Fresh Fruit

My very, very favorite summer fresh fruit for desert for special people – i.e. me!

One of my favorite deserts is grilled figs with mascarpone cheese. Easy, peasy. Split the figs in half vertically. Mix twice as much honey as olive oil, or even 3:1. You only need a little for each fig. Heat the honey and olive oil until it is thin but not boiling. You want it to be syrupy. Stick a sprig of rosemary in each fig half, if you want. Dip the figs in the honey syrup and grill on your grill for a few minutes, then turn them and grill on the other side. The whole thing shouldn’t take more than perhaps a couple of minutes. Stand over them while they are grilling and watch. They will burn the second you leave. You want them to have grill marks and begin to sweeten up and get a tiny bit smoky. If you don’t have a grill, you can use a cast iron grill inside the kitchen, or roast in the oven. Grilling is best.

Now, take a package of mascarpone cheese and whip it with a tablespoon of rum or vanilla, and a dribble of honey left over from your earlier dipping. You can use a fork, a whisk, or some kind of inversion mixer. Do not use the blender, the texture comes out wrong.

Serve on a plate with 2 fig halves and a smear of cheese. Those people who say “I don’t like figs” or even “what’s a fig?” will likely come back for seconds. Keep that in mind when you are buying figs. You can also prepare peaches the same way, but you should peel them first.