For seasoned urbanites, the half-hearted attitude is understandable. The first weekend of September typically sees the périph, or ring road, around Paris saturated with motor vehicles crawling along on a massive black belt of assembly-line highway. City axes, blissfully empty in August, once again fill with impatient drivers transporting into their central neighborhoods new cabinets or pots of spring-green paint to add fresh luster to their dwellings. Parents everywhere have emptied the school supply shelves in local supermarkets with dizzying speed, and at closing time, all that’s left in the shops are aisles littered with fallen Chipie and Cacharel notebooks, their tiny flowered or plaid covers abandoned on the floor. All the back-to-school commotion is enough to provoke a bit of indifference in the month of September.
 
 But wait! There’s reason for unbridled enthusiasm during this rentrée. Parisians who formerly congested the roadways in outdated Renaults are now getting around on two wheels, thanks to the easy Vélib city bike program. For those of us who already traveled by bicycle, Paris smells a little greener: is there really, as the mayor’s figures indicate, less pollution than the last few years? At the market, everyone’s favorite merchants have returned: no more gaps in between stalls, or disappointment because my cherished chicken butcher isn’t there. If I can just manage to get up to Place des Fêtes before the eleven o’clock rush on Sunday, the lines are short and sweet. The sidewalks aren’t quite as crowded as I imagined they’d be upon everyone’s reverse exodus to Paris. Rather than fighting my way through the stream of bodies flowing in the opposite direction, the trajectory through them feels effortless and even pleasantly reassuring. My steps feel light and forgiving as I glide further uphill into the depths of more distant neighborhoods. With Paris feeling so fresh, it seems more than appropriate that figs, the fruit symbolizing renewal and and initiation, are just coming into season during the back-to-school period.
 
 The inhabitants of ancient Corinth apparently saw the world with a little less naïveté than I do at the moment. With a bit of business cunning, they allegedly sold their grapes to the Venetians for full price after having mixed into the basket a far cheaper ingredient: figs. Hence the expression in French, mi-figue, mi-raisin, which connotes a lukewarm attitude. But figs inspire everything but apathy. In addition to their association with Dionysis, god of renewal, figs also represent, according to various cultures, fertility, abundance, and faith. Although more than 700 varieties grace our planet, small violet figs are the juiciest, and we find them here from the end of August to the end of September. White figs (actually light green in color) are more common in the Loire valley and other rural areas of France, but in my opinion aren’t as tasty – they’re missing that distinctive, mellow fig flavor.
 
 In French, we like to say that figs are energétique, meaning that they contain the kind of sugars that release slowly into the body’s metabolism, which is probably why Plato called figs a food for athletes. With a school day that lasts from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., we should probably consider French school children as the best kinds of athletes. After their long day, stooped kids trudge home, weighed down with a backpack whose caliber resembles that of a circus pony. Prompted by reports of child scoliosis, parents have begun buying rolling book bags for their offspring, and now children leave school looking as if they’re on their way to Roissy airport. But once those kids finally make it home, a healthy fig snack will provide plenty of energy for their extra-curricular activities.
 
 Any school-age Parisian who feels the least bit half-hearted about la rentrée obviously hasn’t learned about all the activities available in the city. In eastern Paris alone, kids can participate in workshops to learn hip-hop dance, slam poetry, magic tricks, juggling, the accordeon, or architecture. Other activities in the city include fashion design, philosophy, theatre, or language courses. And all around Paris, while some 14,000 children are waiting for papa or maman to pick them up from after-school day care, they’ll munch on a balanced snack while developing and stimulating their tiny taste buds. Also under the guidance of Dominique Pierrelée, who works for the city of Paris, a "Taste, cooking, and diet" resource center will be opening soon, to continue educating young palates. La Boutique jaune, or the Yellow store in Montreuil offers culinary workshops in English, or if you’d like to cook in Italian with kids and discover the country’s specialties, head down to Polimnia in the 13th for Cuochi in erba. Or, even better, plan ahead for a birthday party: the cité de l’Architecture offers kids the opportunity to construct their own fully-edible gâteau-château with meringue bricks, powdered sugar cement, or almond tiles for the roof. And for the most enthusiastic young builders, why not negotiate a fig turret?

There’s just no good reason to go through September with a half-fig, half-grape attitude, so in this recipe you’ll find only whole-hearted figs, glorious both fresh and dried. But with la rentrée period heaving itself upon Paris like those eight-kilo bookbags the kids wear, no-fuss recipes are the order of the day. It really just doesn’t get any easier than this.

Late summer figs are the best – they’re the juiciest, and the summer sun has concentrated the fruit’s natural sugars. Here, you get the best of both worlds: fresh figs’ pulpy insides lend a slightly smoky flavor to the dessert, and pleasantly gritty dried figs give texture to this not-too-sweet dessert. Figs deteriorate quickly, so buy them the same day you plan on using them. But who’d want to wait to eat ’em? Certainly not the enthusiastic poet Paul Valéry, who once said, "You may deprive me of anything you like except coffee, cigarettes, and figs."

ingredients:

 5 dried figs (5 oz. or 125g)
 2 tsp. white tea (or two tea bags)
 5 fresh figs (10 oz. or 280g)
 ½ cup ricotta cheese (150g)
 ¼ cup plain yogurt (65g)
 ½ cup crushed pecan sandies or other nutty cookies (about 50g)

how to make it:

Steep the white tea (or bags) in 2 cups hot water for about ten minutes. Strain, and pour the tea over the dried figs. Let them macerate for about five minutes, then drain well. Dice the macerated dried figs, and mix well with ricotta and yogurt. Quickly rinse the fresh figs, and dry them well, blotting gently. Starting at the top, slice the fresh figs into fine, horizontal rounds, less than ¼-inch thick, or as thin as you can.

Line small ring molds or ramekins with the fig slices, making sure to overlap the slices so that there are no gaps. I usually start by pressing slices along the sides of the mold, and then I cover the bottom, making sure that the slices on the bottom turn up and overlap onto the sides just a little. Fill the interior about half way up the sides with the ricotta mixture, and then sprinkle in a tablespoon or two of the crushed cookies, making sure to reserve some of the cookie crumbs for the decoration. Then fill the mold the rest of the way up, and press well with the back of a spoon. Film the tops and refrigerate for at least a half hour. When ready to serve, run a small knife around the sides of the mold, or dip the ramekins into a small bath of hot water – reversing the ramekin onto a plate with one swift movement should unmold it relatively easily. Sprinkle the top of the dessert with the remaining cookie crumbs and serve to hungry kids of all ages.

makes 3-6 individual desserts, depending on the mold