Serves: 6

Autumn is when we like to go away. The hectic holiday season is over; beaches and restaurants all around the Med are empty of us sun-crazed Northerners; the sun, who has mostly exhausted her heat in the summer, is now kinder, more gentle. This is when everyone without kids in school goes away, so we board a plane to a Mediterranean shore with the very young, the retired and the gay. Our holidays are always flavoured with figs – late season, still warm from the summer sun.

We have strong memories of a tree on a rural road on a Greek island. It was laden with the most amazingly sweet figs, as many as you could stomach. We would drive there especially.

We remember tearing ourselves from work after an exhausting summer to head to the Balearic Islands. We were greeted in a hotel car park by a huge fig tree. We parked our little rental car in its shade and took our first bite of the summer – it was then and there that our holiday started.

We all have our little milestones in the year, those recurring events that make us pause and think. For us it’s always autumn, and it is always flavoured with figs. It is when the Jewish year starts; it is when the Day of Atonement falls; it is when we got married. All those sweet and serious life moments are connected by the honeyed sweetness, the resiny undertone, the giving flesh and the crunch of seeds in a fig.

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Ingredients

Name: Fig and feta pide
Yield: 6
Ingredients: For the dough 300g/10½oz/2¼ cups flour 1 tsp sugar 1 tsp salt ½ tsp freshly ground black pepper 1 tbsp nigella seeds a pinch of cayenne pepper 15g/½oz fresh yeast or 1 sachet (7g/¼oz) dried active yeast 1 tsp honey 150g/5¼oz/²⁄³ cup yogurt For the filling 100g/3½oz feta 50g/1¾oz/¼ cup yogurt ½ tsp dried oregano ½ tsp sumac (you could substitute with the zest of 1 lemon) For the toppings 1 green chilli 3 tbsp olive oil 6-8 figs (depending on their size) 1 small bag of washed baby spinach salt and freshly ground black pepper a few sprigs of fresh thyme or a pinch of dried oregano

For the dough

300g/10½oz/2¼ cups flour

1 tsp sugar

1 tsp salt

½ tsp freshly ground black pepper

1 tbsp nigella seeds

a pinch of cayenne pepper

15g/½oz fresh yeast or 1 sachet (7g/¼oz) dried active yeast

1 tsp honey

150g/5¼oz/²⁄³ cup yogurt

For the filling

100g/3½oz feta

50g/1¾oz/¼ cup yogurt

½ tsp dried oregano

½ tsp sumac (you could substitute with the zest of 1 lemon)

For the toppings

1 green chilli

3 tbsp olive oil

6-8 figs (depending on their size)

1 small bag of washed baby spinach

salt and freshly ground black pepper

a few sprigs of fresh thyme or a pinch of dried oregano