Tuesday

Figs are relatively new to me, cooking with fresh figs anyhow.  Fresh figs are not something you would typically find up north. After moving here, a few years back a friend gave me some fresh figs and someone else suggested I could make a fig cake... which I had never heard of.  I found a recipe and made a fig cake and I remember it was a really awesome cake.  Time has a way of making a memory become fuzzy sometimes.  I remember making the cake and that it was really good, but that was the extent of my recollection of a fig cake.  Since that time I have tried a few times to grow a fig tree so I could have my own figs, but the cutter ants seemed to like to strip the leaves off before it ever got to the fruit stage.  Since our move here this time, I found a neighbor that has a fig tree hobby and he has offered to give me a couple fig trees, which got me wishing I could get my hands on some fresh figs to try my hand at a fig cake again.  Seems that Sophie, the original source of my figs, just happened to have some fresh figs ready to be picked and dropped off a container of fresh figs yesterday.  When they are freshly picked, they have to be used quickly.

I made a fig cake today.  It was every bit as awesome as I remembered.  I found a super easy recipe online... cause I have no idea where the recipe is that I used way back then. 

On another note we got a problem resolved today.  I was concerned that my dryer was taking too long to dry the clothes.  We investigated and found the dryer vent was a good place for birds to build nests.  We tried to clean out the vent, but there is a closet behind the washer/dryer area, which means the vent goes up and over the bedroom closet before it exits at second story level outside.  We decided that there were likely more nests in the vent than we were capable of getting to, because our efforts didn't improve the drying time.  The vent guy and his helper came this morning and cleaned all of the nests out of the vent... and there were a few.  He used a rotor rooter type tool and a really powerful blower which did the trick. After they left we went to the hardware store and bought a vent cover that has a mesh across the opening to keep the birds out.  I also did a test washload to run through the dryer, and it dried perfectly in half the time.