fig: a fruit of the tree belonging to the genus ficus.

somehow i always seem to wind up in the strangest situations.

i thought i'd share that yesterday afternoon i found myself on a stranger's back porch, stirring fig jam on their outdoor stove.

i know. curious?

it all started because i happen to love purchasing fresh vegetables from local farmers. like, the kind that sell the goods from their front yard.

all summer i've been frequenting a house around the corner that's home to an innumerable amount of sweet Asian folks. they sell all kinds of things from a little green table in their front yard. i always give them an extra dollar for their cute-don't-speak-english factor.

but sadly, aforementioned neighbors haven't had any veggies out on their stand. so i had to look elsewhere.

after a nice visit to my darling stout family, as i was driving home, i spied a large garden adjacent to a house. my mind started to wonder...do they sell...oh yay! a sign that says "cukes"!

i pulled into the drive and noticed a "help yourself, honor system" sign hanging on the post with a scale. i happily selected a couple tomatoes and indeed, one cuke. (that's cucumber for those of you who don't abbreviate words like the cool kids)

after weighing and paying, i thought i was slipping away unnoticed to my car. but that's when i heard her voice.

"buy any figs??" she shouted from a distant porch.

figs, figs, figs....what are figs? i thought to myself. oh yeah, figgy pudding! wait, that doesn't help me at all. i found myself calling out to her, "umm, no, ma'am, i don't really know what to do with figs!"

and that's when she waved me over.

being the polite girl i am, i joined her on the porch.

soon, i was learning all kinds of things. how to make fig jam (3 cups figs, 3 cups sugar, and 1 large packet of strawberry jello for those wondering), how to can it, how her husband's hearing aids pop out often, and how she loves her husband having a garden because it keeps him from bugging her all day.

she convinced me to buy some figs, but first she had to get them from the house. this lent to her trying to get her husband's attention for the next few minutes, as she was unwilling to leave the fig jam. it apparently needs to be stirred constantly. realizing i wasn't escaping without figs, i offered to stir for her while she went in to get them. it was at that moment, standing alone on the porch, that the strangeness of the situation occurred to me.

she returned with a large plastic bag of figs. 2 and 1/2 pounds, to be exact. i paid her $2.50, smiled wide, said goodbye, and bounced off to jeepy.

not having time yesterday to a.) go buy strawberry jello mix and b.) make fig jam, i figured i'd make it today.

that was until this morning.

when i smelled something kind of like wine wafting its way through the kitchen. indeed, my figs furmented overnight and were resting in a good amount of fig liquid within the bag.

alas, i did not make fig jam.

$2.50 wasted? i think not. for now i have this blog post.



p.s. i found this nice quote while researching figs:

"When eating fresh figs, consumers are advised to take plentiful water with them to avoid unfortunate intestinal results."