Monday, March 18, 2024

canoe + cook + craft: st. paddy’s day weekend

The best thing about all the mile swims and canoe paddles are the calories burned and thus the calories I can consume. Two Saturdays ago was cloudy. I thought I was late when I saw paddlers in the canoe, but that was the 8:30 open practice coming in.      

 
After practice, I consumed the rest of the ingredients for a hotpot...
...it was a belly buster of a bowl of Chinese sausage, tofu skins, chicken and cilantro wontons, bok choi, green onion, cilantro, garlic, seasoning sauce, oyster sauce and soy sauce. Prior to my next swimming and paddling session, I fueled up with an omelet of chorizo, cheddar cheese, green onion, cilantro, sour cream and lots of chipotle hot sauce. Rather than flip it, I broiled it to melt the cheese while also toasting an English muffin I lavished with lots of butter. Glorious.
And yesterday's practice included more stroke technique as well as some tempo work on a gorgeous sunshiny Saturday.
And the club had the most ever number of canoes in the water for practice: 6, and so 6 coaches plus 30 novice paddlers.
And no ceramics though I did stop by the studio to pick up the silicone flower molds and talked to Meral a bit. I decided to get a pedicure because I'm starting to wear flip flops to practice, and it was a good call for me as I got to sit in the massage chair as the nail tech was trimming my nails, pushing cuticles, sanding and buffing my calluses, and then massaging my calves and ankles and feet. It was so relaxing, and the bonus was sitting in ANOTHER massage chair as I waited for nail polish to dry.

And during these past rainy weekends, I’ve been window shopping home decor. I loved this turntable I saw at World Market.                                   
Nope, I ain't collecting vinyl again. And I admired these linen-covered storage boxes and this wicker basket at Target.
I ended up leaving the store only with Swiffer. I'm getting better at not buying yet more stuff.    

On St. Patrick's Day, I got up at 9:00 to pop my marinated lamb roast in a 275 F degree oven. I had used a Serious Eats recipe from Kenji Lopez Alt, but a similar slow-roasted boneless leg of lamb with mint gremolata from D'Artagnan looks even better because of the addition of thyme and orange zest and the green sauce. However, I can recall from memory the ingredients in the marinade/rub: garlic, shallots, anchovies, rosemary, lemon zest, red pepper flakes, salt, pepper, olive oil.     
Here's the roast after 2 hours, which could have done with 20 minutes less. I scraped off that crust I had rubbed on because I didn't want it to burn. And I let it rest for 30 minutes.
 
After resting, I put the lamb roast back into a 500 degree oven for 10 minutes. Not too burnt as I'd feared.
I flipped over the roast. It's beautiful to my eyes.
I drained the pan drippings, but couldn't find my thermometer. Cecilia lent me her thermometer and brought me an iced Irish coffee. Delicious!
I abandoned making a pan gravy and turned instead to the side dish I wanted to accompany the roast lamp. I made a pea puree from Recipe Tin Eats. I minced shallots, garlic and julienned fresh mint. I also had at the ready chicken broth and frozen petite peas. The recipe called for a lot of butter! Kerrygold to the rescue with what was left, almost 8 tablespoons to sauté the shallots and garlic.
I used probably too much broth and felt like I overcooked the peas, taking away from a more vibrant emerald color. However, the puree was delicious, and though the dish looks like baby food, the neighbors ate it up. I had lots of lamb leftover for dinner, and so I made a gravy with the pan drippings, mashed a potato and sautéed Swiss chard from the garden with minced shallots and garlic. Dinner success.

And this week I look forward to carving a kurinuki cup. I compressed and wedged a slab and then hollowed it out into a thick cup. 
I also admired Zan's snake pin and hope to make the same. And I've been looking online at other examples of kurinuki. These carved out boxes are GORGEOUS. I love their assymmetry...
...and I particularly like the textures on this box.
I've a bunch of white quart crystals that I think would make lovely knobs for these imperfect boxes. But let me not get ahead of myself. I want to make a cup first.
 
And I just bought a few glazes which are not especially interesting on a flat surface, but just may stand out on a bunch of different planes. And then I will make boxes which will not necessarily look like a cool chunk of rock though those are pretty too. 

Okay last but not least.
Fucking beautiful right? The epitome of wabi sabi.

Saturday, March 16, 2024

clay, cook, cloth: candelabra, cabbage, carryall

‘Dear March – Come in – / How glad I am – / I hoped for you before – / Put down your Hat – / You must have walked – / How out of Breath you are – / Dear March, how are you, and the Rest – / Did you leave Nature well – / Oh March, Come right upstairs with me – / I have so much to tell…’

Last Saturday was a whirlwind. Our last day of clay for the winter term. I continued work on my taper candleholder, which my clay mates said was looking very "Anthro," but haven't been taking any pictures of my progress and instead photographed Jessica's cute little shot cups.        
And the weather was so very dreary that I soaked beans from El Gordo and chopped fresh Savoy cabbage...
 
...baked chive and cheddar biscuits and cooked bean soup for dinner.
And I finished two zippered pouches.
And it's already the Saturday off from clay. More about canoeing to come.

Thursday, March 7, 2024

cook: winter vegetables and a calamari steak supper

Patrick’s garden has produced some beautiful produce as well as tulips and daffodils for my vases.                 
One night, I roasted the broccoli and cauliflower. I just drizzled olive oil and sprinkled sea salt on top and then into a 425 degree oven for 20 minutes until it browned and caramelized a teeny bit.    
The roasted vegetables accompanied a calamari steak dinner. I had defrosted calamari steaks and decided to simply bread them and make a beurre blanc sauce to drizzle on top of them, for which I found a recipe on the Costco site but can't find since though this person's recipe on primal wellness is exactly the same. I did not have panko breadcrumbs, and so I toasted and then pulsed in my Vitamix a couple slices of sourdough bread. I simmered the 1/4 cup Chardonnay (the rest of the 2 glasses which I sipped and drank with dinner), 1 and 1/2 tablespoons of lemon juice, finely chopped shallot and garlic as directed in the recipe...              
 
however, I did not have an immersion blender to emulsify and puree the sauce and instead drained the simmered aromatics and added the cold butter to the thin sauce. In the meantime, I boiled linguine and fettucine pasta and heated my stainless steel and cast iron pans for sautéing the alfredo and pan frying the calamari steaks.
 
It'd been a long while since I made a cream sauce, but I had ground a lot of garlic cloves and soaked the allium in Golden Mountain seasoning sauce and which I sautéed in butter before adding heavy whipping cream and grated Parmesan. I do not yet have the technique for making a smooth, creamy Alfredo sauce without it turning into a clump of cheese. I think this time I had not used enough cream for it to emulsify. 
 
On another night when Patrick grilled steak (the weather finally paused in its rain, so he could light some charcoal and also because our dog needed human vittles to eat with her kibble), I also chopped the Savoy cabbage and some red cabbage that I had in the fridge and decided to sauté in salted butter. I love the bright green and purple of these cabbages.
Hubs said I needed to cook the cabbage longer as it was a bit al dente for him, whereas I disagreed but said next time I will separate the stem from the leaves and cook it earlier in order for it to soften. To each his or her own opinion.

Wednesday, March 6, 2024

clay: low fire crystal glaze

Some years ago I bought this low fire crystal glaze, I was disappointed when I first tried it. I didn't get this beautiful "patriarch" purple, which is what Wikipedia terms this reddish purple.                     
The result was instead blue with splotches of orange and a little yellow and white without any crystalline effect. And so when I cast some clay into plaster mold to make a carp, I thought I'd try the glaze again. But I got the same result.
I like it though. It's pretty even though the effect was a Cone 6 instead of the Cone 06 I expected. 
I swear though that I put it through a low fire kiln. And so let me try again because maybe it did get put accidentally on the midfire shelf.

Sunday, March 3, 2024

clay + cook: pin gifting + refrigerator clean-out

I spent a short weekday afternoon adhering epoxy to the back of these pins that I'm giving to friends, and I'm so pleased at how they turned out.

This Sunday is the birthdays of two of the sweetest people I know: Michaela and Nicole. And of course, they're animal people.  
See? The warmest women I know. They posted this pic after I had left their birthday cards and presents at the computer behind the circulation desk at our library. 

No outrigger canoe paddling because of 17 mph winds, and I hadn't scheduled myself to swim. And so I spent Saturday morning making tuna salad to eat the hot dog buns in the pantry and then departed for the clay studio where I spent the afternoon making a candelabra and came straight home to avoid the rain. In order to not go out grocery shopping and face rain, I cooked fried rice, integrating leftovers for dinner. I wasn't even willing to get wet in the rain for a bottle of my favorite Chardonnay. Instead I squeezed a bunch of oranges and made, not a Negroni and not an Orange Campari, but a combination of the two drinks with lots of fresh squeezed orange juice (probably 6 parts), one part Campari, one part sweet vermouth, one part gin. Next time I'll remember to add sparkling blood orange-flavored soda.                                
 
I combined leftover orange chicken with leftover brown rice, took out what was left of frozen green peas, chopped a yellow onion and couple cloves of garlic, chopped celery and carrots and scallions, and sliced a few Chinese sausage. 
 
I sauteed the onions, carrot, and celery for five minutes until softened and then added the Chinese sausage for a couple minutes. And then the brown rice and sausage and the sauces of oyster sauce, soy sauce, cooking sake, and sesame oil. And oh boy, the fried rice was pretty soggy.
 
I tried to dry out the dish and let a brown crust develop on the bottom. And I fried a couple eggs before plating and then topping the rice with the egg and then sprinkled chopped green onion.
Sunday morning was sunny and clear and my mile swim felt great. When I came home, I got rid of more leftovers by making myself a pita sandwich. I had lamb and chicken kabob in the freezer which I fried and lemon hummus and tzatziki in the fridge to spread on the pita. Add some chopped red onion, romaine lettuce and tomato. All made for an awesome Sunday brunch.
Earlier in the week, I had gathered a mini bouquet ($3.99), a bouquet of Dotties ($4.99) and bouquet filler of greenery ($3.99). 
This morning at Safeway, I noticed these moon cacti. I've a couple of these and wonder if they'll ever bloom like these in the grocery store nursery.
I'll need to ask Annemarie who gave me this cacti as well as a bunch of other succulents. I spent the majority of my Sunday sewing pouches.
I finally figured that the most efficient way to sew these pouches is to cut the fabric, backing or interfacing and lining and then have them all basted together for installing a zipper. And so I have a stack of 5 pouches for which I need to buy more zippers and 3 with zippers pinned on, ready for changing my walking foot to a zipper foot on my sewing machine to complete.