Faster and faster

Eastside Road, October 18, 2011—

AFTER THE AL FRESCO feasts of the last couple of days, the Tuesday fast was welcome — but it turned out to be a fruit fast. No surprise: the garden and its orchard have been productive.

I couldn't help eating a fig from the neighbor's tree in the afternoon, for example, when we walked down past their house to get the mail; and that put Lindsey in mind of our own figs, a smaller variety, drier and more intense. There aren't many, but what there are are delicious, and they go nicely with the pears she salvages from among the windfalls: Comice and Duchesse d'Angoulême. Peeled to avoid bad spots, they are particularly delicious — I think pears should always be peeled.

In the afternoon I'd picked the first of the cannellini:

dry brown papery skins
inside, whiter than my bones,
cannellini beans