cook: chilean sea bass with beurre blanc, mushy peas and roasted broccoli

Last week I finally defrosted the Chilean sea bass in my freezer. Patagonian tooth fish is incredibly buttery and delicious, and I decided to amp up its buttery flavor with a beurre blanc after searing it on all sides for six minutes total as it was a thick filet, but I let the butter afterward get too browned. The fish tasted good though with the addition of lemon zest, lemon juice, shallot, and capers. For the mushy peas, I added a couple cloves of garlic to boiling water for a few minutes and then boiled the peas in the water for another 3 minutes, drained it, and then whirred it with a knob of butter and a big dollop of sour cream. I loved it as it was sweet though still savory. I simply roasted the freshly harvested broccoli.                  

I love a fish dinner, but have been hungry still after dinner and snacking therefore on loaded nachos instead of a dessert.                                

And my lunches over the weekend were huge bowls of poke with California or salmon sushi rolls.                     

I probably need to not eat so much fish higher up on the food chain because I’m probably also consuming a lot of mercury.
 

cook: pickle-brined fried chicken thigh sandwich

This weekend’s cooking project, I knew was going to be fried chicken thighs. I found a recipe in the Food & Wine website for a pickle-brined fried chicken sandwich. I marinated the thighs Sunday morning.                  

I had a sneaking feeling I should’ve used less salt or even no salt as there was enough in the pickle brine. And after I drained the brine, I soaked it in leftover lemon dill yogurt on which I top on gyros normally because I didn’t have buttermilk. And the breading was two cups flour, 1/4 cup cornstarch, black pepper and more salt! Next time I’m omitting salt completely because it can be sprinkled on after cooking. Lesson learned. The frying came out a beautiful golden brown.              

But I put a LOT of lettuce and tomato in the sandwich to balance out all the salt.

clay: candelabra continued

A couple weekends ago, my friend, Donna said not to add anything more to my candelabra, but un arbol de vida needs to have more life if it’s to be just that kind of tree.                                

And so I added vines and more leaves. I think 5 flowers are enough, but definitely it needed more foliage. Already some of the vines crumbled off as the clay dried. I've a feeling, I'll need to either create more vines to attach this Saturday, and if I do that, I might well add more leaves with more armature wire. Fingers crossed that there won’t be more breakage.

The kiln gods also delivered my speckled buff planter. And next year, Meral and I aim to have a booth at this annual event.                     

Hubs thinks I should put in an application for this summer, but I told him I don't have enough wares. Next April I'll be well-stocked and I'm already focused on making tableware that is aligned to my preferred aesthetic of spare, simple, and wabi sabi. I want my plates and bowls to have a rustic beauty in the contrast between raw and glazed clay surface.                            

clay: test tiles + soap dish

Along with my pots, I pulled out test tiles of my new Coyote glazes. The Fire Opal is so pretty even if the color was not what I expected. More flesh than pink, but I do love the light pink mottling that is in the texture. For sure, one of the coupe plates needs to be this color.          

Sigh. This was a second test of this glaze. I had such high hopes for Floral Fantasy. Cone 5 may be too hot for this glaze. It's more like a light blue with flecks of ghastly bright orange, which is just not pretty as the test tile I had seen at the clay store.

Maybe it's boring and doesn't have the pizazz of an Archie Glaze, but I love the Baby Blue Satin. I like touching matte surfaces.

More tactile affection. I love, love, love this Seafoam Satin which is reminiscent of King Tut Turquoise with a matte clear over it.

I thought I was going to love, love, love this Gunmetal Green, but right now I'm thinking meh. Maybe I'll fall in love with it on a surface without texture so that the mottling isn't obscured by the texture. 

I needed a new soap dish because the abalone shell I was using has a hole, and I hate the leakage from it although I love it's iridescent, pearly interior. Hence, a sea-motif soap dish.

I used scrap clay at the Central Park, which is mostly Bmix and press-molded it from some wood forms and then added my favorite wave texture when I brought it home to smooth even more. I glazed the dish with a celadon called Downpour and brushed a little Colonial White on the waves. And yes I love that the dark blue pooled in the crevices. And wow does my soap dish seem big now that my jar of soap has shrunk.                              

However, I want to make things that are supremely utilitarian, and so soap dishes and storage crocks for butter, salt, spices, etc in addition to dinnerware of plates, bowls, and platters to come.

clay: planter (bandwidth)

Another pot commissioned by my neighbor, Cecilia for her nephew who liked another planter I had made with Obsidian clay. I’m calling this one, Bandwidth, as a nod to our hyper busy lives.                         

Masculine like my plates, but again imperfect. Hope he's okay with this pot and hope it fits the money plant that Cecilia wants to put in this pot.

clay: planter ( to the sky)

My neighbor, Cecilia commissioned two planter pots, and this is one of them.  

The planter is for her sister, whom Cecilia said likes happy colors. Clay body is Speckled Buff. Western low-fire lemon glaze, Western sky blue underglaze with a thin coat of clear matte. And Colonial White glaze on the rim. I had thought it not big enough for the money plant that Cecilia wants to plant in it. And then she sent me this.                                  

She says her sister really likes it:)

clay: dinnerware (eclipse)

I unloaded my dinnerware made from Obsidian (formerly Cassius Clay) this morning from the kiln, and I love, love, love them.

Each and every plate is different from the other. And I just measured the greenware plate, in its very moist stage, it measures 11.5" in diameter. Once bisque, glazed, and fired again, it measures 9.75" in diameter. Perfect amount of shrinkage IMO. They fit in my kitchen cupboard. 

I love that they look super modern, but also organic and handmade. Wabi sabi. Imperfect but beautiful in the eye of this beholder. I love the contrast between the black raw clay and mottled white glaze with black peeking through. I'm inclined to give this line a name, Eclipse because of that black perimeter. 

These plates took me forever to complete. Doesn't matter. I aim to make more. Right now I've churned out two white porcelain bisque plates and am thinking of a licorice glaze. You know for a line called Umbra.

clay: greenware candelabra

Last week I played with the extruder in the ceramics studio. I put in smooth red clay to squeeze out a hollowed out hexagonal tube. I didn’t put the die in straight, and so one wall of the tube was too thin and kept tearing. That’s okay as I want to think out what to do with that shape to make candlesticks. Something geometric and minimalist. But I finally extruded coils from which to form a mini tree of life candelabra.   

Luckily, I had watched a YouTube video of a Mexican artist hand build “un arbol de vida” in which she had the tree’s shape already drawn on canvas as a template for where to shape and join the coils. I did the same and had drawn three circles. I was frustrated AF last week on the construction as the clay was too soft and left the tree horizontally flat on a board wrapped in plastic. I had also rolled a slab and kept it slumped over a plaster mold for a bowl. And a week later, it leather hardened enough to construct or to mount the tree vertically onto its slab base. That second Saturday, I also slumped a mini slab bowl to attach at the top to hold a tea light candle. I also press molded flowers and leaves to attach to the candelabra, but I didn’t use armature wire. I’m wondering if my clay will be soft enough to use it like in the examples below.          

These candelabras made by Diana Fayt are muy fabuloso, but I’m not sure I like balls on mine. This example of birds on a wire is so adorable, and eventually I want to construct one as fanciful and elaborate but with a mermaid and fishes and a tree that looks like coral.                    

I also love the addition of fruit on the bird candelabra, and of course I’m gonna go in the direction of kelp and sea fans. Below is an example of the direction I am taking with my tea light holder.                           

Not digging the balls again as embellishment, but maybe I’ll make a braid of thinner coils to edge my tea light bowl and base. I do like also the idea of vining leaves. And a vine with leaves attached with armature wire entwined around my candelabra may be the direction, which makes me think of the opening of the limited series, Station Eleven,” in which the viewer sees that nature has won and is taking over a world man has almost destroyed: the edifice of a theater stage is overgrown by forest and feral hogs are grunting and rooting. I want that story too in my candelabra, and I’ll make its complement in two very simple and geometric straight forms or candlesticks. And coincidentally, this year’s conference theme for the National Council for Education of Ceramic Arts(NCECA)is “Fertile Ground.”

 

 

 

clay: spoons fail

I had loved some clay spoons my friend Zan had made and wanted to make some too.                                    

Look at that texture. I was so excited, but then I made my own version of kiln furniture that did not work. Not. At. All.          

Thankfully other pieces were not ruined, nor the kiln shelf, nor most importantly the kiln. I’m grateful and will use stilts next time. And so next post will be the reveal of my test tiles and plates and plant pots commissioned by Cecilia. And I’ve been on an eggs for dinner trend.            

Denver O’Brien potatoes with a poached egg above was followed a couple nights later by kimchi fry rice and spam with a fried egg. And I’m not digging these O’Brien potatoes from the freezer section of the grocery store versus homemade. And so the plan is to cook them up to fill breakfast burritos for a teacher gathering in a couple months. And ugh I’m hung over from drinking a whole bottle of Chardonnay the night before. Eggs Benedict to the rescue.

cook: huevos rancheros for a crowd

I didn't want to be too harried Galentine morning while cooking eggs, and so on the previous night I prepped sheet pans for huevos rancheros. And AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH, I forgot to lay down the tostada in the pan. And here I thought I was gonna be bad ass by having it all ready to pop in the oven. Here's what I did. I layered refried beans first on to the sheet pan with a sprinkling of fresh oregano. And wow, hubs said it smelled like chicken liver in my kitchen, and below kinda looks like chicken liver pate.

And then a layer of chorizo with some sprinklings of shredded Monterey Jack. The chorizo below came from my favorite Italian sausage maker, and so it was a lot meatier in texture than Mexican-made chorizo.

And then add the layer of ranchero sauce...

I decided to fry up the other Mexican chorizo for the breakfast burritos. I also cooked a soft scramble of ten eggs, heavy whipping cream, salt and pepper of course, and sprinklings of fresh Mexican oregano.

Let the burrito-making begin.

Lay down a line of ranchero sauce, then black beans, then scrambled egg, then chorizo, AND then roll.

I think I must've rolled at least 25 breakfast burritos last night.

If I ever decide to cater a breakfast, these burritos are certainly the way to make a lot of food ahead of time to just reheat the next day. Cecilia is happy that these will probably be leftover to eat for the rest of the week.  

On a Sunday morning, I slid tostada shells underneath the refried beans and then baked the whole shebang for close to an hour (too long in my opinion) before sliding the poached eggs atop the bean dip.                               

I lost one egg to the floor of the oven. Oh well. But all the eggs were gone at the end of the day, and so success. I never did pop the breakfast burritos in the oven and instead passed them out to close neighbors to put in their freezer and eat later.