Walking along 1st Avenue NW last night through the snow, my husband and I discovered a completely abandoned fig tree. Leaves gone and dusted with snow, the poor sap was still holding on to its entire fall harvest—perhaps not in an ideally ripe state, but soft enough, and ripe enough to take on that characteristic figgy purple hue. The house’s lights were off, so we glanced sideways a few times and smuggled some home.
I seared up a few pork chops from my Skagit River Ranch delivery (toothsome and ohso porky) and made a sauce with the figs, hard cider, cream, and some grainy mustard. It was delicious, and an interesting texture too, what with the mustard seeds and the fig seeds that came pouring out of the fruit, but the whole thing actually smelled like peanut butter. Chemists, pray tell. Why?
