Summer time in Louisiana means high temperatures and hurricane season. With an early tropical storm in the Gulf, I was really starting to panic thinking about the amount of food in my freezer. Usually, I spend the Spring months cooking all the boudin and smoked sausage from the Best Stop we stock up on when we visit Basile, ducks from hunting season and shrimp we got a good deal on, but too much to eat in one evening. All of these items are certainly best fresh, but when you can score a stock pile of such fine eats, who am I to argue or be particular. Then there's that pork belly, my husband picked up at Emmett's in Harahan to make his porchetta, round two. There are even strawberries I put up before the Louisiana season passed to use in smoothies and now there are blueberries stored away for muffins and breads. We’ve come a long way in this country from where we were several decades ago.

Fresh figs were not something I grew up enjoying. Unlike my husband, whose mother had a huge fig tree in her yard, my exposure to figs was limited to preserves, dried figs, or fig newtons. As an adult I've been introduced to fresh figs and Italian fig cookies from Angelo Brocato's and fig and Creole cream cheese ice cream from the Creole Creamery—what a difference! We have a recipe for Italian Fig Cookies here.

My husband recalls climbing into the fig tree as a child to play and snack on fresh figs until he was so full he would fall asleep under the tree.