Speck & Eggplant Bruschetta

What a warm summer night will make me crave: crunchy, crusty artisanal toast; crispy, pillowy roasted eggplant; salty, smokey cured pork; and sweet, succulent caramelized onions. This isn’t your typical garlic- and tomato-topped bruschetta. Don’t go skipping to the wine cellar just yet. It’s going to be messy, it’s going to be oozing with all kinds of bold flavors and textures. Stacked and finished with some stinky cheese and an unsympathetic drizzle of balsamic syrup, this wild and earthy bruschetta is comforting and unabashed by whatever dirty secret you might squeal.

Vegan Raspberry Cornbread

Cornbread, complete with bacon fat and eggs and butter, is a food by which my stomach is most enamored. I love to share it with my friends. Most of them indulge with the same voracity as me. But not all of them. Some of them don’t eat pork or eggs or dairy, or a combination of these, for one reason or another. I have been pondering for some time about how to make a vegan cornbread that isn’t awful — lets face it, most vegan cornbreads just plain suck.

I baked this early in the morning of Independence Day. It ended up turning out unexpectedly patriotic.