When life gives you leaves...

figuratively speaking

We planted a Black Mission Fig tree in our backyard during our inaugural fall in Oregon, the first step in a long journey to the top of my own personal hierarchy of needs (fresh fruit available in abundance). It’s slow growing, probably a few years away from producing meaningful amounts of fruit, but that doesn’t mean we can’t bask in its magnificent presence now.

It’s growing all sorts of lopsided — some staking intervention will hopefully help — but a rather large branch of its initial growth needs to be pruned. The ideal time for this is when the tree is dormant (helps minimize sweet sweet sap loss), but since this sizable section is already written off, I figured it couldn’t hurt to make use of the leaves destined for the compost pile.

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I love a particular type of novel ice cream flavor. Tomato, corn, carrot, bay leaf (RIP Kurt Farm Shop, iykyk) all stick out as notable examples of striking the right balance between originality and focus. I’m not a purist about anything, especially not ice cream, but it’s an interesting trend in preference. The idea of fig leaf ice cream was first planted in my mind by Portland’s very own Lovely’s Fifty Fifty — although I’ve never actually had the pleasure of tasting it the couple of times I’ve been. David Lebovitz remains the GOAT, and has a recipe for everything I seem to want to make. You may also remember him coming to the rescue for my adventures in lemon verbena ice cream making last summer, although to be honest… it’s not very hard to infuse custards; ice cream making is actually incredibly simple.

The leaves were remarkably fragrant while drying out in the oven / being grilled on a cast iron skillet — a familiar mixture of toasted coconut and vanilla, with subtle fig undertones. They say baking cookies is a great “make my house smell good” maneuver… a new challenger approaches.

This has got to be one of the best ice creams I’ve ever made. Had I not painstakingly assembled it with my own blood, sweat, and tears (lackadaisically warmed up various dairy products), I would have sworn it had toasted coconut in it. A really fun, nuanced scoop… I think I should make more ice cream???

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With ice cream down, I stumbled upon some interesting things other folks were doing, like these sugar and fig leaf chocolate chip cookies that both sound delectable. I took a few ideas from both recipes, as well as a butter infusion technique from my current go-to CCC to make some Frankenstein cookies with a couple fig leaf elements, including the fig leaf powder pictured above.

The first batch was really quite tasty, if moderately ugly, but I found that the chocolate overpowered the unique flavor of the leaf. I’m going to try and simplify to make a sort of chocolate “chipless” cookie, which is apparently all the rage right now.

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I’m probably the last person in the world who should be writing about cocktails as I virtually never make them… and when I do, it’s almost always a dirty sherry martini kind of dealio. But with our remaining leaves I decided to make a fig leaf infused simple syrup, and whip up a few drinks. In the first, a fig leaf gimlet, the typical simple syrup is replaced with this infused one. The second I’ve only mixed in my mind: a kind of fig leaf spritz, a few tablespoons of the syrup topped with prosecco. I’m sure a celebratory moment will arise before this syrup starts to turn.

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At this point I’m pretty fig leaf’d out, but I have a few more ideas for the next time we shape up this tree: panna cotta? Cheesecake? Cream puffs? Donuts? Life is full of possibilities.

In other news, I’ve finally started taking an intro to wheel ceramics class, as you’ve probably heard me talk about wanting to do for least 4 years now — please clap. It is… very difficult. I’m the opposite of whatever a natural is, but if any of the “blates”¹ I threw the other day turn out, perhaps I will show and tell with the group.

R

1. Bowl plates