‘Fig’uring out all the uses for summer’s fig bounty

“A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” – that reference dates me – but no way was that Brooklyn tree a California fig, nor could it be the majestic fig tree reaching heavenward directly across the street from me.
“I’ve been watching figs falling from that tree onto the sidewalk for two years,” my neighbor, Carol Bravo, told me. “And every time I’d go out there to get them, it’s been too late. There’s a litter of skunks that live out in the ba