These recipes show eggplant's versatility and offer guidelines for the seemingly endless flavour combinations used to bring this nightshade to life.

In Behind the Stick, we challenge Ottawa bartenders to create a wholly original cocktail using an oddball ingredient. We’ll be highlighting one bartender, their spot, and an ingredient per column, at the end of which they’ll challenge another of the city’s drink-makers for the next edition.

Justin Tse spent plenty of his youthful hours at the Chinese Palace, a Chinese-Canadian restaurant in Kingston that his parents own. It informed some of what he does today.