Bring Us Some Figgy Pizza

When Coley and I spotted fresh figs at the St. Phillips Plaza Farmer's Market last weekend, we snatched them up right away. About a year ago, our friend Linda brought fresh figs to our house for pizza-making night, and so I dug up this delicious fresh fig and fennel pizza from Food Blogga. The pizza was divine, and I've been dreaming about it ever since! Mmmm, caramelized figs, fennel, and shallots, with blue cheese and rosemary.... you know you want to try this one out.

Because of certain Christmas carols ("so bring us some figgy puuuuuuding...."), I thought figs were a winter fruit, and tried to find some this past winter to make the pizza again. Turns out figs are actually the flowers of the ficus tree, and get harvested twice a year. The breva crop grows in early spring off of last year's shoots. The main crop grows in the summer on this years new shoots and is generally the tastier crop. But I didn't read up on figs on wikipedia straight off the bat; instead I learned the hard way that you can't find fresh figs in supermarkets during the winter, and that dried figs make a terribly disappointing substitute for fresh and ruin the fig and fennel pizza.
This story ends happily, though, because remember Coley and I just bought figs last weekend! A couple nights ago we finally got around to making the pizza again, and the results were again fantastic. I suggest Food Blogga's recipe to everyone. I also learned through my wikipedia consult that figs are an excellent source of calcium (who knew!) and that they are the oldest known crop cultivated by humans-- fossil remains show that people in Jordan Valley were cultivating them back in 9400-9200 BC. It's triple-fig fact win this weekend!

Coley Makes Everyone Else Look Like Lazy Sacks on His Day Off

This is my husband Coley.
On Memorial Day, Coley
1) Brewed a nice American pale ale:


2) Baked fresh French bread:

2) Made some lovely sun tea with fresh mint and lemon rind:


4) Re-hung the string lights that go across our roof, which were drooping:


5) Resurfaced our old coffee table with cool retro baseball cards, complete with a nice polycrylic finish:

(How awesome is this?!)

The purpose of this post is not to brag about my energetic, prolific, creative genius of a husband. The point is just to remark on his unlimited energy for projects. How remarkable!

Posting for 2010

Well jeez. It has been forever since I wrote anything on this sad excuse for a weblog.

I might try to just post lots of photos and do a photo-blog in 2010, to lower the ambition bar a little. Then again, Coley usually hoards the camera in his backpack, so maybe even that won't help me keep up. We shall see.

Anyway, Coley and I hiked Wasson Peak in the Tucson mountains on New Year's day 2010, and it was so hot in the sun on the way up, that I wished I had worn shorts with my tank top. In the middle of the winter! Imagine that!

The saguaro cacti are easy to anthropomorphize, with all their expressive, twisted limbs. It was my dear, sweet mother who once visited and exclaimed something to the effect of "those cacti look like they're flippin' me the bird!" Anyway, I always enjoy taking photos where people pose like the cacti. Here's my latest opus in that series:

Our cool little camera has a panorama feature that I really enjoy using. Here's the city of Tucson and the Catalina Mountain range shot through some of the Tucson mountains at a little rest spot before Wasson Peak:


And here's a closer-upper of the Old Pueblo from the same vantage point:

OK! Gotta go see Fantastic Mr. Fox for $1 at the cheap-o movie theater, yet another excellent feature of Tucson!