prosciutto wrapped figs

It's kinda funny to think I had sworn that I would never eat figs again!...hahahaha

I am the youngest of three, and as such my duty growing up was to climb on top of barns and chicken coops with the help of old wiggly ladders, and of course the loud direction of my fathers trombone-like voice, to pick just the right (as you probably guessed) figs, and apricots too.

The hard work wasn't what scared me, it was, well, the combination of my acute fear of heights and the fact that I am allergic to bees, bees tend to hover around fruit trees. And if this wasn't bad enough there was my mother's compulsive need to make jams, not for our family, but for an entire army even though we were a simple family of 5!

I remember the restaurant size steel pot, steaming up the kitchen during the already hot summer days, the sound of the simple sugar bubbling and popping, the smell of the fruit slowly taking over the humid air...quite a beautiful painted memory indeed!

I also remember asking my mom for strawberry jam, which happens to be my favorite, and I recall her answering " yes, just after we finish the apricot (or fig) jams I made". That usually didn't seem to bad, until I opened the cabinet and saw what to a child seemed like a million jars of the same homemade jam.  Though excessive they were nothing, I meam NOTHING, like Smucker's!!!! NOTHING LIKE IT AT ALL!

But now, 30 years have passed and what I wouldn't give to re-live those moments, what I wouldn't pay for my senses to experience  once again all of those overbaring sensations.  

And the figs, my grandfather's figs....my shaky knees climbing up rung by rung with my eyes shut tight worried I was going to fall....all of these memories come back every single time I cook with figs. They hold such a dear place in my heart....on pizzas, in salad or wrapped in prosciutto and grilled for a few minutes as in this appetizer. Such a nice balance of sweet and savory in each bite, an amazing combination of textures  that add such intrigue to a dish so simple... the mysteries, so to speak, behind every simple family.