Allow me to wax poetic for a moment. The transition from summer to fall can be bittersweet. The days grow shorter and the light starts to change from the technicolor brights and bleached tones of summer to the richly shaded and muted colors of autumn. It rarely gets cold enough in SoCal to enjoy the coziness of thick sweaters and stormy evenings in, so I celebrate the more subtle cues of changing seasons. Trips to the farmer's market take on a little more urgency when the figs arrive. I always buy more than I can eat fresh.
Like a nip of amaro after a big meal eases the transition to night, my aim with this recipe is to provide a moment to digest the bounty of this all-too-brief shoulder season melding bitter and sweet to prepare the palette for the richer flavors of fall. This is a salad masquerading as a dessert for people who don't do dessert with rich, roasted figs and grapes offset by the intensely bitter radicchio and pulled together with walnut and saba or Balsamic vinegar.
I blended the toasted walnuts with a little water and honey to make something like vegan ricotta (inspired by a memory of a Matthew Kenney recipe for cashew ricotta) which I layer under the fruit so that you can slather a little bit on each bite. It may seem like a fussy step but helped me elicit an "oh, wow!" from my toughest taste tester.
My recipe asks you to use quite a bit of fruit to help use up any delicate pieces that might be nearing the end of their shelf life. It'll ensure that you have enough for abundant servings, but you can get away with a little less. If you have leftover fruit and walnut ricotta, use them to top some toasted sourdough for a delicious breakfast tartine, or spoon the fruit and roasting juice over yogurt or vanilla ice cream. Consider switching out some of the fruit for plums or pears which are also delicious in this dish.
A note on vinegar: I used saba here for its syrupy sweetness. It can easily be swapped out for a thick Balsamic vinegar or glaze. If what you have is standard Balsamic, you can get a similar effect by combining equal parts vinegar and honey. One tablespoon of each will yield a decent amount for 4 servings. —Joni Goldbach
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