This flavorful brick belongs in a division closer to loaf than bread, but I don't think the word "loaf" is allowed inside Dean & DeLuca. Figs, walnuts, honey, and a little bit of spice press together to make a Fruit Roll-Up for adults, cut as thick as a New York strip. When I worked in a fancy food store, this was exactly the kind of product that we loved to find, but that sat on a shelf until we showed customers what to do with it.

Get your sharpest knife and cut thin strips about the size of a small cracker. What goes on a cheese plate — an assortment of fruit, nuts, maybe some honey, right? You've got figs, nuts, and honey right here; all you need is the right cheese, a very broad group in this case. I like to cut the top off of a small, gooey triple crème like La Tur and use a slice of fig bread, pungent and sweet with plenty of texture, as a scoop. The sharp flavor of an aged goat cheese pairs well with the nutty, baked fruit flavors of the bread, and likewise with a forceful blue cheese, which really highlights the fig.  Matter of fact, there isn't a cheese that won't react friendly with this bread; the above examples just taste the best. 

More than just the perfect cheese delivery device, you can shop off small hunks of fig bread to eat with lunch; even smaller pieces could dress up a spinach salad, sautéed green beans, or roasted hunks of fennel bulb. I've sliced little strips to bake into shortbread with mixed results, but slices of fig bread with honey and ricotta make an insanely easy dessert. 

If you or someone you love has celiac disease, this product might just change a life. One of my friends avoided cheese from the moment she was diagnosed with celiac, since she couldn't bare the thought of her favorite food group without a fresh, crusty baguette. Think about how ingrained those two things are in most of our minds. To her, cheese became "can't;" it meant agony. Now she brings fig bread along with her to any social gathering; it's her ice breaker, her hero, her little figgy rock.

Maggie Savarino Dutton is an industry veteran who has played bartender, sommelier and line cook and who now consults. She writes "Search & Distill," which appears every Wednesday in the Seattle Weekly, and maintains The Wine Offensive, her blog about wine, food, and anything else that might be discussed over the bar.

Photograph by Maggie Savarino Dutton, "Point of Purchase" photograph by Roadsidepictures via Flickr (Creative Commons), "Pantry" photograph by Áslaug Snorradóttir.