Dinner, Conference Call Style

17 July 2007

Eight hours of conference calls today. Literally. And a bunch of vegetables from the farmer’s market threatening to go south. Solution, work at home and pray for changes in schedule. Today’s cooking adventure for me: an improvised gratin.

• two medium eggplants
• eight medium tomatoes
• four onions (two yellow, two purple), peeled and sliced
• bleu cheese (roughly 4 ounces)
• 1/2 cup panko breadcrumbs

1. Decide to stay home. Begin east-coast calls with team members one hour early since you saved time on your commute. Then go up to kitchen and gather vegetables into a neat little mise en place. Go back to home office, dial in for next call.
2. Slice eggplants into thick cuts. Lay on baking sheets and sprinkle lightly with kosher salt to draw out some of the bitter. Let sit. Go back to home office, dial in for next call.
3. Slice tomatoes in half and gently squeeze seeds and as much liquid as possible out of each. Cut into slices, lay on baking sheet, and sprinkle lightly with kosher salt to draw out additional moisture. Go back to home office, dial in for next call.
4. Call ended an hour earlier than anticipated, yay! Up to kitchen, saute onions with some olive oil until the onions have caramelized–in this 10-minute timespan, also have a cup of coffee and a makeshift lunch of a half of a bagel and some peanut butter. Take pan off heat and cover. Go back to home office, dial in for next call.
5. Come back to kitchen find that condensation from the covering of the pan has naturally de-glazed the bottom of the pan. Yay! Gather whatever spices make sense (today, herbes de provence). Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray rectangular casserole pan with non-stick coating. Using paper towels, brush salt and excess moisture from each eggplant slice and layer slightly in pan. Repeat with a layer of tomatoes. Do same with half of the caramelized onions. Sprinkle with spices. Repeat layers. Wash pans.
6. Go back to home office. Check email. Return phone calls, prep for next two meetings.
7. Client was a no-show. Go upstairs and gently press down the vegetables in the pan.
8. Go back to home office, dial in for next call. Finish up in an hour. Go upstairs and gently press down the vegetables in the pan again. Pick up dry-cleaning (20 minutes) for business trip. Check on gratin. Almost all liquid gone, yay! Crumble bleu cheese, mix with breadcrumbs, spread out evenly over vegetables.
9. Open a bottle of beer. Pull out two homemade hamburger patties and five crab cakes from the freezer. Go back to your beer. When cheese is brown, take gratin out. Go back to your beer. Dammit, empty! Start the grill, check email one more time.

Where’s my beer? Oh, yah …