The Ghanouj Family

Our CSA is ripe with eggplants. In my life I have rarely purchased the beautiful purple suckers much less made them a part of our weekly menu. Mostly we've been adding a little olive oil, salt and pepper and grilling them with other veggies. Last week I put together a wonderful eggplant parmesan without using a recipe(!) and holy cow that is a labor intensive dish. Along with making eggplant more often now, we also talk about them regularly. I've told a few people I'm thinking of making baba ghanouj (pronounced ganoosh) and apparently my girl does have big ears. Today at lunch, pretty much out of the blue, she starts talking about mama ghanouj and baby ghanouj and baba ghanouj and Buttons ghanouj. This makes even more sense if you know that although she has started calling Hubby "daddy", for her first year and a half he was known as "baba", the Chinese word for daddy. So we have become Baba Ghanouj, Mama Ghanouj and Buttons Ghanouj, the Ghanouj family.