Eggplant Chips and Dewbellinis

For the season finale of "Lost", I had my mother and sister over for dinner and confusion. My goal was to use only local ingredients, from my own little Hill Country island. For starters, I made Eggplant Chips using the organic eggplant purchased the day before at the Wimberley Farmers' Market which I paired with Dewbellinis -- bellinis made with dewberry puree from dewberries picked on my property. I had to fight back a polar bear just to get to the patches! (Or maybe that was just my big white dog wanting to play ball). Anywho, the Dewbellini was simple enough, just pour a little dewberry puree* in the bottom of a champagne glass and top with your favorite prosecco/cava/champagne/sparkline wine -- my necessary nod to non-local. Let's just agree that there was a stray bottle that washed up on the island. For my cocktails -- as my car is in the shop (cost to repair TBD), my lawnmower is in the shop (cost to repair painful), my digital camera died (cost to replace an absolute), and I just received a letter informing me that my health insurance company (the one proud to provide me affordable health care) is raising my premiums -- I used Frexeinet. The price is always right and Frexeinet has always been a great, inexpensive choice for mimosas and the like (although, no shame, I like it straight up as well).

For the chips, I used the "Crisp Eggplant Chips" recipe from Epicurious.com with the only alteration to the recipe being I used peanut oil (after having fantastic luck with peanut oil for french fries). The chips got rave reviews. We couldn't stop eating them. They really are crispy and the savory-sweet combination was addictive. My only tip is, when preparing the chips, don't let the sliced eggplant sit out too long. The natural moisture evaporates, leaving them too dried out for the coating to stick. If they do dry out, a quick, light spritz of water should solve the problem.

*I put a handful of dewberries in a pan with water just to cover on the stove. Once it began to boil, I added sugar to taste. I let the berries stew for a bit and the liquid cook off until the the concoction was thicker. Once cooled, I blended all in, surprisingly, a blender and, voila, dewberry puree.