Gettin' Figgy Wit It

Such an influential miasma is the foodblogosphere.
Just when I was all involved with one blogger's fig jam, along came another blogger's tomato chutney.
As it happened, I was fresh off an experiment combining tomatoes and figs, and although that's not the happily-ever-after ending to today's story, it might explain how I wound up cooking a pot of fig chutney.
One more thing. I'm wallowing in a glut of recently harvested wild fennel seeds, and... well, you know how seedy figs are? And then there was that photo of the aromatic seeds swimming around in the tomato chutney... And.
So: Fig chutney. This is not a recipe (you know me better than that), this is just my notes.
Wash and cut figs into sixths. Cut up some onion into little, but still identifiable, chunks.
All right. Spoon a little honey into a saucepan. I used more than a little, because to me, figs taste like honey in a shell. Add a nice splash of wine to the honey (rosé happened to be on hand), and toss in the figs and onions. Warm it all up on low heat.
Now, start tinkering with flavors. I threw in fennel seeds, mustard seeds and black onion seeds. A little salt. A little more salt. A crack of black pepper. More Spanish sherry vinegar than I would have thought.
Taste, tinker. Taste, tinker.
Simmer, simmer, simmer.
An hour or so later, if it's to your liking (and the whole house smells divine), turn off the flame and let it cool.
This is not a heat-processed project; I'm still working up my courage for that. No, today, I just spooned the delicious goo into a clean jar and refrigerated it.
I'm going to slather it over a deconstructed chicken-potato curry. Kind of an un-stew. "Recipe" might follow; might not.