cook: oyster supper

I used to hike and visit the oyster farms near Point Reyes National Seashore in my 20s. I mainly bought oysters from Johnson’s oyster farm in Drakes Bay or from the Tomales Bay Oyster company, both small or family owned operations. These days in my 50s, I order oysters from Hog Island Oysters, which purveys them not only from their farm in Marin but also in the Ferry Building in San Francisco. I won’t even trek the 15 miles north like I used to drive 45 miles to a bay for oysters like I did in my youth. My husband’s favorite oysters are the tiny ones like Miyagi or Hama Hama, but what was available comparable in size were the Salazars (small). I ordered 60–the smallest number I could order.      

Holy heck an order seemed like too many oysters. But I chucked 25 into a metal bowl to go into the fridge for the next evening meal. And put the other 35 into the sink under running water to further remove silt and sand and tiny bits of shell.              

Wanna know why oysters are so expensive or $3 a shot on a menu?!? Because they’re a lot of fucking work, that’s why! However, it was a labor of love. I do enjoy making a fancy dinner, and oysters definitely taste like a luxurious meal. I started with chopping a shallot very finely and mixing it with a 1/4 cup of rice wine vinegar and apple cider vinegar as well as an 1/8 teaspoon sugar and an 1/8 teaspoon sea salt and a 1/8 white pepper. Mignonette done.                

And then the super laborious shucking. Patrick watched me struggling with the first few oysters and asked if I wanted help. Nope I confidently replied, but he grabbed my other oyster knife and a towel and shucked one for my every five oysters. After a while, I find shucking easy peasy. I am a fisherman’s daughter after all.    

There’s ice beneath the oysters which went back into fridge while I toasted garlic bread and sautéed green beans in butter.                              

What’s not pictured are the additional condiments of horseradish and Louisiana hot sauce and wedges of Meyer lemon, which along with my mignonette sometimes seared my throat into coughing but made for a delicious slurp of creamy flesh and ocean…eating oysters is like swallowing delicious ocean.

Twas a mighty fine oyster dinner capped off by more wine and a hot apple blossom with vanilla ice cream.

cook: lemon pizza

I’d had dough gifted by Cecilia in my freezer for a couple months and spied the chevre in the refrigerator drawer earlier this week. Ah yes, one of my favorite white pizzas! Martha Stewart usually uses shaved parmesan, but I substituted goat for cow cheese. I didn’t want the pizza too bitter, and so I zested the Meyer lemon, which is softer and has more sugar than a cooking lemon like a Eureka, and then sliced into wheels and trimmed the white pith away. Next crumbled goat cheese and tiny thyme leaves. I had already parbaked the dough with lots of olive oil for 15 minutes and then back into the 400 F degree oven for another 15 more minutes to get hot and a little melty.                                  

My other favorite white pizza is garlic olive oil and shaved parmesan atop the same sourdough pizza crust popped into a hot oven to melt and crisp and then removed from the oven and immediately topped with salty prosciutto and baby arugula dressed in lemon juice and grated parmesan. The contrast between the hot bread and cool unctuous pork and crisp, tartly dressed greens is mind blowing delicious. Perhaps next week’s pizza will be another tomato less pie.

clay: designing a miniature ceramic water wall fountain

I woke up in the wee hour unable to sleep and watched YouTube videos of a pottery teacher making a tabletop fountain. And now I want to make one. However, I'm in love with minimalist forms and want something more of a water wall in a rectangular trough that is more Zen rather than ornately decorated and consisting of spouts in stacking bowls (though I may do that too). I was drawn to this image of a water curtain in my initial search for ideas. 

To miniaturize this, I suppose I would construct a 3-sided square hollow tube with holes  atop in which to snake a tube attached to a pump for water to come out of the holes and rain down into a trough full of pebbles. But I wonder if its trickling noise would be annoying. 

I had seen a ceramic fountain at the Palo Alto Clay and Glass Festival with a corrugated surface similar to the columns below in which the water reflected beautifully in the sunlight. 

I imagine I would make a trough and fill it with pebbles and the fountain pump for each column would be at the base and be hidden behind the column.

This black louver fountain is likewise cool.

I suppose I would make a square trough at the bottom to contain pebbles to hide the fountain pump. Then I would build a skinny rectangular cube in which to run the two tubes on opposite ends to pour water into a shallow trough at the top where water overflows down and across the wall. Would I need to angle one edge of that trough in order for the water to cascade over the ridged surface? I definitely would put that ridged texture in the middle of the hollow cube in which I think glaze would pool beautifully during the firing. And maybe I don't need the pebbles if the pump is behind the cube wall.

Or maybe since stairwells are another thing I want to build in clay, I make a fountain based on these slabs.

A stairstep fountain would easily hide a fountain pump, so maybe a pyramid fountain with ridges on its planes.

I'll start simple. Trough first. 

cook: saturday salmon supper

I stepped out into the garden before ceramics open studio and looked at my succulents. Oh yeah, I need to replace those ugly plastic pots.                

Once at the clay studio I found three shallow round pots into which to put more succulent shoots. Hey I could open a pop-up plant shop called roots + shoots! But until then I made three higher walled pots, at least 4” high in which to transplant those bigger plants. And then it was time to cook supper. When I was in Palm Springs, I had grilled my own favorite meal of salmon steaming and simmering in a compound butter—both the filets of fish and the butter I bought at the grocery outlet. Oh my gosh, my impromptu salmon dinner was so delish. And so that Saturday morning, I combined grated garlic, chopped shallot, onion powder, chopped thyme, basil, dill, chives, Meyer lemon zest and juice to make a compound butter (I'll have to tell Patrick to use the herbed butter on steak too). When I came home, I set up supper.                  

The frozen corn and broccoli also had come from the Grocery Outlet. I dressed the broccoli florets and stalks with olive oil and a sprinkling of sea salt and ditto with the frozen corn except butter instead of olive oil and generous sprinklings of black pepper too. For the salmon, I salted both sides and laid it skin side down on oiled aluminum foil with more basil leaves. And then that beautiful compound butter on top of the filets.                           

And oh my! I roasted the fish in the oven (400 degrees for both the broccoli and the salmon) for 15 (salmon) to 20 minutes (broccoli).                             

The corn I microwaved for 4 minutes though I should have put it in the oven too.                                

Patrick baked chocolate chip cookies, and I ate 3! I hardly ever eat that many sweets, but the Maldon salt makes the chocolate so scrumptious.

cook: trailer trash happy hour

In this pandemic, even 2 years later, I haven’t gone to a happy hour with friends in ages. And so I celebrated my end of workweek with Chardonnay and blue cheese dressing on sale and $5 Friday at Safeway (fried chicken breasts).                

And dang I didn’t even have Frank’s Red Hot to make it a proper Buffalo fried chicken.                  

But satisfying enough because I do like how Safeway fries their chicken at their hot deli. And I once enjoyed the fried chicken at Publix in Florida. I like little things in life like supermarket fried chicken.

clay: return to sea, return to routine, return road trip

I didn’t make it early enough to the clay studio today. And so from one slab of clay, I made these two sea mugs.                 

When pressed for time, I make a mug. And I didn’t put a handle on either of these cups, figuring some tea or coffee drinkers like to cup their drinking vessel between their hands. 

And I ate my usual hummus bowl for dinner. I had roasted yellow bell peppers a few nights ago, knowing I would put them in a Greek salad. I had one Persian cucumber and a couple tomatoes and red onion and a block of Greek feta, which I chopped and dressed with red wine vinegar, salt, and oregano. I omitted the olive oil because there was almost too much liquid from the vegetables, and besides I knew I was going to drizzle olive oil on the hummus with a yummy sprinkling of hot smoked paprika. I also used the last of the zhoug and shatta in my fridge. While I fried the Moroccan tofu, I toasted half a pita.

I so wanted to drink Chardonnay, but opted instead for lower alcohol in a Summer Shandy.

Baby steps on easing back from the booze. One of these days, I’ll get back to tee totaling. And here's another inspiration for hummus bowls.

I'm going to pick up some lamb kebab and more Persian cucumbers I think for this weekend's hummus plate.

I thought I was done with road trips after Palm Springs, but my brother with whom I reunited over Easter Saturday has invited me to Disneyland in early June. I told my brother no to Disneyland, but yes to me meeting up with him and his family for dinner after their day spent at the theme park. And so I'm returning to Southern California. Gardens will be the theme again of this trip after my visit to Sunnylands.

Last night I pondered how I was going to form a speckled buff planter after a glass sculpture called rooftop garden at the Palm Springs Art Museum. So I am looking forward to what will inspire me from another journey to those sunny climes.

cook: karaage chicken

I really should’ve gone to the gym after work on Monday, but opted instead to come home and cook. I had intended to cook Japanese fried chicken for Saturday supper, but the New York Times recipe called for marinating the chicken for 24 to 48 hours. And so we ate leftovers Saturday night at the same time, I mixed soy sauce, ground ginger, grated garlic, sugar, poured it over the chicken and popped it all into fridge for Monday evening.                  

I had also made a run to the grocery outlet and bought salmon and a marinated flap steak as well as these fun condiments.                      

I’ve no idea yet what to do with the truffle mayonnaise, but the wasabi sauce is compelling me to make a poke. On Monday afternoon, I combined a cup of potato starch with a 1/4 cup of corn starch, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and 1/2 teaspoon black pepper to dredge the marinated chicken.                    

I also rinsed a heaping cup of Jasmine brown rice and long grain white rice. 

 

And then I poured a 1 1/4 cup water into the rice pot. Let it come to a boil and then turn the heat to low and let the rice simmer for 15 minutes.

 

But I wasn't going to boil the rice until I started frying the chicken. Before cooking the starch and the proteins, I washed a couple of Persian cucumbers and sliced them on the mandolin. I salted the cucumber and while it rendered its water, I mixed rice wine vinegar, sugar, soy sauce for its pickling.

 

Before you pickle the cucumbers though, squeeze all the water well out of the vegetable (or is it a fruit because of all the seeds?).

 

Now that the pickles were done and in the fridge, I could start frying.

I ended up swapping out my medium sized cast iron frying pan for my little one because the recipe called for frying only 3 pieces at a time, and I wanted to not throw away so much cooking oil away after the frying. BUT to cook smaller batches means it will take FOREVER to finish frying. AND that was okay with me.

I quite enjoyed cooking this simple meal.

What I love about this frying method is how crisp the chicken remains after cooking.

 

And of course, I sipped sake all throughout the cooking and during the eating of this Japanese meal.

clay: autoceramicist

Last week I started an application for admission to the community college for an A.A. in studio art. I would love to eventually earn a B.F.A. in ceramics. If you know what an autodidact is, then I'm an autoceramicist in that I'm teaching myself ceramics though I have been enrolled in a couple of classes at community colleges and community studios. In the meantime, I practice the making and watch Great Pottery Throw Down. On Saturday en route to a family Easter brunch, I stopped at Clay People in Richmond. How could I not love this store right away when they've shelves with giveaways?

 

Unfortunately the bottles of slip were almost empty, but I did come away with these three pint bottles of glaze. I'm wondering if the cream matte will look good for plates. Once inside I took lots of pics of glazes to message to Meral....

    

And check out all the mason stains...yes clay is the way to my happy place.

Sigh. So many glazes, so little time. I think once I get rid of all my cloth, it's just gonna be a personal life of making clay.

 

I ended up buying the Dixon red clay with grog (I love its texture)for building my autobiographical bottle and a bag too of the Black Mountain for making Cone 10 plates. It fires to two different colors: the first is fired in oxidation and the second in reduction.  I looked longingly at this clay body called Death Valley.

I suppose I could spend a summer forming a bunch of these earthy plates and fire them in the winter.

  

And after a year of not seeing my brother, I got to re-connect and brought home leftover ham for this Easter dinner, a nostalgic taste of my childhood ham and tomato sandwiches.

I suppose I'm a bit bored with cooking and haven't been inspired in the kitchen and am back to cooking the same things over and over again, so that my brain space can be devoted to clay and cloth. This week's chicken dish will be Karaage. Stay tuned.