Ceramics: Mug Retrospective

While at Arrowmont, I drank my coffee, iced tea, water from as many different vessels on display and for use in the dining room.  I would feel each cup's heft in my hand and examine it for all its charming details, which I vowed to reference and re-create in my own hands once I returned to California.  Some of my re-creations were utter failures, especially because I used reclaimed clay for each one which sometimes leads to unpredictable and not so pretty results.  Below, however, are the ones I am fond of.

I call this one my Form and Function cup, where I started to make a handle to resemble brass knuckles and played with a pouncer and underglazes to make geometric shapes in my favorite color palette from modern quilting and of course, had to include text.

This one I kept even though I dislike it because I want to remember to repeat the technique of leaving parts of speckled buff unglazed whose rough surface is so pretty in contrast to the white gloss.  Next time I plan to use tape resist on the flat slab to get a cleaner line and maybe just use the texture roller on the bottom.

A lot of the mugs I've sold have this wave surface I make from a commercial texture roller, and it contains my favorite Isak Dinesen quote (“The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears or the sea.").  I'll make more of these sea mugs because I love 'em so much and continue to refine my underglazing of light blue, sky blue, royal blue, and marine blue.

With these two mugs I played with stencils.  I pounced the color on this reclaimed Bmix with a little bit of Sculpture and a tiny bit of Speckled Buff slab in the body when the clay was not so soft, but more suede in order for the color to not smear and then dry enough to leatherhard in order to construct the cup.  It's all about timing and curbing impatience.  I'll probably price these two mugs kind of high because I like them so much and sometimes feel unsure that I can repeat the sharpness of detail.  I'm also thinking too of adhering decals on them.

Cooking: Shrimp and Grits

During my stint at Arrowmont in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, I ate shrimp and grits for the first time.  I love Southern food and remember my first time eating an oyster po'boy, but that'll be for another post.  And so I found Bobby Flay's recipe.  It's awfully rich.  The key to cooking for me is the mise en place, and so I prepped all the ingredients beforehand:  peeled and de-veined shrimp, minced garlic and chopped scallions and bacon, grated cheddar cheese, butter and stone ground grits or polenta.  I forgot to have the 4 teaspoons of lemon juice ready, and such unctuousness really needs that hit of acid.

First, I sauteed the chopped bacon until crisp and drained off the fat except for a tablespoon.

Next I boiled 4 cups of water, poured in the grits, and kept whisking until the water was absorbed about 20 to 25 minutes.

Next I added the butter and grated cheddar cheese, still whisking furiously.

Once the butter and cheese are incorporated into the grits, I set it aside.

In the reserved bacon grease, I added the garlic and shrimp and cook for 3 minutes.  Not only did I forget to have lemon juice ready, I should have also added the white parts of the scallions at this stage too.

I had poured the cooked grits into a casserole dish already and then topped it with the cooked shrimp, which I probably should have cooked for a minute less longer because the shrimp continues to cook in the residual heat of the pan and the grits.

I then topped the shrimp and grits with the crisped bacon and chopped scallions.  We squeezed lemon on the prepared dish, and next time I'll cook the whites of the scallion with the shrimp as well as the forgotten lemon juice and reserve the chopped green tops for the final dish to serve with additional lemon.  I'll make it again for sure, but shrimp and grits is one of those dishes I think we'll only eat once or twice a year because it's so decadent.  However, I'm now a fan of polenta and want to try it with braised short ribs in wine.