cook: grilled cheese+

Ugh, I've mold on both my loaf of sourdough bread and a new block of gruyere because of the heatwave overheating my bread drawer and too much moisture in my fridge. And so I took two slices of bread that were untouched by fuzz and scraped the blackish green soft off my hard cheese and decided to brunch on a grilled cheese. I grated Gruyere on one slice of bread and laid a slice of Emmenthaler on the other.

But I have to have a vegetable element in whatever I eat, and so I picked basil from the garden and sliced a supermarket tomato (Patrick predicts another week before he can harvest heirloom tomatoes) for a more flavorful grilled cheese.

I am trying to consume less sugar, but I so love an icy Coca Cola with a meal.

I function better on less carbs, and so my next brunch dish will be a hard boiled egg gratin to use up that gruyere and incorporate more vegetables into meals.

clay: a few answers from the kiln gods

I went to my other clay studio yesterday, but merely moistened what’s left of my dark clay (spoons? salt and pepper pots?) because I wasn’t quite satisfied with the glazes on my test pots. Meral said she loved the Majolica or white gloss glaze. I wish I had dipped the dish a second time because those thicker white spots must be where I touched up the marks from the tines of the tongs. Also I needed to fill in the hatch marks on the rim with white underglaze rather than relying on the overglaze to seep into them. However, that's the whole point of test tiles--to see what I like and adjust how I will glaze the 4 large platters and bowls I made. That Laguna W3 Brown sure fires dark--a lot like Aardvark's Obsidian.               

 

I liked the Ghost Blue glaze on the dark clay, but that won't be the plan for my next glazing. I wonder if I would've gotten the same stark effect if I had used a Bmix? I've 4 bisque rimmed bowls with the same kind of hatch marking, and if I glaze the platters in Copper Blue, I should probably adhere light blue underglaze and red in the hatch marks too.  

Below on the left, I glazed a test pot differently with both underglaze and overglaze, but did not see it on the shelf yet. Hopefully when I go to the studio today, I'll find it. I did love Christa's mug in the same dark clay so much that I look a picture of her whimsical piece. I love the detail of the eyebrows or rather the stylus ball pattern pressed into above the browline.

The whole crew that day added faces into their pots and made a nice family. I love the coils that Melissa added to her face pot.

I admired the Floating Blue on Melissa's other pot, and she let me take a picture for the sake of glaze memory. I loved the Copper Blue on my planter and wish there had been more red pooling on to it other than that dark spot I see. It's really fantastic, and so I may have to do another test pot with hatch marks to see if more of that copper or red shows up on bare surface.

Finally I took a picture of my maker's mark to send to one of the managers of the clay studio for their directory to identify work. 

And since I was in a quandary of what glaze to use on my plates and bowls, I left to organize my storage unit nearby. My IKEA shelves are not square, but it was stable enough for me to move it into the storage locker and start putting crap on it. I want to see what fabrics I have, and so I'll open and face out the boxes in order to pick and grab the fabrics as I sew them rather than buy even more fabric. I don't want to buy clear organization bins as I'm trying to be more minimalist and less consumerist--the shelves can look pretty and neat much later as I use up all that damn fabric. My goal is to use up all my stash before I retire from both my day job and perhaps from sewing hobby. Sheesh, will you look at all the fucking boxes?!? Too much, too much.

 

Once at home, I decompressed from my summer "job" by reading the latest issue of Food and Wine. There's a recipe in the summer issue on grilling for clam pizza.

And Cecilia just happens to be fermenting dough, and so the plan is to break out my Ooni and bake a clam pie or two. 

cook: cola asian pork ribs

I’ve had bao buns in my freezer that I felt compelled to use. And so I bought pork ribs on sale and shredded cabbage at the grocery store. Do you see where I’m going with these ingredients?              

 

I marinated the pork ribs in some of what was in this jar in my fridge, which I'm sure included soy sauce, oyster sauce, and brown sugar and maybe fish sauce in addition to that lemongrass and garlic.     

On the bone-in pork ribs, I rubbed a dry marinade of garlic powder, onion powder, brown sugar, salt, and black pepper. I covered it in plastic wrap and put it in the fridge until dinner time. Next time, I must remember to use Sichuan salt instead.

Before leaving for my swim, I mixed a wet marinade of 3 tablespoons of my lemongrass garlic sauce, 1 tablespoon of seasoning sauce, 2 tablespoons of soy sauce, and a mini can of cola and poured it over the ribs. 

I then covered the ribs, laying in that pool of marinade with aluminum foil and popped it into a 275 degree oven to roast, turning them over half way and removing the foil to cook off that liquid. There was still a lot of marinade at the end of the roasting, which I then simmered in a saucepot, made a broccoli banchan, and steamed jasmine rice. Told my husband dinner was warming in the oven and on the stovetop and bye! I went swimming. When I came home, I was starving and ate pieces of pork and mouthfuls of jasmine rice and broccoli. So much for fasting from 4 p.m. to 6 a.m. because of my small late dinner followed by red velvet cake for dessert! Patrick said he liked dinner because the meat was tender.       

Now I've leftovers to re-make into some other meal like my Filipino vegetable, pork and shrimp stew or bao buns with an Asian slaw--two meals from one afternoon of roasting a protein. And for lunch, I ate the rest of my leftover butternut squash thai red curry soup and a bit of the leftover broccoli as well as my favorite soft drink of choice, cola on ice.

And I went to yoga and meditation this morning and am free to do whatever I want for the rest of the day, whether it be the ceramics studio or going to my storage room to organize or hauling more stuff to the Goodwill and live a more minimalist life. I love summer break.

cloth and clay: working through sorrow and sadness

My heart hurts, and so I’m working through it by distracting myself being busy. I'd been fretting about my sweet girl who was dying and then crying and dying myself when we put her down. Ceramics and cooking as usual but without much joy, and cloth as comfort and moments of noticing beauty.  I took solace in stitching and paid a minute of attention to this monochromatic bouquet of pink and maroon flowers made by Patrick.                           

 

To my surprise I finished sandwiching this "No Shrinking Violets" quilt that I had started 5 years or so ago, but I still miss my girl terribly.

At Hakone Gardens, I noticed this plate of sashiko stitching and remembered it enough to reference it in a test tile plate I had glazed a few days ago.

 

I am also testing out the Ghost Blue and the Copper Red glazes on other hump pots I made and was charmed by this face cup I saw on the finished glazed pots at the "other" community studio. I'd like to make some more plates with those stitching lines and in Sashiko patterns. Time to re-visit those books on Japanese textiles at the public library.

I thought all the little faces I was spying were so cute and aim to make my own little face cups and vases.

On the cooking front, I made a Thai red curry butternut squash soup with all the scrips and scraps in my fridge and sadly ate it with the last of the Korean grilled chicken my girl hadn't finished though it was delicious because it's how I broke my fast.

On another night, I finally grilled some of the baby zucchini harvested by Patrick alongside salmon pinwheels from Trader Joe's and made a Caprese salad from supermarket tomatoes and Costco marinated mozzarella.

And turned once again to Trader Joe's for inspiration on what to cook for dinner. I almost bought one of these packages of pollo asado and then remembered I had chicken breasts in the freezer. And so weekday cooking plans will be chicken tacos made from said chicken breast marinated in achiote, cumin, kosher salt, black pepper, hot smoked paprika, Mexican oregano, lime and orange zest and juice and olive oil before barbecue grilling it and then enfolding it all in mashed avocado, white onion, cilantro, and lettuces for dinner sometime this week. I've also been pausing to admire the flowers that Patrick harvests and forages from the grounds of our condo complex.

 

It's Sunday. I'll be going to a Bollywood dance class and then lunch with Cecilia at the Filipino restaurant, Kuya, followed, I think, by a few hours at the clay studio. I've half a Kabocha squash in my fridge and will stop by the Filipino grocery store to pick up some long beans and shrimp to cook sometime this week Ginataang Kalabasa At Sitaw as well as preparing ahead the marinade for the aforementioned chicken tacos.

Yesterday at the parks and rec ceramics studio, I carved a Kurinuki box from a cube of Bmix scraps, put a glazed candelabra on the firing shelves, and then adhered underglazes to flowers on another candelabra--dark brown, medium brown, light brown, bright yellow, canary yellow, deep purple, tangerine sherbet, burnt pumpkin while deciding on other underglazes (orange, pink and red are the plans) while I think I will adhere chartreuse to the base. For overglazes, none on the deep purple, but Sarah's Satin clear on the base and other underglazes. I type all this lest I forget. At the other ceramics studio, I've still some brown (aka dark) clay, which I've still yet to decide what to make. I need to make another butter box template with tar paper because I keep forgetting to put it into my clay drawstring bag. Maybe I'll make another plate, but dinner or salad size. Or a cake plate. Or salad bowl.

clay vacation: a new studio and treasure island adventure

I impulsively became a member at another clay studio for the 3 months of my summer break. I will more than likely continue that membership during the school year even if I can't make the Monday through Friday open studio hours from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. and avail myself of the 6 p.m. to 9 p.m hours Monday through Friday instead during my work week as well as the weekend hours of 9 a.m. through 6 p.m. Whew! That was all for naught as I just learned that open studio hours change to accommodate corporate events and retreats and private clay instruction. Never mind, I'll figure out studio hours as I go. I inaugurated my new stint with 4 of these platters.

And made 4 rimmed bowls to coordinate with them. But instead of getting another bag of Laguna Brown, which appears more black than brown, I’d like to play with a bag of Laguna’s Red Velvet. But I’ll probably end up getting a bag of Bmix with grog and make planters glazed in the studio’s Copper Red, which is now what I want to adhere to these platters. 

It was a social Sunday with the husband to visit a friend who lives on Yerba Buena Island. We first drove to Treasure Island and started the day with lunch at Mersea with this view of the San Francisco skyline.

From Yerba Buena, there are spectacular views of the Bay Bridge entrance at the East Bay side...

 

...as well as opposite views of the Bay Bridge going west into San Francisco.

 

Our friend, Roseanne also had us walk the little park near her condominium and townhome and flats complex, where we took in more panoramic views of the East Bay as well as Hiroshi Sugimoto's sculpture, Point of Infinity.

 

Here's what I found about the structure from the San Francisco Arts Commission: 

“The concept of infinity is a human invention. The point of infinity is a paradox, but should it exist in the natural world, it must be in a faraway place beyond the edge of the universe, or maybe it is no more than an illusion born inside the human brain. Nonetheless, ever since its birth, the human race has persisted in seeing this illusion. We call it art.” explained artist Hiroshi Sugimoto. “The form of the sculpture is created from two converging hyperbolic curves that get closer and closer but never meet. In the material world, it is physically impossible to make a point that reaches all the way to infinity. What I can do, however, is suggest infinity by making an approximate point that can exist in the material world as a mathematically modeled structure with a 21-millimeter-wide tip.”

Starting at a width of 23 feet at the base, the sculpture rises to a height 69 feet (21 meters) and tapers to a diameter of 7/8 inch (21 millimeters). Eight glass fiber reinforced concrete panels compose the base of the sculpture to a height of 18 ½ feet, and then seamlessly transition to mirror-polished marine grade 316 stainless steel that rises another 50 ½ feet.

The sculpture acts as a monumental sundial, evoking the Tower of the Sun sculpture from the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition on Treasure Island. A stone marker will be placed in the plaza to mark the precise location of the noon shadow on the spring and autumnal equinoxes. While referencing the grandeur and innovation of the 1939 World’s Fair, Sugimoto’s sculpture is an elegant and contemplative reflection on the concept of time and humanity."

The views from the apex of Yerba Buena were spectacular that sunny Sunday.

      

And there still remains a military prescence in this Coast Guard station.

 

We also toured the townhome model and were not impressed with a 4 floor layout--even if we were young and agile, who wants to drag groceries from the basement garage up a flight of stairs and then climb another flight of stairs to the living room? However I did take note of this ceramic bowl on the dining room table.

    

Its shape is organic, and I love it and want to make my own version. 

And I may not re-create that texture or use gold luster, but I like the line work on this bowl. Here's a rooftop view from the townhome, and so you'd have to climb two flights of stairs from the kitchen to the rooftop to do your grilling. 

The views from all around on Yerba Buena and Treasure Island are lovely, and I'm glad our friend, Rosanne is loving her luxe life. She has worked hard for so many years, and it's wonderful to see her luxuriate in her hard won lifestyle. In the meantime, Patrick and I noodle around in our tiny condo, but I'm inspired to get rid of more stuff and get more minimal. Meals too have become simpler as my life revolves around the ceramic studio and quilting this summer, and I rely on salad noodle bowls for lunch or dinner.

And I'm just noticing now this tenmoku brown rim on my Japanese noodle bowl. I want to do that on my ceramics! Maybe I need to paint porcelain slip on my dark clay stoneware on which to adhere decal work and then edge it with tenmoku glaze. Yes! On those platters, one idea of glaze is the copper blue with tenmoku on the rim.