I ran into a friend yesterday, who tells me that he should be harvesting eggplants from his garden any day now. Of course, this got me thinking about Caponata, the famous Sicilian eggplant and tomato stew.

This is a terrific 'contorno', vegetable course, and also a great topping for 'bruschetta', Tuscany’s grilled bread. Of course it's one of the quintessential Italian antipasti too. And when you can walk into your own garden and harvest the vegetables to put it together, Caponata becomes all the more magical.

Italians have a particular fondness for 'le primizie', the smallest of the first crop of vegetables. So if you have access to a garden—either your own or a friend's—or if you can get to a farm stand, now is the time for you to be thinking about caponata too.

The recipe below is excerpted from my first cookbook, "La Cucina dei Poveri."

My Grandmother's Caponata

When the garden was in full swing during the summer, Noonie (my grandmother) would harvest—well, more accurately, she would direct Pop (my grandfather) to harvest some eggplant, tomatoes, and peppers for this delicious antipasto that she referred to as 'Caponatina. My recollections fail as to how she served it, but I’m betting that it was over a piece of Italian bread that Pop had fried in olive oil.

Nowadays, I serve it over bruschetta made from some good Tuscan bread which—I’m happy to report—seems to be turning up more and more frequently at supermarket bakeries.

Ingredients:

• 4 Tbs. Olive oil
  

• 2 Cloves garlic, peeled, and thinly sliced
  

• 1 Medium onion, peeled, and chopped
  

• 1 Medium eggplant (approximately 1 1/4 Lb.) cut into 1 inch cubes
  

• 2 Medium bell peppers
  

• 1/4 Lb. Green olives, pits removed
  

• 1 Tbs. Capers
  

• 1 Cup Italian plum tomatoes, roughly chopped
  

• 1/4 Cup sugar
  

• 1/4Cup red wine vinegar
  

• 1/2 Cup raisins
  

• 2 Tbs. Fresh mint, chopped
  

• 1/4 tsp. Red pepper flakes
  

Preparation:

Heat the olive oil in a saut