Eggplants and Salmon

Ever since our vacation to San Diego, where I stumbled upon Julie Powell's book "Julie and Julia," acquired one of Julia Child's cookbooks at a used bookstore in La Jolla, and experienced 2 weeks worth of fine dining, I've been getting in touch with my culinary tastes. I used to think of baking as the ultimate thing to do if I want to cook, but the trouble with that is that we don't actually eat that many baked goods, so my baked bread would often sit there and grow old. Since I don't like to waste food, it becomes difficult to refine a baking process when the end result won't be consumed.

Now that we've moved, and grocery shopping is much easier, and my attitude has changed a little bit, I've come to realize that two foods that I really like, and also can cook fairly frequently because they are normal meal foods, and not desserts, are salmon and eggplant. So learning how to cook these two foods well will be my tentative culinary goal for the time being. Right now I have some mashed up chinese eggplant baking in the toaster oven under parmesan and manchego cheese. We'll see.