Food Fetish: Eggplant

Beauty and mystery are everywhere you look. Sometimes all it takes is a subtle shift in perspective to turn the mundane into the sublime.

The humble eggplant is filled with such mystery. The shade of a moonless midnight sky, with smooth shiny skin and earthy flavour. It's plumpness and name symbolic of fertility. When mixed with staple ingredients such as garlic, seasalt or miso, truly amazing things can happen.

Naturopathic Doctor Carmen Tanaka loves beautiful things. She also has a knack for uncovering the type of beauty that lays in wait for a worthy observer. For this shoot her refined aesthetic, along with her photographer husband Yoshinori Tanaka 's sharp eye, guided the way.

Carmen is newly graduated from The Boucher Institute of Naturopathic Medicine, and is about to have a baby. What better way to celebrate the New Year than to celebrate new beginnings? And life is definitely unfolding in beautiful ways for Dr.Tanaka right now.

Vibrant Fare is honoured to have the opportunity to capture this spectacular moment, and her fabulous glow.



VF: Training in Naturopathic Medicine must give you a very wide range of knowledge. What modalities do you plan on focusing on?

CT: I am of the mind that there is no separation between the emotional, the mental and the physical. You cannot treat one without the other. My practice will revolve around uncovering the mental and emotional causes of illness: an area often over looked in medicine.

When you're helping someone to heal, you have to start by looking at the basics: is the patient getting enough sleep/water/clean food? Simply correcting deficiencies in these areas will cure a large amount of ailments.

When these basic conditions for health are met and illness still persists, it's time to dig deeper. Lifestyle and emotional counseling are good tools for uncovering non-physical imbalances, and so will play a large part in my practice. I also find a combination of acupuncture, herbs, and homeopathy to be highly effective for rectifying those imbalances.

VF: You became pregnant in the last months of your schooling at Boucher, and are expecting any day now. That must have changed the course of your life immensely.

CT: Yes and no. It might be cliche to say this, but you are never fully prepared for the immensity of creating a life. But priorities naturally shift when you become pregnant, and everything suddenly becomes feasible.

While in school, I was in a very yang mentality: studying, working in the clinic, transforming into a doctor and career woman. Since becoming pregnant and graduating from school, I've settled into a yin state: calm, contemplative, inward facing. The timing turned out to be perfect as I can let all that I have learned at school settle within me, and I have the luxury of a chunk of time to envision the future I desire.

This personal experience will also translate beautifully into my professional life. Pregnant women are notoriously complex to treat. Most adult treatments are inappropriate for the growing fetus. Going through the experience of pregnancy myself will make the prospect of treating pregnant women less daunting.

VF: You are obviously very passionate about the Art of Medicine. What else gets you going?

CT: Food. Every aspect of it. From picking out the perfect ingredients, to preparing them, and especially the act of sitting down to share plates of food.

VF: Why did you choose eggplant?

CT: Having never had it as a child, eggplant seems very exotic to me, which I find appealing. I also love the colour and texture. For me it is a comfort food: soft and grounding, and such a great conduit for an array of spices. I love them in thai green curry, and my husband makes a delicious Japanese miso-eggplant dish that I adore, by itself or on a bowlful of Haiga rice.


Thai Green Curry featuring Eggplant and Bamboo Shoots

1 japanese eggplant, cut into thin half moons
1 fresh bamboo shoot, sliced into chunks
1 red pepper, sliced thin
1/2 cup peas
1 shallot
1/2 red onion diced
3 cloves fresh garlic, chopped fine
1 1/2 cups veggie stock
1 can coconut milk
2 kaffir lime leaves
1 inch lemon grass stalk
1 T Thai Green Curry Paste
1 t grapeseed oil
1 pinch seasalt
1 inch fresh ginger, grated

In a saucepan heat oil and onions and shallots, with a pinch of salt.
Saute until translucent and add garlic, veggie stock, coconut milk, kaffir lime leaves, lemongrass.

In a small bowl, dissolve curry paste in hot water.
Add curry paste to pot and heat. Add eggplant and bamboo shoot, and simmer on med-low for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Make sure eggplant has lost all of it's toughness and feels mushy. Stew longer if necessary.
Add red pepper and peas in the last few minutes of cooking.

Serve on short grain brown rice or brown jasmine rice, and garnish with fresh grated ginger.








Japanese Miso Eggplant



6 tablespoons shiro miso (white fermented soybean paste)
3 tablespoons rice vinegar (not seasoned)
1 1/2 tablespoons water
3 3/4 teaspoons honey
1 tablespoon finely grated peeled fresh ginger
2 tablespoons vegetable oil plus additional for brushing pan
6 Asian eggplants(about 8 inches), halved lengthwise
2 scallions, finely chopped

Preheat broiler.

Whisk together shiro miso, vinegar, water, honey, and ginger until honey is dissolved.

Brush a large shallow baking pan with oil and arrange eggplant, cut sides up, in pan. Brush tops with 2 tablespoons oil (total). Broil eggplant 4 to 6 inches from heat until it begins to turn pale golden and soften, 4 to 5 minutes. Brush generously with miso mixture and broil 2 minutes more. Brush eggplant with miso again and rotate pan 180 degrees (do not turn eggplant over), then continue to broil until eggplant is tender and glaze is golden brown, 2 to 3 minutes. Serve sprinkled with scallions.


Photography: Yoshinori Tanaka

Special thanks to 'Nugget'

Celebrating Japan's Vegetarian Traditions

I loathe owning lots of stuff. Especially heavy stuff.

I love feeling as though I could pack up my essentials in a few bags and be on my way, anywhere, at the drop of a hat. Because of this, I always give books away. I only keep those which are precious to me.

Despite this penchant for material minimalism, I have a collection of cookbooks that I would carry across a desert in heels.

My latest prize is Elizabeth Andoh's Kansha .

Elizabeth Andoh, owner and operator of Taste of Culture was one of my esteemed teachers of traditional Japanese cuisine while I studied in Tokyo. From her kitchen, with a view of iconic Fuji-san, Elizabeth demonstrates the preparation of sumptuous Japanese fare and extoles the beauty of seasonality. For those unable to have the pleasure of joining Elizabeth in her kitchen, she also offers an online culinary classroom .

I'll admit that I enjoyed my torrid affair with
Pescetarianism while I lived in Japan.

Upon my return to Canada, however, I immediately ran back to the comforting arms of pure Vegetarianism.

At first I worried that I would miss out on all the wonders that Japanese cuisine has to offer. With it's liberal use of dashi and obvious plethora of fish and seafood entrees, what's a Veggie girl to eat at her favourite Izakaya? I embarked on a journey to discover what was still available to me, and to approximately recreate what was not.

Admittedly, having lived in Japan for 40 years, Elizabeth is much more adept at the task than I've been. Which is why I was overjoyed to hear that she published Kansha, where she lovingly displays the wealth of animal-free ingredients and recipes that do in fact thrive within the well-established walls of Japanese culinary tradition.

Kansha and the knowledge Elizabeth imparts is truly a gift to Chefs, Aesthetes, and Veggie people everywhere.

Hanami Picnic Trio

When asked what my favourite Japanese dish is, I am hard pressed to find an answer. Apart from the fact that there were far to many culinary delights to chose from while I was there, my answer transcends particular dishes or ingredients. It is the way Japanese food is prepared.

The attention not just to flavour but to quality, season, presentation, and eating environment is unparalleled. Whether it's gold flecked sushi tucked in a black lacquered box in Tokyo's glitzy Ginza district, or fragrant pine mushrooms in a delicate broth prepared garden-side on Mt.Takao, the elements that come together transcend the ingredients themselves and create a delicious moment in time.

Food can truly be lifted to the realm of art.

I like to take the liberty of playing with the ingredients by introducing foreign ingredients to traditional Japanese fare. For my Hanami picnic, I chose a variety of Chinese veggies to star in my mini feast. The headliner being Gai Lan.

For my rice and seasonings however, I employ decidedly familiar players in Japanese cooking: sesame oil, tamari, sesame paste, rice wine vinegar.

An obligatory cameo by the ubiquitous Daikon keeps Japanese dishes decidedly authentic. In this post Daikon will be transformed into graceful little tsukemono (pickle).



I can't quite imagine making white rice for any meal anymore. Why lose out on all that naturally occurring vitamin E, B6, and Magnesium? Money saved on supplements can be used to procure a high quality organic rice.

Genmai is a beautiful variety of short grain brown with a fluffy texture that works well in sushi and bento boxes alike.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I'll now share a lovely little trio of some of my favourite Japanese treats which graced my picnic blanket last Hanami season.

The first is a classic dish with a Chinese twist: Goma-ae made with gai lan instead of spinach. I used the leafy bits only. (The stalks should be saved, as they are delicious when stir-fried and smothered in shiro miso sauce.)













2 T white raw sesame seeds
1 T sesame oil
3 T tahini
1 T almond butter
1 t rice vinegar
sweetener (honey or agave) to taste
sea salt to taste

Cut gai lan into bit sized pieces. Blanch the gai lan and allow to cool. Toss in all ingredients.

Gai lan has a more bitter flavour than spinach. You might be put off at first, but you are making your insides very happy. Dark leafy greens are potent liver cleansers, as well as being chock-full of calcium and antioxidants.

Aligning one's tastes with those of her organs is a worthy pursuit.

Goma-ae is traditionally a sweet dish, so the honey should take the edge off the gai lan. Adding a touch of almond butter is a decadent yet healthy touch which imparts a bit of natural sweetness as well.



Probably due to my sweet tooth, and also because they are vegetarian, I've always had a soft spot for inari. Their simplicity is deceptive. They are what I imagine a zen monk would make if asked to interpret a taco.

I love the idea of filling the inari (sweetened tofu pockets) with things other than white rice. However I also like to keep the aesthetic as visually simple as possible.

Non-traditional fillings I like to play with include genmai (brown rice), red thai varieties, purpley-black 'forbidden' rice (seen in the photo to the right), and ruby red quinoa.

I played with the size of my inari. Wanting to make them mini, bite sized, and kawaii, I used tofu 'puffs' (available from Sunrise) cut in half and seasoned as pockets for my fillings.

A Japanese woodland elf would be in heaven.



My picnic would have been incomplete without home made Tsukemono : japanese style pickles. They are an essential part of a meal, adding a burst of flavour and colour to one's rice bowl.



I selected daikon and mini shape cutters to form sakura blossoms. I soaked the them in apple cider vinegar and beet juice for half a day. Daikon is good at soaking up flavours, making this a convenient quick pickle.

Look at how adorable they are!

Photos were taken by Dalyn Szilvassy, multi-talented designer, mother, and creator of one of my favourite new food blogs The Best I Ever Had. Her eye for food photography is top notch, coupled with elegant comfort food and an easy and absorbing writing style.

PS. I highly recommend a good cup of loose-leaf green tea with your snacks. And if you are feeling rather festive, a thimble or two of high quality sake.

We are exceptionally lucky in Vancouver to have our own Artisan Sake Maker on Granville Island. Enjoy a tasting at the boutique premium sake winery and take some home for your next Japanese meal.

Oishii!