This summer, I saw wild fruit growing for the first time ever (city kid here, people. New York, born and raised.) The only fruit I had ever seen growing were the sad excuses for strawberries we grew in our backyard on Long Island every summer, and the apples we saw upstate when we went apple picking in the fall. So imagine my amazement when I was walking through the vineyards in southwestern France, and I came across this.
Do you know what that is, people? A fig. Yep. A real, live fig, growing all by itself. Ivonne has been waxing poetic over the fig recently… must be an Italian thing. I love, love, love figs (sidebar: I’ll definitely be coming up with something for the upcoming SHF… the gears are turning…)
Figs are one of those magical foods that go well with all sorts of flavors. As will soon be apparent from SHF #35, figs make amazing desserts. I’m addicted to fig jam, and will often eat it straight out of the jar, Ã la Joey in Friends. Figs can be cooked with meat, mixed with nuts and cheese for pasta sauce, dried and eaten as a snack… the list is endless. But when I saw figs in the outdoor produce stands on Rue Cler, right near my house, I remembered the figs from this summer, and I knew that I had to do something simple.
Just some fresh green leaf lettuce, a bit of bleu d’auvergne, some torn prosciutto, and a little bit of homemade Dijon vinaigrette. Oh, and of course the fresh black figs, halved and staring up at me. Parfait.