Fig Fest!

[caption id="attachment_2072" align="alignleft" width="140"] This is not really Cleopatra. This is Vivian Leigh. If you've seen busts and coins that show what Cleopatra really looked like...well, she must've had a really good personality.[/caption]

Cleopatra says, "Oh, excellent!  I love long life better than I love figs!" in Antony and Cleopatra (do you see me here, quoting Shakespeare??).  Her enthusiasm (I mean, who doesn't love long life?) for figs speaks to their appeal.  Although, in this day and non-Mediterranean age and locale, there seem to be either fig lovers or fig...well,

[caption id="attachment_2088" align="alignright" width="144"] Figs in about March[/caption]

haters seems a bit strong, so fig dislikers. Most people enjoy a Newton, but the fig relationship is snuffed out with the emptying of the package.  We've always been big Fig Newton fans (big fans, not big Newtons, although big Newtons would be fine, too),

[caption id="attachment_2089" align="alignright" width="180"] Figs in June[/caption]

and we are blessed with a prolific fig tree in our yard, which was, back some many moons, a volunteer.  A stray, if you will.  The figs we grow are entirely organic (not exactly due to our commitment to the earth's well-being, rather that the tree thrives on neglect), and quite large.  Some of them verge on being the size of a pear!

Every year the tree is very generous, giving enough not only for us, but also for the birds, the deer, and the rabbits, too.  I like to use as many as possible fresh, but then I am

[caption id="attachment_2104" align="alignright" width="150"] The harvest[/caption]

still left with a lot of unused figs.  I bought a dehydrator, which is like a triple-decker cooling rack, except that it is enclosed and has a fan that blows warm air on the fruit.  I have tried this many times and, sadly, have been left with tough little carcasses of figs, rather than the sticky lusciousness you get with a store-bought dried fig.  So why keep trying it? Hope springs eternal, I guess (and yes, I do know the definition of stupidity).  But this year I looked into it online, and on eHow I found a way to oven-dry the figs.  It worked very well.

The first thing you do is to make sure all your figs are ripe, clean, and free of bird, uh, detritus. Then preheat the oven to 250 degrees.  Cut off the stems, then slice all the figs lengthwise.  Place the

[caption id="attachment_2094" align="alignleft" width="180"] Ready for the oven[/caption]

figs, cut side down, in a shallow dish with sides.  I used Pyrex 9x13s, and they worked well, but use a dish to fit the amount of figs you have, as the figs need to fit snugly in the dish.  You need a pan with sides because the figs give off a lot of juice, and you want to contain it.    Place the dish with the figs in the oven, and set the timer for one hour.  After an hour, turn the figs over, cut side up.  The juice should be starting to flow now, so kind of mop it up with the figs as you turn them over. Set the timer for another hour and repeat, this time turning the figs cut side down, mopping up the juice again. Set timer for an hour again, and turn figs

[caption id="attachment_2095" align="alignright" width="180"] After an hour[/caption]

cut side up.  If you have a lot of juice, tilt the pan and use a spoon to drizzle that juice over the figs. At the end of three hours, the figs will be dark, wrinkly, sticky, and fragrant. Reduce the heat to 200 degrees, and return the figs, still cut side up, to the oven for about 30 to 45 more minutes. That will allow the excess liquid to evaporate, the figs to dry somewhat, and the texture to become more like that of "real" dried figs.  The whole process will have taken about three-and-a-half hours. Turn the oven off and allow the figs to cool down in the oven (I left them in the oven overnight and it was fine).

[caption id="attachment_2096" align="alignleft" width="135"] Finished product[/caption]

These figs stay quite moist, so I would store them in the fridge for short-term use, or freeze them for longer storage.

This isn't exactly a cost saving recipe--the oven is on for a very long time.  But what you do get is some tasty, nutritious dried fruit that is prepared with absolutely no chemicals or preservatives.  I made fig bread, which was delicious toasted with either brie or blue cheese on it, and will be making fig bars soon.

Apparently figs were one of the first foods cultivated for agriculture, 11,000 years ago in the Middle East, according to Wikipedia.  I don't understand why they are not used today to help solve hunger problems.  While they do need some winter rain, they don't need any water for about 9 months out of the year, and they seem to self-sow.  In addition, they produce two crops every year, one in June and the other in about August--there are huge amounts of fruit! I would think some poverty-stricken areas in the world could use a few fig trees to help alleviate some of their problems.  Figs are very high in sugar, which would surely be a boon to starvation-prone areas.  They even have a little protein in them!

Well, I'm off to dry another batch, and then I will wait for the second crop to ripen.  And so it goes.

[caption id="attachment_2097" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Almost ripe fig with second crop on deck[/caption]

And Now for Something Completely Different

(you have to say that in your best Monty Python voice--go ahead--click on "Monty Python"! You can hear it!  Okay, now come back.)

Not too long ago I talked about some of my favorite book genres, and one of those books in the "Women in the Middle East" genre was Persepolis, which is a graphic novel.  I really loved that book, which surprised me.  I've never been one for comic books. Well, that's not entirely true--I used to love "Archie" comics, what with all the high drama that minx Veronica stirred up.   But that's where my interest stayed--it never segued into manga or anything crazy like that.  So liking Persepolis was unexpected.

Writing the Literary Obsessions post got me wondering if there were other graphic novels I might like.  I started poking around on Amazon and found a couple I thought I'd like, and then some I just wanted to read out of curiosity.

The graphic novel I read out of curiosity was called Black Hole by Charles Burns. It was very good, well drawn and well written.  But weird.  Very, very weird.  I felt like I'd read something I shouldn't have.  It's the story of teenagers who care only about getting laid, getting high, getting drunk, and getting laid. Oh--and getting laid.  It's basically a cautionary tale (or tail--ha ha!-- if you read it you'll get the joke) about a bunch of teenagers who don't care about a plague that seems to be causing them terrible, disfiguring wounds, growths, etc., as long as they get to keep having sex.  So of course you see the AIDS parallel here.  I found it very dark, quite depressing, and it made me think that I was neither young enough nor edgy enough to read graphic novels.

But I wasn't quite ready to give up on graphic novels just yet.  I found Maus I:  My Father Bleeds History, and Maus II: And Here My Troubles Began, by Art Spiegelman. Once again, a genre of books I am fascinated with led to my discovery of these two graphic novels.  Holocaust memoirs are unsettling and horrifying and at the same time utterly compelling.  Maus tells the true story of Art Spiegelman's father, a Holocaust survivor.  The Jews are portrayed as mice, and the Germans as cats.  The Poles are pigs, the Americans are dogs, and a child of mixed heritage (i.e. German and Jew) is shown as a mouse, but with cat stripes. When the Jews (mice) are trying to pass as gentile Poles, they wear pig masks. It sounds odd, I know.  The animal portrayals make it easy to decipher who is who (a German civilian or a Polish civilian?), and don't detract from the story in any way. I couldn't put it down.  I read both books in two days.

It's no secret that another of my favorite genres is the whole British thing.  And yes, there are graphic novels to fill the bill of..well, the whole British thing.  Like a message from above, I came across Posy Simmonds.  How could someone named Posy disappoint me in any literary fashion?  Well, she didn't disappoint, and I love her work.  How did I find her?  Well, it's kind of a long story (you knew it would be).  I was watching TV, home alone one day, which NEVER happens, and when it does I never watch TV, except for this time, and I came upon a movie called Tamara Drewe (and by the way, one of the main characters is played

[caption id="attachment_1948" align="alignleft" width="203"] "Friday Night Dinner" cast[/caption]

by Tamsin Greig, who played the mother on the very, very funny British TV series "Friday Night Dinners").  I really liked it, and noticed at the end it was based on a book.  When I went looking for the author (Posy Simmonds) at the library, they didn't have anything except Gemma Bovery, so I got that one instead. Obviously you know this is going to be a takeoff of Madame Bovary, and it is.  Gemma (like Emma, the other Bovary) is unfaithful and feckless, and meets an end that is retribution for her misbehavior. But it's so good!   It's like a comic book soap opera.  I finally got Tamara Drewe, and I loved it too!  Apparently it is loosely based on Hardy's Far from the Madding Crowd, which I have never read.  But it tells the story of a woman who returns to her childhood haunts, vastly transformed, and a couple (the wife is Tamsin Greig) who run a writers' retreat.  The husband is famous in his own right, and the wife is sacrificing and long-suffering, and of course drama ensues.  I just love these books!  The writing is so great, and then you throw in the drawing as well?  Well, I am in awe of Ms. Simmonds. I am looking forward to reading more of her work.

Not to be shallow, but something I love about graphic novels is how quickly you can finish them.  I read Gemma Bovery in a couple of hours!  It's not that I'm trying to get it over with, but sometimes it's nice to be able, in one afternoon, to check a book off your list that you've been wanting to read.  As an old grownup lady, I never thought I'd be a fan of the genre, but thanks to these books, particularly the works of Art Spiegelman and Posy Simmonds, I truly am.  They are completely different, and I hope you'll give them a try.

My Literary Obsessions

What to read?  It's harder to decide what not to read.  Sometimes I leave the library feeling guilty about how many books I've checked out.  But that's the best part of the library:  if you get home and find out it's not the right book for you, you can immediately return it, no harm, no foul, and someone else can check it out.  Whether fiction or nonfiction, I have certain genres that I return to over and over with which I am, perhaps, more than a little bit obsessed.  I'm intrigued by the lives of women living in the Middle East, and I am horrified and fascinated by the way Jewish women tried to manage their lives and their families in the most nightmarish of circumstances. I love to read about treacherous travel from the safety of my little bed, and I imagine being a pioneer woman, once again trying to manage self and family under harsh conditions, whenever we drive to the Sierra.  My favorite genre is the "seamy side of London" category (I don't know what else to call it).  Pickpockets, prostitution, and insanity in Victorian London? Well, it makes me happy, what can I say?  Reading is one of life's great pleasures, and I am sad that Kids Today forsake reading for any manner of electronic stimulation.  Maybe one day they will find their way to books--we can always hope.  And now, a few of my favorites...

Books about women in the Middle East:

Princess by Jean Sasson (nonfiction); Eight Months on Ghazzah Street by Hilary Mantel (fiction);  A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini (fiction); Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi (nonfiction, comic-book style);  A House in Fez: Building a Life in the Ancient Heart of Morocco by Suzanna Clarke (nonfiction)

Travelogues (Armchair Tourism):

Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer (nonfiction);  Sand in My Bra edited by Jennifer L. Leo (nonfiction);  How to Shit Around the World by Dr. Jane Wilson-Howarth (nonfiction);  Notes from a Small Island and A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson (nonfiction); Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick (nonfiction); Baghdad without a Map by Tony Horwitz (nonfiction)



Holocaust  Women:

Holocaust by Gerald Greene (fiction);  All But My Life by Gerda Weissmann Klein (nonfiction); Day After Night by Anita Diamant (fiction)

Pioneer Women:

Pioneer Women: The Lives of Women on the Frontier by Linda Peavy and Ursula Smith (nonfiction);  Impatient with Desire by Gabrielle Burton (fiction); One Thousand White Women by Jim Fergus (fiction)

The Seamier Side of London:

Fingersmith by Sarah Waters (fiction); Slammerkin by Emma Donoghue (fiction); Hubbub: Filth, Noise, and Stench in England by Emily Cockayne (nonfiction); The Sexual History of London by Catharine Arnold (nonfiction); Dr. Johnson's London by Eliza Picard (nonfiction); The Crimson Petal and the White by Michael Faber (fiction); The Dress Lodger by Sheri Holman (fiction)

So many books, so little time!