My Favourite Things #2

While I like to shake up my breakfasts -- one day steel cut oatmeal, the next pumpernickel bread with a generous swab of that laughing cow cheese -- there's usually one constant. A dried fig.

Dried figs are nature's wonder food. They're nutritious, high in potassium, calcium, magnesium and iron, and are a good source of fibre. Figs are fat-free, sodium-free and cholesterol free.

There's pretty much nothing super fig can't do.

If you don't eat meat -- which I haven't for over ten years now -- you'll appreciate the consistency of the lowly fig. It's tough and chewy, kind of like I remember meat to be, but it rewards you with gooey sweetness inside.

I've stewed figs before -- usually with apricots, dates and apples -- but the dried fig can proudly stand alone.

The Bible is lousy with fig references, too. Everything from Adam and Eve cladding themselves in fig vines to my fave Song of Solomon.

So all hail the fig. Fave thing #2.