We often bring together flavor components without knowing the form in which we wish to present them. We have been working with the combination of ricotta, honey and figs. The goal has been to bring harmony between ricotta and honey. The key is great cheese. We use Salvatore Brooklyn Ricotta. This product is like nothing else that we have ever experienced. It is as dense as mascarpone with a lighter feel on the palate and a lemony tang on the taste buds.
We coated the ricotta in a honey jelly. My mind went in two directions. The first thought was to create a fine film of honey around an orb of ricotta. The second approach was to set a sphere 
of ricotta in a cube of the honey jelly. We worked on both forms of the dish today. The final dish will incorporate at least one texture of figs. In our trials we worked through several preparations of the figs: frozen and shaved, compressed and pounded, and cut like a slice of pie. These figs help highlight the flavors of ricotta and honey.
Another new element to our repertoire which may or may not end up on the plate are brown mustard seeds cooked and glazed in balsamic vinegar. These tangy, spicy seeds worke well in our initial extrapolations although their inherent bitterness make their role in the final dish questionable.
Upon reflection, the thin skin of honey around the ricotta is most likely the direction we will be going in. Though, the orb of something set in a different translucent base will certainly be incorporated into an upcoming dish of a different flavor.
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