Start now, enjoy later

This will start to be good about Christmas. It isn’t something you can whip up because unexpected company is arriving, you have to make it ahead and keep at it and after a couple of months it’s always ready to make dessert.

My enormous sealable jar became empty after a three year stint as a plum soaker. I bought a fifth of aged Cuban rum that is just too old and too rummy for my taste. I had a lunch party and lots of leftover fruits from it. It was magic. Everything pushed my pointy little head towards Rumtopf.

Since I took this photo I have added dried apricots. My peaches will be ripe in a few days and I will add lots of those. Through the autumn as fruits get rarer I will probably add more dried things, like those giant white grape raisins from Chile or currants and figs. The only things that should be added only outside the jar are citrus or other super juicy fruits.

It’s just fruit, brown sugar and rum. Every time you add fruit, add more brown sugar and rum, too. Don’t make it too sweet because you can always make it sweeter but it’s hard to make it less sweet.

I can serve this over plain cakes, panna cotta, custard, creamy cheeses, ice cream — who knows what else? I’ve already tasted it and it’s good!

Dinner out

The very last day of our very hottest heat wave, Paola, my friend, neighbor and walking partner, gave a dinner on her terrace. While we were eating the heat broke and went away, and was replaced with fresh breezes that felt frigid to our acclimated bodies. Here is how we ate, or most of it.

That is just the antipasto. WE wew expected to eat this and then eat an entire Italian meal as well! Everything is homemade or hopme grown, too. On that plate is a wedge of homegrown melon and a slice of prosciutto crudo; three crostini of which one is homemade patè, one a spread made of zucchine, and one a smooth tomato conserve; a fresh fig, and a pice of cheese made on the mountain behind us by one of our neighbors.

This is our first course, or primo. The taglerini are homemade and like silk in the mouth. The “sauce” is smoked salmon and zucchine, which recipe I will get from Paola and publish here later on. She is only last night returned from a driving vacation in Holland. This pasta was just delicious. Check back in a couple of days for the recipe. You won’t regret it.

There was a meat course of steak and pork cooked over a fire in an ancient villa that they own, but I had eaten too much and only ate the green beans and tomatoes that were served with them. And I’m sorry, but I forgot to photograph them, but it was too dark, anyway. Excuses. I blame it on my GPS.

Here, however, is a flash photo of the company.

You see Marcello’s back, then Amelia and last Paola. The other guests are invisible. It’s hard to say if any more nights will be warm enough to dine out, although last night I dined in a tiny piazza in the middle of the city with friends. It’s as always about 6 degrees warmer in town than it is out here in Barzotti.

Fruitful

I am wandering around the neighborhood photographing what is growing.  Here are two images.

Not ripe yet, but figs are coming

Peaches, tiny and green and not ready until 1 October

Plums and figs

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plum fig geranium

Figs are finished until September brings a second crop, if we are lucky. That’s why I was in a rush to make some Caramelized Fig and Lemon Conserve. That’s the big jar in the middle of the chorus line. I serve it with variously aged or not Pecorino cheeses as either an antipasto or sometimes dessert at home. It’s a slightly bitter sophisticated taste and not at all what some expect if you call it fig jam. It ain’t.

You can make any amount that makes sense to you by just dividing or multiplying the quantities below, but considering the length of time it cooks, it probably doesn’t make sense unless you are making at least a pound or half kilo of figs, because it would otherwise use too much fuel. Or, you could freeze the figs now and make the conserve when your wood stove or your oven are on more often. Recipes and more photos after the jump.