Food, Glorious Food!

I once started an essay for Mississippi Magazine with this sentence:
"I'm not a serious cook but I have a serious cookbook collection."

You can read the piece HERE.

(And apologies to the magazine if that site is using articles without permission.)

I love reading about food. And I admire those of you who write so beautifully about it. And prepare it so well.
For example, my fabulous foodie friend Lee.

Here's her BLOG: SPOON AND INK

Lee and I wrote together in our original New Jersey Writers Group. I can't wait for us to reconvene. (And maybe eat something Lee prepares from the Farmers Market!) 

 (haul from last summer's Farmers' Market!)

 I wish I had gorgeous food pictures to share. Click on over to Lee's blog and you'll see plenty.

• This post was inspired by an essay in The New York Times, about cookbooks of course.
• I also like reading books featuring food. Proof? Here's a blast from the past on the topic.
• And finally, my former ruminations on Pimento Cheese. 

FIGS! Oh joy~

Anybody who knows me knows my fig fetish.
I particularly love eating them when someone like my friend Lee, AKA Kitchen Goddess on her fabulous blog, presents them so beautifully.

Like Lee, I had a grandmother who put up fig preserves.
Our big sprawling fig tree was a perfect spot to hide under and pick the figs right off that tree.

Today's blog from Lee has sent me back to those days.
How I wish I were eating them wrapped in prosciutto and stuffed with cheese right now (my current adoration).

CLICK HERE to read her recipes and remembrances.

I'm so jealous that she has a tree, complete with figs.

To tempt you even more, here's a picture from today's post.
You know you want to read how to make your food look so beautiful.
Go ahead, click away.

Fig Appetizer

 I've written about figs before, in case you hadn't noticed...
You can type FIGS into the search box of this blog or click the link in the previous sentence.
Or just read Lee's post and enjoy. Big time YUM.

Friday Favorites

Figs.

Love 'em or hate 'em. I love them. A lot.

So of course I had to check out the country's largest fig tree, located in Santa Barbara, California.
Where I just happened to be last week.

Click that link if you'd like to read more.

The tree looks like no other fig tree in my experience.
It's not the southern fig from my grandmother's backyard.

BUT there were figs on it.  They were terrible. 

Okay, yes, I picked a ripe one and opened it up and maybe I even kind of tasted it.

I've written about figs before.
Maybe some would say I've over-written on the topic.

But if you're a Fig Freak also, here are a few things I've said on the topic.

FIGS, on my own blog, here: http://ascattergood.blogspot.com/2012/07/figs.html

A FIG recipe, here: http://ascattergood.blogspot.com/2012/07/fig-recipe.html

And another FIG recipe, from my friend and food blogger, Lee Hilton.
I'd love to make preserves like this.
If I could get enough figs and if I could keep from eating them right out of the little baskets.
http://spoonandink.blogspot.com/2012/08/preserving-summer.html

And WAY back in 2008 when I first joined a great gang of Southern Writers on A GOOD BLOG IS HARD TO FIND, I wrote this about my Great Fig Fiasco. My failed attempt to break into NPR.
http://southernauthors.blogspot.com/2008/10/great-fig-fiasco-im-writer.html

And if you're still reading? Here's the essay that put the whole Fig Fiasco thing in motion:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0830/p18s02-hfes.html

I'll bet there are still a few figs out there just waiting to be turned into a Fig Garlic Pizza.
So easy and delish. (Recipe's on my Pinterest board.)