Extremely Loud and Incredibly Delicious

I'm not the type of person who usually cries while reading or watching a sad story. My mother on the other hand, rates sad movies or chick flicks by the amount of tissues she went through. Being a chick who doesn't tend to cry at movies is bad for two reasons 1) people think you're some sort of psychopath and 2) when you DO cry at a movie it is intense.

One of the very few movies/books I've felt that emotionally connected to is Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer. The story stars a nine year old boy named Oskar whose father died in the 9/11 attacks. While mourning his loss, Oskar finds a key that belonged to he father and adventures out to discover what it opens. I made the terrible mistake of watching the movie (before reading the book) while on a six hour flight from San Francisco to Orlando.

Between the absolutely gut wrenching, tear jerking moments there are glimmers of hope, vitality, naïvety, and love from Oskar. One of my favorite moments is when he first begins his key adventure and packs himself a basket full of essentials to take. “I put together a special field kit with some of the things I was going to need, like a Magnum flashlight, ChapStick, some fig newtons, plastic bags for important evidence and litter, my cell phone…” I find it absolutely endearing (and hilarious) that a nine year old believed that he could sustain himself on fig newtons alone.

On that note, I thought we'd make some.

What you'll need:

Fig Spread-
1 cup of dried figs
⅓ cup sugar
1½ cups water
Dough-
115g room temperature butter
½ cup white sugar
1 egg white
1 tsp vanilla essence
1½ cups plain flour

Instructions:

1. In a medium saucepan, place in the dried figs and cover with water. Let soak overnight.
2. The next day, pour in the sugar, bring to a simmer. 

3. Let it simmer until the the fig has become soft and breaks apart into a goopy paste.
4. Mix together the dough ingredients, wrap and chill for one hour.
5. Roll out the dough into a rectangle, and cut strips 5cm thick.
6. Scoop a tsp of fig paste onto one end of the dough strip and roll.
7. Bake for 10-15 minutes until starting to golden around the edges.

These fig newtons are so ooey gooey and delicious! Now you can cry your eyes out and enjoy a scrumptious treat while watching an incredibly powerful movie. Can you say "comfort food"?