fig jam
When I reflect on the past three months, I taste fig jam with peanut butter on toasted bread.
On a Wednesday evening in early September, Tom bound home like a giddy golden retriever, with 6 kilos of soft figs in his backpack. Delight spread across his face as he thought of all the jam he was going to make and how he was going to approach the venture. We live in a small apartment with small pots, not large enough to fit 6 kilos of figs all at once. Bubbling figs splattered the wall. Two days later, we had ten jars of fig jam, a stick of parmesan cheese and a lemon in the fridge.
One of my most prevalent food memories growing up were microwaved frankfurters encased in a white wrap, slathered in ketchup. I can still feel the pale frankfurter juice spurt onto my hands as my butter knife tore the plastic wrapper. I would watch two sausages resting atop a stale wrap, rotating round and around. They spun slowly, until they would appear under pressure, sweat escaping out of their casing. I press the button to relive them from their misery, cooling them down with a spatter of ketchup. Rolling them up and tucking them in, gone in four, five, six bites. I pull on my leotard and tights, I’m late for ballet.
It’s now November and we’re on our final jar of fig jam. It’s seen us through from the warmth of an Indian Summer to the now, depths of Winter, almost through ‘til Christmas. It marks the ending note of a future memory. A memory sweet like jam and full like fruit, savoured in the minds of those who made it.
Ciao friends x
