Figs

Justy's Produce in Milwaukie has organic, pick-your-own Desert King figs!  At $2.99 a pound!  The season for figs is very short, and they are one of those fruits that inspire some serious devotion.  I happen to really love figs.  Jasper's not exactly a fearless eater, and I've noticed it really helps him if he feels like he really knows what a food is and where it comes from. And figs are interesting.  They are not exactly a fruit.  Inside a fig are hundreds of tiny flowers.  Tiny fig wasps are their pollinators. The female, after she lays her eggs inside the fig, dies and is digested by the fig. Male wasps live just long enough to mate with females and chew an escape hole for them.  Females coat themselves with pollen and fly off, finding another fig to crawl into to lay her eggs.  Many kinds of figs will not produce edible fruit without their corresponding species of fig wasp to pollinate them.  But Desert King will, so never fear, there are no dead wasps inside these figs!   The ripest ones are soft to the touch and drooping off their branches.  They are a gorgeous pink inside, and very sweet.