Figs On Sale

A few days ago I stopped at the store for a baguette and something for an easy meal.  Figs - Buy One Get One Free read a sign as I entered the market. I knew immediately I would add prosciutto and goat cheese to the basket. Dinner was soon on my plate.  The bread, the figs, the cheese, the ham, eaten in no particular order - a single item or the combination of any two or three or four at a time -- were all delicious and simply satisfying. Simply as in simple. There is something so satisfying about simple.

For two mornings I sliced Kadotas and Black Missions onto nutty toasted whole grain bread. Not that the figs weren't  already inherently sweet, but there was something enticing about the thought of unfiltered wildflower honey, so I gave them just a drizzle. I ate slowly, enjoying the smooth fig contrasted with the crunch of its seeds and the nuts in the bread. I think I even closed my eyes a time or two. Simple again, but I felt regal.

What is it about a fig? For me it is ancient -- it goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden. It's exotic, it's indulgent, and it is sensuous. Just look at it. Study the outside. Cut one in half lenthwise. Look again.

Until a few years ago, my only experience with figs was a la newton. But while touring Sonoma Valley with my dear friend T., we spied a restaurant called The Girl and the Fig. The name was intriguing, so we went in without even reviewing the menu. We sat out in the garden, shared an appetizer and each had an entree which included (of course) figs, and we sipped a little white wine. We may or may not have looked around town or shopped after that, for all I remember about that afternoon is the restaurant and my first fresh fig. http://www.thegirlandthefig.com/

We do not remember days, we remember moments.
    Cesare Pavese

This fruit is perishable. I must use the rest of them today. The obvious metaphor is to take advantage of life's joys as they are given us, for many are short-lived. So this afternoon I will try a new recipe for Fresh Fig Cake, which calls for 3 cups of the chopped fruit for the batter and the filling. The ingredients are few, the techniques are basic, and overall it seems rather simple. Simply delicious. Simply satisfying. Simply.

A Marvelous Morning

I'm having a marvelous morning. 

It began with a rain concerto playing for me outside each window. I listened for awhile, then pulled the covers up, and listened a little more.  I reached for one of the books on my nightstand -- How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love With Poetry, by Edward Hirsch. I read about things I already love to love. I marvelled at the beauty of the language. I wished everyone could feel what I was feeling. Then I realized that many already do.

A leisurely breakfast was in order. My sound senses were  keen, and I heard  the crunch of one of my new-found joys -- demerara cane sugar, as I ate cinammon toast and a sliced banana. I paid attention to the taste and temperature and aroma of my coffee. Oh, the joy of simple things.  I read some more.

It still rains. The sky light is dim, as if in reverance. Even the birds are quiet. Perhaps they're listening, too.

And I have the pleasure of not having to do anything I don't want to do today. It can be anything. Or it can be nothing. Nothing, except what I may choose.  And who knows what that will be? Because right now, the now is quite enough.

I Bought Myself a Present

I love to watch how the day, tired as it is, lags away reluctantly, and hates to be called yesterday so soon. 
Nathaniel Hawthorne, House of the Seven Gables

Do you buy presents for yourself? Each year I find myself thinking that around Christmas time, the robes and slippers are the most luxurious, the colognes and perfumes are the most enticing, and the earrings I could never find are suddenly everywhere.

But what I buy for myself most often are books.

A couple of weeks ago, I happened upon a reference to When Wanderers Cease to Roam -- A Traveler's Journal of Staying Put by Vivian Swift.  It wasn't in the library, and it had not been in the bookstore since 2008. So, sight unseen and fingers crossed,  mailorder -- here I come.  When the book arrived on my doorstep a few days ago, I hardly had time to open the box, much less give it a thorough review, but I knew at a glance I would not be disappointed. It is hand-lettered, beautifully illustrated with watercolor and drawings, and contains quotes, lines of poetry, and the author's observations of her daily life.

As an example,  some of the entries are:  Small Pleasures Worth Staying Home For; Things That Keep You Warm in January; Tea Cup Travel; Rain Book; A Walker's Lost and Found; A Memoir of Close Calls in Three Miniscule Chapters;  Kinds of Snow. (The above Nathaniel Hawthorne quote is from one of the September pages.)

I wish I could keep a journal just like this one. I wish I could draw. I wish I could paint. But maybe, if I wish upon a star....

Of course, as I think about it, it's obvious!  I can make my own notes of small pleasures worth staying home for, the things that keep me warm in January, and I can look for treasures as I take a walk. The painting, however, -- well, that's another story.



When Wanderers Cease to Roam: A Traveler's Journal of Staying Put