clay + cook: dog days of summer

While most of the country and even Europe are suffering a heatwave, I'm not finding the temperatures unbearable here in the Bay Area though we're experiencing typical July heat with coastal fog as our natural air conditioning. I cool off in the pool in the heat of the day and still get Vitamin D while Sadie, too, enjoys laying in the sun.

I've been watching less television and consuming less content on my phone. Instead I've been trekking to the public library for more and more reading material or pluck and plink on my ukulele for my entertainment. I felt insulted the other night when Patrick said our home does not reflect any kind of design. I beg your pardon. There's some style in my condo, but okay I've been watching enough home improvement, construction and renovation shows to want to update our interiors but still reflect the way we live. I especially love the California laid-back aesthetic featured in the book below.

 

I thought the pale blue and sand colored walls in my condo would evoke relaxation and a West Coast vibe when we painted six years ago, but now even that's too much color. I've always liked white. White t-shirts, white cut-off jean shorts, white sundresses and white oxford shirts have always been my go-to outfits, and I'm going to make white walls my new go-to for inside my home. I’ll need to remember Benjamin Moore’s Simply White when it’s time to repaint our walls.

I’d also noticed another designer jumping on the design bandwagon of  white paint at Studio McGee. She even highlighted the same white paints on her website.                            

And I'm leaning toward that neutral in my pottery too. Below are the plates that came out of the kiln recently.

I love these plates, but I'm going to increase their functionality by making them a bit thicker and therefore be sturdier. While loading my green ware into the kiln, my eyeglasses dropped from my T-shirt onto a plate and broke it. Aaargh. I spend way too much time slumping these plates and waiting forever for them to dry in their tin molds that I’m going to buy a bag of plaster tomorrow and form hump molds. I’ll make one this week, bring the plaster cast and the plaster and maybe make another this Saturday either at home or in the community ceramics studio. The happy happening from this morning is that my butter dish is in the kiln along with the plate that survived my carelessness and two soap dishes. Zan takes off tomorrow for Port Townsend but returns next Tuesday while I’m in Cayucos and will fire my pieces while I’m gone.   

I'm trying not to buy groceries and therefore eat and clean out what's in the fridge before I'm gone next week. Today I utilized the leftover pork from bahn mi sandwiches into a rice noodle bowl and leftover pineapple into a piña colada. I bought a different brand of rice noodles from the Asian market, and the directions called for soaking the dry noodles in warm tap water for 60 minutes before using them in a stir fry or in soup. But they turned out a little too soft. I guess I should have not boiled them after soaking them. Trial and error. It's all good.

I like my noodles skinnier, and I've got to figure out a tastier sauce.

Our neighbor, Manny gave us two very lovely bottles of wine. I drank the La Crema and will probably save the other more expensive bottle for my birthday in October. The Sauvignon Blanc and the Rose are coming with me to the beach house along with this paperback book.

I've also got the Paris Apartment, an audio CD for the road trip and a pile of magazines to pore through. Still trying to figure out what craft project to bring.