clay & cook: test bowl results & vietnamese cold noodle bowls

2-D main assignment done, I turned attention to ceramics and cooking this weekend. My test bowls emerged from the kiln.  

These two glazes are my favorites on Bmix, but either the dark clay has burned out the rutile, or I didn’t mix the glaze enough because the rutile is nonexistent.                    

I was hoping for less olive with this glaze. Meral says I may not have stirred the glaze enough, but I think I did. Again I think it's the dark clay.                                

I was hoping for more of the light speckled blue like I had on a Bmix spoon, and not the muddiness. Maybe it's the clay body?              

I do like the Waterfall Brown, but maybe I'll make more Bmix plates and use this glaze on them. 

The glaze I expected to like the least was the one I liked the most. At Saturday clay, I underglazed lollipop designs on some bisque Bmix (my homage to Wayne Thiebaud). I also scored and slipped candleholders on to a base--construction of the candelabra finally done, I think I can adhere a rice paper decal on to the greenware or paint white underglaze on it. 

Cecilia said she wanted to eat something grilled which meant I grilled. We asked the neighbors to help gather the ingredients for Vietnamese noodle bowls. I volunteered bbq duty. I made a marinade from garden onions (I had no shallots), garlic, corn starch, palm sugar, fish sauce, Maggi, tamari and what was left of lemongrass. I had dissolved a teaspoon of baking soda into a half cup of water and soaked cubes of pork in the mixture for 15 minutes before rinsing and draining.          

 

I ground the onions with the rest of the ingredients in my mortar and pestle and then added to the pork to marinade all day before grilling on a Saturday night. 

A lot of running around and prepping that I forgot to set out the pickled daikon and carrots along with the rice noodles, cilantro, mint, lettuce, cucumbers, ground peanuts, and a fish sauce and lime juice dressing. I then stood at the grill for an hour, turning and letting pork get too blackened and shrimp come out perfectly cooked. Too tired to even post a pic of neighbors eating the final concoction.

 

But the leftovers and with the remembered do chua or pickled daikon and carrot on late Sunday morning along with an icy coke was my very decent brunch. I did a little grocery shopping and bought more lemon grass. I didn't but this chile verde, but it's giving me ideas of what to do with the big can of green chile I had in the fridge. I found rapini or broccoli rabe at Crystal Springs Produce Market for  the roli roti porchetta that had been in my freezer that I finally cooked. Oh gawd, the pork smelled like barnyard and stunk up my house until it finally smelled like roast pork. 

 

Never buying that product at Costco again, and on Cecilia's bread, it should have been an open-faced sandwich.

I also finally transplanted and made some mini succulent gardens in my handmade pots.

I need to remember to pick up some smooth rocks at the craft store to finish these wares for a Mother's Day popup sale at the clay studio. Some of the succulents were dead or a bit worst for wear from the heavy rains that drowned them and gusty winds from the atmosphere river this past month. And then exposure to glaring sun. My hens and chicks are blush now because of too much sun. I should run to Golden Nursery for some variety. But the little pots with 3 different succs  look so cute. I've got to remember to make the scrap clay pots a bit deeper. I am tempted to bring my wooden garden table just for selling my plants, so that I don't dirty up the tablecloths on which all the other pottery will be displayed. I should get rid of the odd one-off pottery at the sale. Maybe I'll even set out my cocktail and whiskey cups that will come with a free zine of cocktail recipes.