cook: homemade tortillas for brisket tacos

I love the breakfast tacos at Aptos St BBQ, and I had leftover brisket and pickled jalapenos and an unwillingness to run to the store to buy just flour tortillas. But I did save to my camera roll this recipe for homemade flour tortillas.

 

It was a pretty easy recipe though I wasn't sure if I got the mixture crumbly or sandy enough.

And maybe I should have kneaded the dough a bit more to be smoother. I chopped up the brisket and folded it in more hickory barbecue sauce and Valentina hot sauce.

 

I do have a large cast iron pizza pan that could have worked as a comal, but I opted instead to use my medium cast iron and got it ripping hot. I used a rolling pin and floured my counter in order to make the tortillas as thin as I could. The first tortilla, thank goodness, bubbled.

I think though I would have liked more bubbles and maybe a more hydrated dough, and so I started adding butter to the cooking tortillas in order to melt and make them more toothsome.

Not bad. I did halve the recipe to make 6 tortillas rather than 12.

Since we were eating brisket tacos for dinner instead of breakfast, I omitted the fried egg and opted to melt cheese before adding the brisket. And I added besides the pickled jalapenos, pickled radish as well as chopped red onion and cilantro. 

   

Hubs wanted cheddar while I wanted melted pepper jack. 

A runny fried egg would have been delicious, but I liked all the vegetables I added to a Mexican American taco dinner.

clay: pottery (birthday) party

On my actual birthday, I wanted to host a small group of family and friends in the community ceramics studio and teach them to hand build a mug.                                  

I liked that my brother who is in the trades, used the brick wall texture. His granddaughter (i.e., my grandniece) elicited an awww! when she said she wanted to inscribe something inspirational on her cup. I under glazed it in cerise pink and plan to use an underglaze black pen to draw a princess crown on her cup after it's bisque fired.

The other grandniece adhered something on her cup, which to me looks like a heart or a bunny head. I plan to draw a bunny face. And I love that my 90-something-year-old mother-in-law put the texture of waves and chose a glaze that will enhance that.

 

This abstract texture and leaf texture likewise will look great too.

I'll have to remember to tell my party guests that their mugs will be microwave- and dishwasher-safe.

I did suggest to a couple of the makers that I was going to add a another glaze. For example, Michaela said she wanted her daughter's pencil cup to be evocative of the ocean though she impressed a texture of leaves, and so I'll use a blue celadon and green glaze. Nicole's bird, I think will adhere Sky celadon too.

clay: celadon fern impressed mug

Clay Body: Bmix with Speckles

Glazes: New Celadon + Juicy Fruit (very runny and therefore a tiny rim dip); black underglaze in fern pressings

Method/Firing: Handbuilt & Ferns Pressing/Glaze pour and dip/Cone 6 

In addition to the top photo, the two photos below show the 3 different little ferns which I pressed into the clay before hand building the mug.

And one can see below that the Juicy Fruit runs a bit, and not wanting to ruin a kiln shelf despite all the kiln wash, I used very little.

 

I showed the cup to my Barbara, who liked the dark green irregular band at the top, the iron speckles in the clay and the evocation of nature. However, it is rather small. The making was so Zen that I will be hand building more, but bigger.

create: a zine about milky quartz

My friend, Cybil’s birthday is this Thursday, and I told her we gotta celebrate. And so I’m meeting her and her boyfriend at her favorite restaurant, Gourmet Haus Staudt, where I’ll treat her to dinner though I'll order me my usual berry cider or a POG sour and a schnitzel (wonder if I can sub out the fries for spaetzle). And then we'll repair to Fireside Books & More, where I'll bring my tarot deck and do a spread for Cybil. She can then open her presents from me: craft beers and a milky quartz crystal. In honor of her occasion, I hand wrote a zine about her new rock.    

As you can see below, I've a small collection of milky quartz rocks from which I'll let Cybil choose.

I searched online for this article on the magical properties of milky quartz.

I adore this Cone 10 lidded jar that Meral made, which didn't have a knob and had yet to be fired. I adhered a Rutile glaze which I love, love, love and looks apropo and even lovelier with a milky quartz finial (I adhered it with epoxy) in order to lift the lid.

I hope Cybil will like her birthday crystal, which I prefer rough and not tumbled. I hope too it's the mineral that Cybil needs and that the zine is informative enough. I do know that she appreciates creativity.

I've got a full day ahead. I plan to head back to the Field House brewery to pick up one more craft beer for Cybil's gift. Then to Clay Life to see if any of my glazed test tiles have emerged from the kiln.

consume: slurp alley@seafood city serramonte

I'm making my birthday party as Filipino as I know. Besides bamboo plates and brown kraft paper to decorate my tables, I went to Bev Mo in Daly City to buy San Miguel beer, and while there, the store clerk and I conversed as she told me I needed to go to the spanking brand new Filipino grocery store, Seafood City just up the hill from the Serramonte Mall. I was going to eat at the oyster bar at Jagalchi for dinner, but thought, sure I'll try that ramen bar she raved about. Also I needed to find the fruit in syrups and nata de coco jelly for the halo halo bar at the party. Holey moley was this store stocked.   

Decisions, decisions, decisions. I get easily overwhelmed by too many choices, but decided on jars of jackfruit, tapioca balls, and macapuno in addition to the coconut jelly. I also am omitting the adzuki or monngo beans in the dessert as they're not my favorite though I could change my mind when I go back for the ube and mango and coconut ice creams. I'll likely look for those little tropical bananas and fresh mango and pineapple too to add to the ice machine bar. While there, I bypassed the Grill City and went to the recommended noodle bar. I studied the menu...

I looked at what other people were slurping.

The couple whose soup I kept eyeing and salivating for me told me they had ordered the beef bone marrow soup. The corn and that fried garlic and grisly beef looked scrumptious. We Asians appreciates textures and chewiness.

 

Darn it the sabao place was out of pork belly, and I chose the boring Beef Pares.

The restaurant smells like sterno because a bowl of soup comes out boiling atop a furiously hot cast iron. Dramatic I tell you, but very satisfying. I ate the noodles first as I hate when they get less than al dente. I think the hack for next time is to immediately spoon them into the paper bowl and then use spoon and fork to sip scalding hot soup and nibble on meat and vegetables and in between chew noodles. I told neighbors that they needed to come with so we can sample different soups.

woodworking: japanese tool box in progress

I came home from my women in woodworking class with an incomplete toolbox. There's a recess on the lid in the Fine Woodworking plan that I kind of didn't like. Planks in the lid weren't square, but I'd already glued them in. My countersink holes with all their screws were still exposed. 

And so I glued in a dowel rod into each of the holes and then trimmed off the excess with my new Japanese saw. I glued more wood planks into the lid, which I'll screw from the bottom now that I'd gotten shorter screws. I also sanded the lid and sides already with coarse grit sandpaper.                               

The lid's caps are starting to look more flush, and I'll sand some more and start to fill in the gaps with light wood fill. I would have worked on it yesterday, but life (laundry!) got in the way though I did find water-based white pickling stain (Home Depot) and satin polyurethane (Ace Hardware)after the day job. I was gonna swim after work today, but I think instead I'll attach the handles and feet. Maybe I can fill or even sand a bit more before heading to the ceramics studio to build a couple more vases.

coordinate + craft + clay: filipino party decorations and ponderings about black clay

The last big birthday party I remembered was when I turned 7. My family was in Puerto Rico, and my parents had invited lots of people. My dad grilled, of course. Vintage photographs show that my parents had also thrown me a party when I was a toddler. I realize at the age of 59 that the parties were likely for both my mother and me as we shared the same birthday. Doh! Feeling sad, nostalgic and a bit floored and selfish that I never honored my mom with a birthday party and because I'm turning 60 next next month, I decided in honor of my parents to coordinate and cook for another birthday party. Birthday invitation has been sent, I've talked with a manager at a Filipino restaurant about what party platters to serve for a buffet dinner in the condo clubhouse. I would love to have it at the restaurant upstairs which can accommodate 30 people, but parking near Avenida is a pain.               

I also tried Avenida's happy hour to sip a pandan rum-based Old Fashioned and preview the food a bit. I really liked the fried tofu with red onion and soy vinegar dipping sauce. 

For the party, I'll be cooking my own recipe for adobo and borrowing a rice cooker as well as renting a snow cone machine to have shaved ice for a halo halo bar.

I’m decorating too which is my favorite thing ever, but I’m keeping the celebration simple and the budget modest. Bamboo plates and utensil ware in ceramic crocks (I hate plastic), kraft paper to cover the tables. No balloons or streamers. Fresh flowers galore inside vases, where one can't see the bottom of the stems. The glass vases will be on reserve in case guests actually do read the invitation and gift me with fresh flowers. I’m in beast mode with making flower bottles and bowls to decorate my party.

In going through my stash of clays at school, where I found and started hydrating a bag of red clay, I found an Aardvark bag of really dark clay labeled with my name and CHAR. I'm guessing and hoping it's their charcoal, medium grit body with no issues of bloating. I'd always loved Rae Dunn's work with black clay. 

I've been looking at ceramicists' processes with black clay (slab and coil and use a metal rib for smoothing) and images of black pots too. I like this pot.

And the other night in a very crowded studio, I painted porcelain slip on these greenware Dixon Sculpture pots... 

One had already been bisqued, and so I glazed it with Majolica. I'm hoping the other two pots have already been bisque fired and that I can overglaze them with the studio's bone white satin this week.

clay: red sculpture and dixon sculpture flower bottles

I'm making flower vases with a bag of Dixon Sculpture red clay. I wonder though what color the clay will fire to because the raw groggy clay is similar in color to raw speckled buff. However, I had a last bit of Red Sculpture, and so that 1 pound or so went into the making of a flower bottle. Because I have test tile of a pattern, I added texture to the neck and the spout. I also round cut-out of the bottle opening to hold the cylinder as an accent for the outside of the bottle. Floating Green is too opaque for my liking. I'll look at the glaze samples of the Red Velvet at the studio and will likely choose Teal Appeal or True Celadon in combination with another glaze like Peppermint Creme. And then I made a shorter and stouter flower bottle with the Dixon Sculpture.      

Here's a short flower vase I made earlier than the bottles from Dixon Sculpture. I made another short vase with holes on the top but no cylinders too that's not pictured. I'll likely glaze all these pots with a gloss white. I like these brutalist flower vases more and more. They make me think of erosion with all their cracks and cragginess and shaggy bits.

And the very last of the Red Velvet went into the throwing of this bowl, which I trimmed. The interior and the slight rim is going to be glazed with Coyote Sun Drop--probably just enough glaze in the bottle to finish this bowl.

T'was a good weekend of clay, and I'm hoping to make it to the studio this evening to make one more vase. I'm thinking of making an Ikebana bowl where I hump the groggy clay slab over a plaster mold and then paint the interior with white slip (I've got a bottle of Snow somewhere) and then grab a fern leaf or find a fern stencil as some kind of accent inside the bowl. I've got a heavy Japanese pin frog to put at the bottom of the bowl to prop a single bloom.

craft: women in woodworking class at cabrillo college

I signed up with my friend, Meral for a women in woodworking weekend course in Aptos. We planned to overnight in Santa Cruz and do a little beach and fun dining too. Our morning started with coffee and lunch pickup at Gayle's, then seaweed and feather collecting at New Brighton State Beach, where we saw a pelican rescue. Next lots of demonstration and practice with power and hand tools at Cabrillo College. Sasha, our instructor, taught us how to safely use power tools such as...

....planer, table saw, compound miter saw, band saw, drill press, and belt sander as well as various hand tools like Japanese and European hand saws, chisels, and planers. 

Before leaving class on Saturday I managed to cut dado joints by first making thin cuts on the table saw and then chiseling them out to dry fit the box together before gluing and screwing the next day. 

After that exhausting--but fulfilling--day of woodworking and checking into our hotel, we went to Bad Animal, a combination bookstore, wine bar and Thai restaurant. We met up with my friends, Cybil and Lyra--my beach cottage roommates.            

We bought orange wine and browsed art books. Meral found an illustrated memoir of being a Black painter in the Jim Crow South to buy...

...while I searched for a book on Picasso and his ceramics years. No such luck, and so I studied the menu.

 

For starters, we ordered the fried tofu, cabbage and herb salad and roasted pork belly. For entrees, tofu and glass noodle soup, braised black cod, green coconut curry chicken, jasmine rice. We dug in right away that I forgot to take pics of our beautiful meal.

Bad Animal is more expensive than a family-run Thai joint, but the food definitely showcased Michelin chefs' skills with Thai authenticity and French technique. Plus the ambiance was magical as I love a bookstore devoted to art, politics and culture AND having an encyclopedic wine menu.

The decor and lighting though hipster evinced the laid-back and intellectual Santa Cruz vibes I adore.

After dinner, we all walked just a few blocks to Pretty Good Advice on Pacific Avenue because I love their soft serve--lactose free and delicious purity. That day's flavor was horchata. We also browsed Bookshop Santa Cruz, where Meral found another art book she loved and I found titles I had already checked out from the public library. Pacific Avenue is also where I love to shop for surf wear for me and hubs at Santa Cruz Skateboards, one-of-a-kind gifts at Artists & agency, and duck in and out of New Age stores for tarot cards and crystals. Cybil and I love too the greeting cards and postcards at Paper Vision.  

The next morning, I took Meral to my favorite coffee house, 11th Hour and ordered my favorite honeybee latte (honey lavender + espresso + steamed milk is all the breakfast fuel I really need). I also examined the local ceramics for sale.

Whereas I paid $45 for my very first artisanal ceramic mug almost twenty years ago, they now typically retail $65 here in California. Zan charges $125 for her large porcelain, mishima-decorated mugs that take her hours to complete. And so I'll be pricing my mugs accordingly. $45 if it's just glaze on my favorite clay, $65 if I've gone to the time-consuming and trouble of mark making with mishima or sgraffito and under glazing on my mugs. Next I took Meral to eat my favorite brisket taco at Aptos St. BBQ.

Meral agreed the brisket and SAUCE were dang delicious. Then we went to class. I didn't finish my tool chest. Once home, I did, however, show Patrick the ingenious lid to my wooden box. He said I should find a book that fits exactly into the gap on the top and hide its opening mechanism.

One of my marine biology books almost fit. I'll post more pics when the box is finally done. I am presently in love with the look of the white pine that I think it a shame to varnish it and for it to get honey colored. And so I'm on the search for a water-based whitewash pickling stain (

BEHR PREMIUM

 

8 oz. #TIS-580 White Wash Pickling Transparent Water-Based Fast Drying Interior Wood Stain

)and a water-based polycrylic (

Varathane Transparent Satin Crystal Clear Water-Based Acrylic Ultimate Polyurethane Finish 0.5 pt

) to prevent the wood from yellowing.