Home again, home again, jiggity jig

We went to Providence for a night for a wedding, where we saw some family, met some great people, and ate very well; the wedding was catered by Smoke & Pickles, and they did a bang-up job with giant striped bass and copious smoked chicken, plus smoked bluefish, ahi tuna and beef tenderloin as appetizers. I LOVE a well-catered wedding. Food is the music of love, so play loud and often.

So we returned tired and hungry today but with all the ingredients for another eggplant parmigiana cleverly staged in the fridge by Christine. I had used the shiitakes with the short ribs the other night, so to replace them I pulled up the last of the spinach and wilted it in a pan, while the eggplant roasted with salt and oil and I chopped many herbs with garlic to add to canned tomatoes for the sauce. Layered with the spinach in the middle, and baked, then finished under the broiler, it was a hearty, bubbly welcome home that made me doubly grateful that I hadn't bought any crappy road food when we stopped for gas. As for the Thackrey Centaur- the name the Aquila sangiovese briefly had until he had to change it for legal reasons, and which was shipped without capsule or label (I just found a sixpack of it in Brooklyn when I was organizing the basement, so naturally we had to have one) it's so damn sexy and luscious that we should have brought a bottle or twelve to the wedding.