{"id":151541,"date":"2012-08-11T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-08-11T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gracious-khorana.45-76-20-142.plesk.page\/localmex12012x108x1fig-balsamic-and-rosemary-hand-pies-htmlx1\/"},"modified":"2023-06-26T17:13:53","modified_gmt":"2023-06-26T17:13:53","slug":"fig-balsamic-and-rosemary-hand-pies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/localmilkblog.com\/2012\/08\/fig-balsamic-and-rosemary-hand-pies.html","title":{"rendered":"Fig, Balsamic, and Rosemary Hand Pies"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"a<\/a>\"Fig,<\/a><\/div>\n

Late summer is a lens flare lucid dream.\u00a0An imperious, two-volume Oxford English Dictionary now keeps company with the fearful symmetry of a cheap ceramic tyger on the bookshelf in the newly cleaned out study. Kombucha ferments in a\u00a0sea-foam\u00a0green bowl tucked away behind the cupboard doors of the midcentury buffet. We leave in six days for New York, where I will have the opportunity to participate in the\u00a0Sunday Suppers<\/a> workshop with Nikole Herriot<\/a>, wander markets, eat at momofuku m\u00e1 p\u00eache<\/a>, and gorge myself on treats from momofuku milkbar<\/a>. Unreal. Wild cherry tomatoes roll around lens caps on the kitchen counter. Rowland S. Howard plays\u00a0Shut Me Down<\/a>, and I bake.<\/p>\n

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I wish I could relate the innards, the real guts, of the conversations that have been percolating around here lately. You see, I keep the company of a poet with blue eyes and exceptionally long eyelashes. He\u2019s part fiend, part hierophant, and we bicker over things like whether or not the ancient wisdom of the Mayans and the potential apocalypse should be considered in planning a purely hypothetical jaunt to the British Isles. He imparts tales of Aleister Crowley\u2019s one time residence above the oldest cheese monger in London, Paxton & Whitfield, much to my delight, and I regale him with my Transylvanian daydreams. Together we plot underground masquerades.<\/span><\/p>\n

We lay awake late at night talking about immortality, the virtues of death, and whether we, as a society, will soon be growing human hearts like fat tomatoes. He, with animate eyebrows, tells me stories about a 92-year-old Okinawan fisherman diving into the sea like a young man and of the oldest woman alive, 115, singing. The bright side, a good attitude, he tells me, will keep you in vigor. It\u2019s a fact.<\/p>\n

\"Fig,<\/a><\/div>\n

We\u2019ve sat on stoops and porches and talked with friends. I caught a firefly. I may have disabled it on accident. His mother sent us chocolate filled butter cookies. I ate too many. We sip. And plan. It rains hard. He smokes. We\u2019re the parents of some water kefir grains now. We\u2019re honing ideas. An exciting project is afoot. Handmade artifacts and a supper happening. I look forward to being able to say more as details become concrete in the coming weeks and months.<\/p>\n

We spend a lot of time talking about sustenance: physical, spiritual, and intellectual.\u00a0Poetry is as practical as a loaf of bread. Sometimes good work is difficult and slow like baking from scratch. It takes time to produce art, and it takes time to savor it, digest it. We require the\u00a0sustenance\u00a0of a fig and<\/i> the sustenance of whalebone, owls, <\/i>and Gladstone bags.<\/i>\u00a0Particles & waves. Heart geometry. Artists are as vital to a community as its farmers and cooks. A life without art isn\u2019t worth living.<\/p>\n

\"basket<\/a><\/div>\n
\"Fig,<\/a><\/div>\n

I\u2019m inspired by everything around me, ideas, objects, people. Etchings, vintage smut, country estates,\u00a0marmoreal slabs<\/i>\u00a0and corsetry, gourds and sorbets, sweetbreads, marrow, and parasols. My mind feels prismatic lately, and the late summer light refracts shades of fruit stall, of sticky fig, white peach, and the paper bag brown peel of Golden Gem apples. My eyes are big, bigger than my appetite and bigger than the hours in a day. I have such plans. It\u2019s an exciting time to be anything at all and so\u2026and so I buy too much fruit.\u00a0So much fruit.\u00a0Butter, flour, vinegar, fig, herb, yolk, honey, cane. I write, these days, in pie.<\/p>\n

\"Fig,<\/a><\/div>\n
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*This could easily be made into a full sized pie or galette. If doing that, I would just halve or maybe quarter the figs depending on their size and adjust the baking times accordingly.<\/p>\n

\"D:<\/a><\/div>\n
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\u00a0angry figgy pie is angry D:<\/div>\n

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