Eggplant Confit

As a kid growing up in Wisconsin, my childhood summers meant weekends “up north” to a family cabin in lake country. There I spent countless hours of my young, only-child life wrapped in a life jacket on a pontoon boat in the middle of a lake, staring at a hazy shoreline and pretending that the blurry expanse across the way was Europe and that I was a chic, important woman in the middle of the ocean headed east. As an adult living in France, my summers now mean at least some time in the south. (Absolutely wild to me, still.) This recipe was written there, a bit inland from the seaside, in Provence—land of rosé, olive oil, and insane summer produce that you can’t not buy too much of, meaning you need to find a way to use up the excess. Confit is one of these ways. Just as special as the silky, oil-preserved slices of eggplant is the infused olive oil they’re kept in. Use it to fry eggs or pour it on a bunch of other summer produce. You’re living the dream, kid. Reprinted with permission from À Table by Rebekah Peppler (Chronicle Books, 2021).