Yummer Reading

Fig Heaven: 70 Recipes for the World's Most Luscious Fruit

Morrow, 176 pp., $19.95

Right in the middle of my back yard sits the largest fig tree I have ever seen anywhere. Every summer for the past four years, I have allowed the birds to have the fruit from the top of the tree, while I share the rest with family and friends. But, despite all the sharing, I always end up with more figs than I know what to do with. As delicious as they are, there are only so many gorgonzola-stuffed, prosciutto-wrapped fresh figs that one should be allowed to eat.

Luckily I have come across a great little book, Marie Simmons' Fig Heaven, to expand my fig cooking and consuming horizons this summer. Simmons, a cooking instructor, cookbook writer, and fig enthusiast moved from New York to California, where she turned her love of figs into a journey of culinary discovery. This book is the product of her newfound obsession with all things fig.

Simmons has assembled a great collection of enticing recipes for what in my opinion is one of the most delicious and underused fruits. The book starts with an introduction to the ancient history and origin of figs, their botany and cultivation, and a very helpful list of fig varieties with good descriptions for proper identification. According to these descriptions, I believe that my fig tree could probably be a Celeste.

The recipes that follow include appetizers, sandwiches, breads, salads, main dishes, side dishes, and desserts for fresh figs as well as dried. And though I admit I have not tried any recipe yet, my mouth waters just from reading them in anticipation. I will definitely be making the marinated dried figs, the grilled fresh figs on rosemary skewers, the fresh fig and green tomato salad with basil, and the fresh fig and lime sorbet, to start with. I will also wrap fish fillets inside fig leaves for grilling. And I'll still make my gorgonzola-stuffed, prosciutto-wrapped fresh figs, but I'll follow Simmons' advice and roast them for a change. My fig tree is loaded with tiny green figs, and from now on I'll be counting the minutes until they're ripe and ready.