Laughing with—not at—figs

Being the blogger sometimes known as Figs, you can imagine my delight at being forwarded by several people this important article concerning, among other things, figs. And the First Citizen of the People's Republic of Berkeley, Alice Waters, whom bad boy Anthony Bourdain calls "Pol Pot in a muumuu." Sometimes there's nothing more satisfying than a little old-fashioned name calling. And she does sort of ask for it. The woman is simply not funny. At all. Which makes her a perfect and hilarious target for Bourdain.

And where do figs come in? When New York chef David Chang remarks that "fucking every restaurant in San Francisco is serving figs on a plate with nothing on it." Which is really not too far from the truth. If it's not figs, it's tangerines or persimmons. Sort of way of smugly showing off that we have nearly perfect weather and wonderful local produce all year round.

And what is wrong with a menu offering of figs on a plate? It is silly. Here is where I draw the line:

Figs on a plate at home is fine. It is actually very nice.

In a restaurant? That is just silly. Is it anything other than pretentious to imply that a diner is incapable of purchasing, washing, and slicing his or her own figs? Figs with a nice slice of cheese (St. Andre, maybe?) and a drizzle of lavender syrup over the figs, that's more like it. Show some effort, and not by just harboring deep thoughts about produce.

Chang got in all sorts of trouble over his remark concerning the emperor's clothes (I bet Bourdain is happy Alice has on that muumuu), and a promotional event for his book was cancelled to show him his place. But I haven't heard that anyone was upset with his suggestion that bay area folks just need to mellow out and smoke more weed. After all, we grow that too.

Fig vodka update

After just a few days, look at the beautiful color!



And if my sinuses didn't feel like someone had sealed them up with cement, I could probably tell you that it has a wonderful sweet, earthy aroma. But I can't. All I can tell you is that no matter how virtuous I feel when I buy tissues made of from recycled paper whitened without chloride bleach (if every household in the U.S. replaced just one box of regular tissues with these, we could save 283,000 trees!), the Kleenex brand ones probably made from virgin old-growth forest and infused with lotion and aloe vera ("not recommended for cleaning eyeglasses"—duh!) are just the bomb.

But just ask me again when I am enjoying this over ice in a month or so.

My idea of a fall craft

Why not soak chopped figs in vodka?

These figs transitioned nicely

over my cutting board

and into a Mason jar of vodka where they will live happily for the next month or so . . . maybe longer. At which time I will strain them through cheesecloth, give the worms in my compost something to think about, and—I hope—happily imbibe this taste of fall into the wee winter months.

No glue required.

The Figs have been robbed . . . of FIGS!

Right before my very eyes. The other morning I had deposited Sophie in the carpool across the street from our house and was standing chatting to one of the other moms, when the recycling truck pulled up in front of our house. The driver emptied our bin, plucked a ripe fig off our tree, and popped it in his mouth!




I was waving my hands and gesturing wildly "My tree!! My figs!!!" but he was unimpressed. This is our Black Mission (one of our favorite figs), and there are not many ripe on this tree to begin with. Boo hoo!

At least they cannot get the Brown Turkeys, which are inside our fenced front yard. This tree has more fruit, and we've already eaten some.

We're having one of those late October heat waves: bad because of the fire risk (we sit on the edge of a wooded regional park) but good for the ripening figs!

May we please lift the moratorium?

On cookbooks, that is. I have so many. I also have print and online subscriptions to Cook's Illustrated. And issues of Bon Appetit keep showing up in our PTA's post office box, which means they are mine (part of my hazardous duty pay, I think). I am not supposed to be buying any more cookbooks until I have cooked my way through all the ones I have.

But I thought an exception might be made for this cookbook,

which was reviewed in this morning's San Francisco Chronicle's food section.

Oh, well. If we can't lift the moratorium, I can probably settle for the Brown Turkey figs that are very slowly ripening in our front yard. Pictures to come.

Saturday shopping:The good and the not so good

Saturdays are my days with my girl. I take Sophie to her ceramics class, which is conveniently (or not) located around of the corner from Anthropologie. You can see the problem. This time I only looked and did not buy a thing (hurray for me!), but I'm pretty sure I may need these these dishes.Click to enlarge, please. I mean, come on. They have FIGS on them. And they will go nicely with my everyday solid black dishes, which are starting to chip after years of wear. How cruel of Anthropologie to tempt with not only clothing but housewares as well.

I retrieved Sophie in time to deliver her to gymnastics. Honestly, I'm sensitive to the plight of the over-scheduled child, but she insists she has energy for all these things, so if I can limp along after her, I think we'll be ok.

After lunch, it was onward to one of our favorite destinations: Target! Look at all the stuff we got:


A smart little dress for the office (I'm not sure whether I look like Jackie O or a 1960s airline stewardess),

this cute demin dress for Sophie (unfortunately this did not come in my size),

these lovely chocolate brown ladylike shoes (cuter than the look in the picture and perfect for sitting at my desk),

and these yummy GREEN loafers, which are seriously the most comfortable things I have had on my feet in ages. And here's the kicker: We bought TWO pairs of them. One for me and one for Sophie. Indeed, at age eight she has outgrown the children's sizes and I am now buying her ADULT SHOES. We think we look plenty snappy in our matching green shoes.

This was all well and good and sort of took the sting out of an earlier shopping incident. I went into Keihl's to buy this,
the only product on earth that can de-scale my elbows. It is truly fabulous stuff. Keihl's is a funny place. I am always slightly unnerved by the pseudo-scientific atmosphere, as if the sales people are setting out to solve a medical rather than cosmetic problem. But they always give you samples, which are fun and sometimes cause me to come back to buy the product. Much better marketing than glossy ads in magazines I don't read. I like their grapefruit-scented bath products, and if they ask me what I would like, I often request these, pretending that I have never heard of them and am intensely curious about how they work for me. But the saleswoman on Saturday did not think this was a decision I should be trusted to make. She craned her head forward, squinted, pursed her lips, and handed me a sample of this:

I was fine trying a new product until I read the copy on the packet:

This lightweight moisturizing lotion helps protect skin from external damage and diminishes the effects of aging. Combining Abyssine and Corallina Extract, our formula helps minimize the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles (emphasis mine).

Well, crap. Is that what a stranger sees when they look at me? Ok, fair enough, but don't expect me to be happy about it.

She wasn't done though. Another squint revealed to her that I needed this:

Apparently, Heat-Protective Silk-Straightening Cream revealed further problems:

Formulated especially for wavy, frizzy, or curly hair in need of smoothing, our unique straightening cream contains a blend of natural ingredients to help straighten out hair and tame frizz without weighing hair down (again emphasis mine).

I wanted to shriek at her "It is FOGGY outside! My hair looked JUST FINE before I left the house! And when was the last time you got carded buying booze at Trader Joe's? Huh? HUH?"

But maybe she's got a point. I like the hair cream a lot. My hair feels smoother and not so crispy on the ends, even after beating it into submission with a blow dryer. And the fine lines? They're just fine, thank you. Maybe I need a few more samples of that face cream.

Figs and cheese for dessert

Although I love to bake, in the interest of ass size, we don't often have dessert. Most of the baked goods I produce are carted off to school events, parties, or other people's houses. But my post the other day that included Manouri cheese and thoughts of figs and honey made dessert necessary.

Off I went for some fig shopping. How excellent that my local produce market had not only the standard Black Missions but also a variety I had never tasted but had seen in The New York Times food section, the Candy Stripe. And how also excellent that, unlike the unfortunate people of New York,* I paid a mere $8 a pound for them. That said, I think $8 a pound for figs is really a lot, and I only bought four.


There they are, along with some Black Missions, one of the varieties we have growing in our yard. If we get enough heat to ripen what we have on the branches now, we'll be happily swimming in figs in the fall.

My verdict on the two figs: Those Candy Stripes are undeniably lovely, but their taste is not nearly as jammy and earthy as the Mission and reminds me of a Kadota. Nice, but overall I like the cheap fig** better.

You heard it here.

* They paid $19.99 a pound. I know: just plain silly.
** Right now they're at just under $3 a pound, which means I will buy them for general eating but will wait until they are closer to $1 a pound to make jam.