Gettin' Figgy With It

(I'm sorry about the title of this post. Really. Sometimes I just cannot control myself.)

Fig season is pretty much over, which is always a sad occurrence for me every year. Fresh figs are my absolute favorite fruit (rivaled perhaps only by Rainier cherries), and their growing season always seems so short. They're such a tease. But I love them anyway, despite their coquettish ways. Imagine my joy when I discovered that my local grocer still has a precious few left in stock!

This weekend Joe was in town visiting from Philadelphia. I usually try to cook for him, since he evidently never does so for himself and I worry about him wasting away into nothingness (Joe, EAT SOMETHING), but this weekend for some reason all we ended up making were desserts. Sunday afternoon was devoted to the Daring Bakers challenge, coming to a blog near you at the end of October. Saturday night, though, while he watched the Purdue/Ohio State game, I made ice cream out of the fresh figs that still seem to be hanging on into autumn.

Of course, my first instinct was to turn to David Lebovitz, he of the most incredible ice cream recipes known to man. (Maybe a slight exaggeration. But they're always good.) His fig ice cream has surprisingly little cream in it. In fact, it's so overwhelmingly composed of fig that you can leave it out of the freezer and it won't exactly melt, it just kind of sits there. The plus side of that is that it doesn't freeze rock hard, but stays nice and soft. And because you can keep it in your freezer for as long as you like, your figginess doesn't have to end with the close of summer, but can last all year long. No more teasing.

Fresh Fig Ice Cream

• 2 lbs fresh figs (about 20)
• 1/2 c. water
• 1 lemon
• 3/4 c. of sugar
• 1 c. heavy cream
• 1/2 tsp. freshly squeezed lemon juice

Remove the hard stem ends from the figs, then cut each fig into 8 pieces. Put the figs in a medium, nonreactive suacepan with the water, and zest the lemon directly into the saucepan. Cover and cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, for about 8-1o minutes until the figs are tender. Remove the lid, add the sugar and continue to cook until it reaches a jam-like consistency. Remove from the heat and let cool to room temperature. Blend together with cream and lemon juice, chill in the fridge and then put in your ice cream maker per the manufacturer's instructions.