water

1/2 c. sour cream or tofu sour cream

1, 1" slice day-old artisan bread, crusts removed and cut in 1/2” cubes

Salt to taste

Place half of the cucumbers, avocado, fennel bulb, onion, garlic, lemon water and sour cream in a blender. Blend until mixture is thoroughly puréed. Add half of bread cubes and continue to blend until it is a smooth mixture. Add salt to taste. Pour into large mixing bowl. (At this point you can taste and adjust amount of onion, etc., for the other half of the soup.) Repeat with second half of ingredients. Stir to combine. Can be refrigerated (or not) before serving.

In Season NW: Green Garlic

Like Hood strawberries, fiddleheads and spring onions, green garlic is only available for a short stint in late spring. You'll see these immature heads of garlic, usually with at least some of the stalk attached, in bunches or singly on farmers' market tables, and you should grab a few to take home to use in sautés or to toss with other spring things.

Trimming, step 1.

The other evening I felt like we needed a break from some recent meat-binging, so I clipped some parsley from the raised beds, pulled three or four of the first radishes from their loamy naps in the garden and stripped the feathery green tips from a bunch of carrots.

The immature cloves, right.

It took just a few minutes to trim up a head of the garlic and throw it and the greens (including the radish greens, of course) into the processor to make a quick pesto, then I sliced the radishes into matchsticks and tossed it all with pasta for a quick main course. Paired with a glass of rosé and a salad of garden lettuce dressed with balsamic and olive oil, it was a seasonal feast fit for a king.

A Greek Salad Fit for the Gods

Summer time is salad time, and this Greek-style salad is perfect for indoor or outdoor dining. I took this to a Greek-themed birthday potluck and it was a huge hit with the crowd. The only problem was that tomatoes are required to call it a Greek salad and local tomatoes won't be around for a couple of months. I did run across some early heirlooms at the store and used as few as I could get away with and still legitimately call it Greek.

This style is basically a chopped salad, so you can make it with just about any vegetables you want, like bell peppers, cauliflower, romanesco or whatever strikes your fancy. And I loved the pickle-y tartness from the artichoke hearts and pickled peppers that I got, along with the olives, from the olive bar at my local store. Also, most Greek salads are way too chunky for me, so I tore the lettuce into bite-sized pieces and chopped the vegetables into half-inch or so cubes. If you like it chunkier, though, feel free to do that!

Greek Style Summer Salad

For the dressing:
1 c. olive oil
Juice of 2 lemons
1 tsp. dried oregano or 2 Tbsp. fresh oregano leaves, chopped fine
1 Tbsp. Dijon-style mustard
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper

For the salad:
2 med. heads romaine lettuce, washed
2 c. artichoke hearts, chopped
1/2 c. Mama Lil's Mildly Spicy Peppers, chopped
1 c. kalamata olives, chopped
1 red onion, quartered and thinly sliced
2 English cucumbers, seeded and chopped in 1/2" cubes
4 ripe tomatoes, chopped in 1/2" cubes
1 c. feta cheese, crumbled

In a tub or bowl with a tight-fitting lid (I use a clean salsa container), combine all the ingredients for the dressing. Put the lid on and shake hard for 30 seconds. Allow to stand at room temperature while you combine the salad ingredients.

In a very large salad bowl, tear the romaine into bite-size pieces. Add the rest of the ingredients and the dressing and toss.

Scalloped Potatoes à la Patty

Funny how it is with cookbook authors whose work I know and admire—the pages of their books get well-thumbed and splotched, and over time they're like old friends. For instance, I've never met Patricia Wells, but her books on country French cooking have inspired me for years, and continue to do so. I've even toured her house in France a few times, if only in the pages of her books and travel magazines. That pretty much means I know her well enough to call her Patty, right?

In her book Patricia Wells at Home in Provence (one of those with pictures of her farmhouse in France), she shares a recipe for scalloped potatoes with artichokes that doesn't have the usual cream-based sauce, but instead relies on the juices and fat from a leg of lamb roasted atop them to baste the potatoes to perfection. I found another version of the same technique, attributed to Ms. Wells, in Sheila Lukins and Julee Rosso's The New Basics Cookbook, though that recipe substituted onions and tomatoes for the artichokes.

In my version, all I do is drizzle the sliced potatoes and vegetables with some wine and olive oil and it's just as rich and luscious as any creamed version. It makes a terrific side for dinner, with or without the meat roasted on top, and it pairs with chicken, pork, lamb, salmon or just about any other roasted meat you can imagine. Or not, since it's basically all vegetables, thus qualifying it as vegan!

I think Patty would approve, though, to tell the truth, she really seems like more of a "Patricia" sort to me.

Scalloped Potatoes with Leeks, Onions and Olives

1 clove garlic, halved
1 yellow onion, halved lengthwise, quartered and thinly sliced crosswise
3 leeks, white and light green parts only, halved lengthwise and cut in 1/2" slices
1 c. oil-cured olives, pitted and torn in half
4 medium-sized russet potatoes, halved lengthwise, thinly sliced, 4-6 c.
1 Tbsp. oregano
1 c. white wine
1/3 c. olive oil
Salt

Preheat oven to 350°.

Rub the inside of 9" by 12" baking dish with the cut sides of the garlic clove. Discard garlic. Add half the potatoes, spreading them evenly across the bottom of the dish. Add half the sliced onions, then half the leeks in even layers. Scatter half the olives and oregano over the top. Salt lightly. Repeat with the rest of the potatoes, onions, leeks, olives and oregano to make a second layer. Salt lightly. Drizzle the top with the wine and olive oil. Bake for 45 min. to 1 hour until top is browned and potatoes are tender. Serve.

A Good Woman Makes A Good Soup

Just before the holidays I was out at Ayers Creek Farm helping Carol and Anthony get ready for the big holiday market at Hillsdale. Well, I say "helping" but it's more like "trying to not seriously f*** things up" while packing boxes of preserves, weighing and measuring beans, polenta and wheat into little bags with a big scoop.

One of the great things about these days at the farm, aside from getting to wear my boots if outside work is required, is sitting down at the table for a big lunch of soup or stew, a hefty loaf of bread and a nice chunk of cheese. On this day, a bit before lunchtime, Carol asked me to pull a big pot out of the fridge that contained braised leeks and potatoes in a white-ish liquid.

While that warmed on the stove, Carol and I went just outside to the kitchen garden to gather a few leaves of sorrel that hadn't yet gone dormant. (Note to self: plant this next year!) It was chopped and thrown into the pot, a cup or so of sour cream was stirred in with some salt and we had a classic "Potage Bonne Femme," a potato leek soup rather like vichysoisse only with more leeks than potatoes.

Carol prefers to use water to cook her vegetables rather than chicken stock, feeling that the flavor of the leeks is more pronounced. In my attempts to recreate this at home, I used half chicken stock and half water and it didn't seem to overwhelm the leeks, and also added a little richness. I've made it with both real sour cream and (purists don't choke) Tofutti sour cream—Dave's lactose intolerant, remember—and both were amazing, even according to my very choosy son who's not crazy about substituting tofu products for the real thing.

It's a comforting, rich and company-worthy meal that is super simple to make in an hour or so. Add a crusty loaf of bread and some cheese with an ice-cold glass of French chardonnay alongside and you're going to get raves from your crew.

Potage Bonne Femme (Potato Leek Soup)

3 Tbsp. butter
4 leeks, halved and cut into 1/2" slices, about 4 c.
3 Tbsp. flour
2 c. water
2 c. chicken stock
4 med. Yukon gold potatoes, peeled and chopped into 1/2" or so cubes
2 tsp. salt
1 c. sour cream
1 c. coarsely chopped sorrel (optional)
3 Tbsp. chives, minced (optional)

Melt butter in soup pot or large Dutch oven over medium heat. Add chopped leeks and cook slowly for 5 min. Remove from heat, add flour and stir. Put back on heat and cook, stirring constantly and without browning for a minute. Add remaining water and stock, stirring well. Add potatoes and salt. Bring to boil and lower heat to simmer for 50 minutes. Add sour cream and chives and stir to heat. Adjust salt to taste. Serve, garnished with chopped chives.

Option: Purée with immersion blender before adding the sour cream or cool and purée in a food processor (or blender) in batches. For a vegetarian or vegan version, substitute margarine for the butter and use water or a vegetable stock and Tofutti sour cream. Really, it'll be fantastic.

Evolutionary Breakthrough

Today I'm announcing that there is concrete evidence proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that the creationists are wrong and Darwin had it right when he theorized that populations evolve over the course of generations through a process of natural selection. I saw it happen, not on some remote island or in a laboratory, but right there on my plate at dinner last night.

Asparagus and caramelized shallot crêpe with parsnip, rhubab compote and tangerine oil.

Chef Aaron Woo (at left in top photo), co-owner of Vita Café, the ever-so-crunchy natural foods restaurant on Alberta, had sterling creative credentials from places like San Francisco's Stars and Portland's ClarkLewis. But he was feeling constrained by the 70s-era mindset found in the vegetarian dining scene in Portland and longed for a challenge.

Tabetha Warren at the bar cart I'm planning to steal.

So he packed up and went to Greystone, the Culinary Institute of America's outpost in the Napa Valley, where he studied modern cuisine with Kyle Connaughton, chef at The Fat Duck in England and a devotee of modern as well as Japanese cuisine, and Aaron London, executive chef at Ubuntu, the Michelin-starred "vegetable" restaurant in Napa.

Rapini, corona beans and orecchiette with fennel, garlic, chiles and parmesan.

The inspiration and experience he gained inspired Woo to open Natural Selection, a warm and inviting place where he could experiment with the modern techniques he'd learned and apply them to rustic European dishes. Its 30 or so seats surround what's basically a large kitchen island that fronts the stove and grill, giving every seat in the house a view of Woo at work. A fabulous industrial cart that would be the envy of any steam-punk-obsessed nerd serves as a bar cart. (Note: don't be surprised if it disappears and rematerializes in my dining room.) It's ably manned by talented mixologist Tabetha Warren, who creates the restaurant's signature cocktails with the same eye for ingredients that Woo brings to his kitchen.

Moroccan spiced chickpea stew with almonds, harissa and couscous.

With a prix fixe menu of four courses for $35, there are two choices for each course, including at least one gluten-free or vegan (or both) dish per course. Woo and his staff bend over the counter arranging each exquisitely plated leaf and smear, each composition offering a thoughtful balance of flavor, texture and color.

Brioche bread pudding with dried pear, huckleberry sauce and vanilla cream.

The food is so good, as a matter of fact, that I hesitate to sully it with the baggage that goes along with the label "vegetarian," since even the most ardent carnivore isn't going to miss his ration of animal flesh after a meal here. And that's what I'd call a step forward in Portland's evolution.

Details: Natural Selection, 3033 NE Alberta St. 503-288-5883.

Don't Call It Vegan

There's something about the term "vegan" that really rubs people the wrong way. It has a certain holier-than-thou tone to it, as if all other foods, the ones most of us eat, have been declared unclean.

Even worse, the foods deemed worthy of consumption have a reputation for being dull and flavorless. Think tofu, brown rice or rutabagas. Then there are the foods that try to mimic cheese or bacon or turkey and fall pathetically short. Which makes the vegetarian diets of yore look positively lush by comparison.

But you don't have to take a lemons-into-lemonade, turn-that-frown-upside-down attitude to switch your thinking around to what you can have instead of what you can't. Think of the intense flavors we love: heat, spice, sweet. All perfectly fit a vegan diet. Then there are the fats: olive oil, sesame oil and nuts spring to mind. And the great flavors of legumes, fresh greens, squash, garlic, mushrooms. Makes you think, right?

So when I saw the following recipe in John Ash's book From the Earth to the Table,it looked like a tasty new pasta recipe using pesto, cauliflower, pasta and beans. Not some wacky vegan food-like substance. Try it sometime when you're craving a flavor-packed, hearty dinner. You'll be surprised when you don't feel like you've done without.

Pasta with Roasted Cauliflower and Parsley Pesto
Adapted from John Ash's From the Earth to the Table

For the pesto:
4 c. packed fresh parsley leaves
4-5 cloves garlic, fresh or roasted
2 Tbsp. pine nuts, fresh or toasted
Zest of 1 lemon, grated
1/2 c. olive oil
Salt to taste

For the pasta:
1 med. cauliflower
2 Tbsp. olive oil
1 lb. rigatoni, penne or other pasta
3/4 c. kalamata olives
1 c. cannellini, borlotti or other beans, cooked
Mint sprigs for garnish

Put parsley, garlic and pine nuts in bowl of food processor. While processing, drizzle in olive oil until smooth. Empty processor into medium-sized bowl and add rest of ingredients. Combine.

Preheat oven to 350°. Break cauliflower into 1" pieces and place in large mixing bowl. Drizzle with olive oil and stir to coat. Empty into 9" by 12" roasting pan and place in oven for 30-40 minutes until nicely browned.

While cauliflower is roasting, bring a large pot of salted water to boil. When cauliflower is almost done, put pasta on to cook until just al dente. Drain and put in large serving bowl, adding pesto, roasted cauliflower, olives and beans. Mix. Serve garnished with chopped mint leaves.

* You can also add 1/4 c. parmesan to the pesto, and served grated parmesan at the table for sprinkling.

My Talented Neighbor

Some people have a surfeit of talent. Leonardo da Vinci is the classic example. In the food realm, there are James Beard and Julia Child, to name just a couple. Among the culinarily über-talented is my neighbor, Ivy Manning. Writer, blogger, recipe developer, teacher, organizer, greyhound activist, author of several cookbooks…this gal's got it all. She's even pretty hot, as evidenced in the photo above.

The reason for this post, aside from pointing out that the photo of the fetching couple was taken in my kitchen? Well, you could get Ivy's new book, The Adaptable Feast: Satisfying Meals for the Vegetarians, Vegans, and Omnivores at Your Table(left), for yourself or as a gift for your favorite mixed-diet couple. (The photos were taken by her husband, Gregor, who's no slouch in the talent department, either.) For a preview, check out a recent article she wrote for Culinate.com titled Mixed Diet Dinners: A Pro Offers Suggestions for the Cook.

And really, don't they look sweet in that kitchen?