Not as creamy as what is commonly known in US, or the German potato salad that my German friends from graduate school years used to make, but this one it brings out the fresh herbs’ taste and smell and uses sumac to give the tartness.

This salad is a staple for my mom’s picnics. She taught me how to make this salad, which really does not have a fixed recipe, just like any other salad. One thing that is very important is to make sure you peel and cut the potatoes when they are still steaming hot. Yes, it is painful. But you can make it less painful by using a chopping board. While you are doing this, you are making sure that potato absorb the oil and salt/sumac which makes it really delicious.

If you like to add mint, which would go well with this mix, beware that mint leaves will get dark as it waits.  So, your left over will not be as pretty as the first day.

• 2 lbs red potato
• 4 eggs
• 1/2 cup of olive oil
• 1 Tbs salt
• 2 Tbs sumac
• 3 – 4 stalks of green onion
• half a bunch of parsley

Put the potatoes and eggs in a big pot, cover with water and let boil until it is easy to put a fork in to the potatoes. Drain and fill the pot with cold water once more. This will not necessarily cool the potatoes immediately but help your hands not to burn. In the mean time, mix the olive oil, salt and sumac in a jar. Put a bit of it in a big bowl. As you peel and cut the potatoes in bite sizes, put them in the big bowl, coat well with the oil sumac mix. Do this until all the eggs and potato is finished, replenishing the oil mixture in the bowl as needed. Cut the green onion and parsley finely, add into the potato mix. Cover and refrigerate until cool.

Recently I have been seeing a lot of nuts/dried fruits imported from Turkey sold in Trader Joe’s; started with the dried apricots, later we were also buying the hazelnuts and pistachios grown in Turkey. Call me a nationalist, but whenever I see something made/grown in Turkey, I tend to favor those over the others, even the local grown ones. This time, it was the dried organic Smyrna figs. Sure enough a box went into my basket even though I had a box of dried Calimyrna figs at home. Similarities in the names of these figs have been in my mind, something to research on but I kept forgetting. I know Smyrna is the name of an ancient city where today’s Izmir (3rd largest city in Turkey) is located but where did Calimyrna come from?

Thanks to internet, this is what I found out: Figs are brought to America by the Spanish missionaries in 1575 and later, when they started growing those trees in San Diego, the name “mission figs” stuck with them. Later, they wanted to grow the best fig variety known in California. Those are the figs known as “sari lop” or “sari incir” (yellow fig) native to western Anatolia (Asia Minor.) They had a hard time pollinating them until a botanist realized the trick; they started to produce them in California naming this one as California + Smyrna = Calimyrna. Not sure what the complication that kept them from producing earlier, but the fig trees have gender. So, you need to have a male and a female fig tree for production. Kiwis are like that as well, but they are vines, not trees.

Now that I had those wonderful dried figs, I set out to make the easiest fig dessert ever. It is basically an instant jam; make a simple syrup, cook the figs in it. Never had it with mission black figs, not sure how they’d turn out but I assure you they did a good job with those Calimyrna figs; the taste is similar to the original.

• 2kg (about 4 lbs) dried Smryna figs
• 750 gr sugar
• 750 ml water

Cut the figs into small pieces (at least 6 – 8 pieces each.) In a heavy bottom stainless steel pot, heat mix water and sugar. When the simple syrup starts to boil, run the figs through cold water and immediately add them to the pot. Turn the heat down, cook the figs constantly stirring and also mashing them using wooden spoon. When all the water evaporated, transfer into a plastic container (not sure why, but my aunt always used plastic for this dessert. Might be because it is easier to spoon out of it.) Keep in the fridge.

This can be used as a filling in cookies (especially in the mamool cookies), spread on a toast or just as is.