In Love with France, At Home In Italy

What is that woman cradling in her arms ? A few more baskets of our plums, and the tree is still full! Now what ? This has got to be a new chapter in the TOO MANY???? (INSERT FRUIT OF THE MOMENT HERE) series I began last year.(see post  ACRES OF PLUMS!:NOW WHAT? from March 2011 and also TOO MANY PLUMS from August 2011)   FIRST, TOO MANY PEARS Well, this year we got a heads-up when the pears started pouring in. I did my usual lazy woman's project of cooking them slowly with a bit of sugar and lemon peel, which turned them into a beautiful sauce. But with limited freezer space and a current canning phobia and limit to how much pear sauce can be eaten, that still left plenty. Unfortunately, my neighbor in the States who made a cameo appearance in the previous "Too Many Plums" post--D, the gourmet cook--is back in her own home. She would have been whipping this fruit into ambitious creations without missing a beat. Fortunately...

 In March, I put up a post called "ACRES OF PLUMS!:NOW WHAT?  Between last summer and this, while nobody was looking, the tree that supplied most of those gorgeous, rose-colored plums bit the dust. But not to worry. As you can see, the other plum tree, La Regina Claudia, with her yellow fruit beloved by so many Umbrians, went into overdrive. Here are this summer's royal plums, waiting for the Plum Fairy to wave her magic wand and do something with them....QUICKLY!   This is how they looked earlier, during their branch-busting phase. NEXT ON THE "TOO MANY" HIT PARADE: TOO MANY PEARS Pears usually come in the fall, well after I have left, but these came in June--go figure! This is the little tree that sent me googling "too many pears" in search of what to do with this bounty. NEXT UP ON THE "TOO MANY" HIT PARADE:THE EARLY CROP OF FIGS (THIS YEAR, EXCEPTIONALLY EARLY)  In truth, the way I gobble up figs, it is ALMOST impossible to ...