I couldn’t ignore the colors of the fruits and vegetables piled high in boxes and baskets at the open-air market in Ortigia. I shopped as if I were in an art supply store choosing tubes of paint.

I bought a deep violet eggplant,

a sweet pepper that was sap green on one side and cadmium orange on the other, white cippolini onions with forest green leaves, a bunch of celery with chartreuse leaves attached to leaf-green stems,

blue-black olives cured in oil, a scoop of grey-green salt cured capers, six Windsor yellow lemons and two kilos of blood oranges.

I created an ad hoc still life as I unpacked the market bags and thought about what I would cook. The caponata I had eaten in Taormina earlier in the week came to mind. Considered a Sicilian classic, caponata, like pasta, couscous, oranges and lemons, was brought by the Arabs when they conquered Sicily in 827 AD. The Arabs, then called Saracens, also introduced sophisticated methods of irrigation that made vegetable farming possible. Making caponata, a salad of cooked vegetables with a sweet and sour sauce, is an opportunity to combine colorful vegetables and Mediterranean history. Here’s how I did it:

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Help! I have found that it is easier for me to paint eggplant than to cook it.

After a trip to Sicily, I tried to make the classic Sicilian dish, Pasta alla Norma. I made an acceptable version of this simple combination of pasta, tomato sauce, eggplant and cheese, but I was not happy with the eggplant.  It was oily and the skin was tough.

I need help. I would love to hear how you cook eggplant so that it is creamy and  not too oily. What do you do about the skin? Do you salt it or soak it in salty water? What’s your favorite variety. Please leave a comment or a question and if you want to know my ‘recipe for painting eggplants’.

I’m confident that you have wisdom to share.

Ciao!