When my wife Therese said she was going to make me an eggplant dish reminiscent of eggplant parmigiana, but it was going to be lighter, without frying all the eggplant in olive oil, I said, “that sounds like a great idea.” When she told me the recipe she was using was by Mario Batali, I said, “oh, I definitely want to try that!” And long story short, it was great. But let’s go back here for a minute.
I have been a big fan of Mr. Batali as celebrity/former “On the Road Again” guy/Iron Chef for years already. He has that great radio voice. With his sense of style – the orange sneakers and whatnot – he is the Bud Collins of food television. Ok, I realize you have to be a fan of professional tennis television to get that reference, but suffice it to say he’s an iconoclast, a food personality sui generis. As for “On the Road Again,” well, without him in the mix, I’m sure I would not have enjoyed that show as much as I did – I’m not a Gwyneth Paltrow fan, and at the time I didn’t know who Mark Bittman was, and I still don’t know who the fourth person was (ok, from the Internet I discover she was Claudia Bassols, but, as they say, I wouldn’t know her if she stood up in my soup). Then there was Chef Mario, who I didn’t know at the time either, but after about 10 minutes of watching the program, I felt like I knew him. He was easy to get, smart and friendly and funny.
Then I started watching Iron Chef America and there he was again, a nice counterpoint to Morimoto’s incomprehensible genius and Bobby Flay’s brooding top-dog brilliance. On his Iron Chef appearances, Batali would always be the one verbally jousting with the competitor as he was cooking, having fun, making a mess and someone creating something elegant and unbelievable by the end of the episode. It is rare to spot one of his Iron Chef appearances on tv nowadays, since he didn’t get picked by challengers much and it has been a number of years since he hung up his ICA apron, but when they come on, I try to catch them, because they are fun.
The next way that Chef Mario came into my consciousness was through Eataly, his warehouse-sized indoor market of everything Italian in the Chelsea area of Manhattan. Therese and I have been there a few times. I don’t usually like crazy crowded intense places – I avoid department stores at Christmastime whenever I can – but I will put up with Eataly just because it’s so much fun. OK, it’s a little pricey, but now and then we have to go there, even if it’s just to buy some good prosciutto.
So as I said, Therese came to me with this eggplant recipe. And it became clear that for all the episodes of all the shows I have watched with Chef Batali, for all the entertainment I have derived from listening to that wonderful voice of his, I’ve never eaten his food! So this was a first for me. And this recipe was great for a couple of reasons. One, because it was from Mario Batali. Two, because I love eggplant parmigiana but I usually can’t eat it because it has dairy, but with this we could substitute soy cheese. Three, because this sounded like the kind of light recipe we are seeking out nowadays, as we follow the trend away from the rich heavy food I have always associated with the word “gourmet.”
And it was light, and it worked great with my soy cheese, and I loved it. So now I can say I’ve eaten Mario Batali’s food. Sort of. Yes, I should really go to the source and make a reservation at Babbo or one of his other restaurants. But until I do, I can feel good that I have had the pleasure of tasting one of his creations.
