Several years ago, before Cherub was born, I bought my mother a fig tree. For years she had longed for a tree like the one that grew in the backyard of the little house in Austin where she raised her two little girls. She always loved feeding me peeled figs when I was tiny and just beginning to enjoy my first tastes of real food. This was something she hoped to recreate with soon-to-be-born grandbabies. She needed a tree in the ground early, she told me, so the harvest would be ready when I got around to having one.
Ahh, how she forgot what a harvest she would have from just one, abundant tree. Now in its prime, at peak season, she picks five and six pounds of figs a day from that little tree.
The babies, that so recently mashed just-picked and peeled figs between soft pink gums, now grab branches and haul themselves up to climb to the places Demeter can’t reach. And she has lots and lots of figs.
I still love them.
When she visited, she brought me a couple of bottles of fig syrup. Because to make a moderate amount of syrup you need lots and lots of fruit.
I am more than a little grown up now, and I enjoy figs in all sorts of ways. Most recently in the form of a fig margarita. This margarita would be equally enchanting with fruit syrups of any kind (raspberry, certainly strawberry, peach). Just give some thought to what spices on the rim might marry best with the fruit you choose. This cocktail is all about celebrating a bounty in unexpected way.
Aggie Lane Margarita, makes one
For the rim:
