Eggplant Salad

This is one of my New York improvisations that started when Tony Calicchio, a very young chef who was working for me at Café Marimba, brought in an eggplant salad his mother—a fabulous cook—had made. We made sandwiches out of it with fresh mozzarella and all fell in love with it. It inspired me to try a version with Mexican seasonings, which we introduced at Zarela and which is one of our mo