We have some parties under our belts and some coming up ahead of us, so I thought it might be nice to write a bit about one of my favorite appetizers. Hello stuffed figs wrapped with prosciutto, nice to meet you.

I can't think about figs without thinking of my friend Marianne. They are a quintessential late summer treat here in Virginia, and I can clearly remember her joy, one long-ago summer when we were first becoming friends, and another friend of ours named Shelly mentioned that she had a fig tree with more fruit than she knew what to do with. My next image in that filmstrip of memories is of a sun-warmed paper bag full of figs, bursting with sweetness.

Figs are decadent. Figs are sexy. They are lush and have texture. They are bold and unabashed. You either love them or you hate them, there's really no middle ground when it comes to figs.

Their season is short, a brief August window, during which I gobble up as many as I can in as many forms as I can. However this year my grocery store has been providing me with imports from California well into the fall. Figs are often, often paired with a salty ham like prosciutto to counterbalance their intense sweetness. Split down the middle, they can easily be stuffed with a soft cheese (goat cheese with honey makes a lovely filling) before warming in the oven.

For these figs, I choose a cheddar laced with chocolate (!).* The tang of the cheddar held the barest hint of cocoa, and it paired well with the heady honey sweetness of the figs. Once filled, wrap each fig in the thinnest prosciutto you can find and bake in a 375º oven until warm and the ham has browned and caramelized. Serve immediately.

Of course they're perfect just on their own too.

One of the things that Neel and I bemoan about living here in Norfolk is the lack of wide-open walking spaces. My Friday hikes that I take with my friend Tracy are wonderful, but they are, admittedly, a haul from home. We've been planning for the past several Sundays to get out there for a family hike and have yet to stir ourselves. On our heads be it. No excuses, really, just the distance. We really need to pull it together.

If I lived in Nantucket, I would do the Bluff Walk in Sconset every day, I think (as long as it wasn't raining sideways, of course!). Siasconset, or Sconset is a village on the eastern end of the island, about eight miles from Nantucket proper. The village was originally an outpost of small fishing shacks, built to house fishermen during the cod season, which fell in the spring and again in the fall. Eventually the fishing shacks, which were originally one-room, dirt floor dwellings with cooking done in the open air, were winterized and expanded as more and more fishermen began to live in them year round. Because building is hard, even today, on an island (Let me think how many times we have to run to The Home Depot during any given reno project!), additions to the shacks were made using bits and pieces found on the island (sometimes from wrecked ships). Many of these cottages still stand today, and when you see picture of a quintessential rose-covered Nantucket cottage, you're likely seeing a house in Sconset.

You can reach Sconset by bus, car or bike (80 miles of bike paths traverse the island), and the village itself has all the basic necessities: post office, church, shops, restaurants. It is very much a summer community, however, pleasantly away from the bustle of Nantucket proper, but the place clears out almost completely after Labor Day. It was practically a ghost town when we were there.

We took a walk on Thanksgiving. Jon stayed behind to tend the turkey, but Megan piled all of us and the kids into the car and drove us the short trip to the villiage. Walking the bluff is essentially walking in someone's backyard. The path we were on wound along the sea, offering glimpses of the sweeping Atlantic on one side and quaint, rambling cottages on the other. The sea is winning. The ocean is eating away at the bluff, so that once wide back yards are creeping closer to the beach. Someday all of Nantucket will slip back into the ocean, and nowhere is this more evident than in Sconset.

We walked...north I guess, with the ocean on our right... along the path. The view was breathtaking, perched as we were above the sea. I wondered if this was what it felt like to walk along the beaches of Scotland or Cornwall maybe. A thready path worn among the grass, the scrubby cliff falling away beside me. Everyone wandered up ahead, and of course I lingered behind, camera at my side. Megan put it to a vote. Did we want to walk all the way to the light house or go down now and back along the beach? I was intrigued by the light, but I lost. We were getting ready for dinner, I suppose. The steps are private, but in the winter it must not matter as much. The beach walk was stunningly beautiful, with coarse sand that made it a bit of a hard go. By the time we got back to the village, the sun was slipping down.

Time to go.

figgy, not pudding {life}

bluff walk {life}