clay: dragonfruit salt crock

Clay Body: Dragonfruit

Glaze: Black Pearl

Method/Firing: Handbuilt & Letter Stamp/Glaze pour and brushing/Cone 6  

cook: asian herb pork meatballs rice noodle bowls

Here are the ingredients from a Brendan Pang recipe I copied from Instagram of which I made the meatballs and already had the pickled carrot and daikon in my fridge.

 

Instead of banh mi, I decided that the dish would be an Asian vermicelli and meatballs. I added a generous amount of lemon grass and more cilantro to the meat mixture.                    

Rather than frying the meatballs, I decided to bake them in a 400 degree oven for 20 minutes.

I had half a bell pepper in the fridge and just bought a head of red cabbage that day and added those to an herb mix of Thai basil, mint, cilantro, and sawtooth cilantro. I also made nuoc cham with jalapenos, garlic, fish sauce, sugar, lime juice and water while my rice vermicelli were boiling in water for 4 minutes. Into a large bowl went the noodles and then the vegetables and herbs and pickled daikon and carrot.

I suddenly remembered the cucumber I'd bought earlier and added that to the salad bowl. Dinner is served.

Toss the noodles and vegetables, top with meatballs and spoon nuoc cham.

This meal contains 4 servings, and so there are leftovers for a couple lunches during the week.

clay: red velvet sake cup

Clay Body: Red Velvet

Glaze: Coyote Sun Drop

Method/Firing: Thrown/Stencil & Brushing overglaze/Cone 6                      

This sake cup was really a test pot. I wanted to see what the Sun Drop glaze looked like on the Red Velvet clay. A bright yellow overglaze on a red clay body looks fantastic!

From the finished ceramic shelf, I found 2 small plates, a bowl and a very small cup. I'm still waiting for a Red Velvet coffee mug. I spent yesterday afternoon at Clay Life just glazing. I'm making a line of what I'm calling Morning Ritual. Butter boxes, tea cups, coffee mugs, cream pitchers, small plates, bowls, bud vases and a teapot to be made. 

clay: butter box

Clay Body: Red Velvet

Glaze: Coyote Sun Drop

Method/Firing: Handbuilt/Cone 6

I labored over this box with tar paper and coils and then lots of rasping and sanding and sponging as smooth as possible while still greenware. I was careful too with the glazing. The size is perfect for the California butter stick of 4 ounces. And so the dimensions for my favorite Kerrygold 8 ounces butter bar means I've got to make another different tarpaper template. But I'm running out of the Coyote Glaze and may have to start using yellow underglaze and Cone 6 clear glaze until I can get more.

clay: cone 10 black mountain tableware

Clay Body: Black Mountain

Glazes: Artic White

Method/Firing: Handbuilt (plates) and Thrown (bowls)/Cone 10 Reduction

Below are Meral's pots. She wasn't exactly thrilled with the commercial glazes on her pottery and wished she had used more of the high school classroom glazes. Her favorite was the porcelain with the celadon glaze.

I love Jeff's pieces. His ceramics are giving me ideas about underglazes and sgrafitto on Black Mountain.

I'm also in like with Zan's porcelain mishima as well as the Sperry Crawl over underglaze.

I lunched with Jeff today and proposed that we resume Summer Clay Club at the high school class room next week. I've got lots of bags of Cone 10 clay--Black Mountain, Sculpture Mix, and Coleman Porcelain.

cook: sauce tomat

I gave all the tomatoes in this bowl to my brother, intending to cook BLTs for the family after a funeral, but couldn't stay after all. However, we had 3 large tomatoes that were too ripe to give away and which I decided to cook into dinner. I chopped the tomatoes into small chunks and sauteed them with butter and olive oil and chopped scallions and garlic. Next I reserved the tomato chunks and then just boiled down its juices into a thin sauce tomat. 

In the meantime, I boiled thin spaghetti for 5 minutes, reserving some of the salted pasta water to thicken sauce just in case.

 

While the sauce was furiously boiling down, I added some heavy cream, lemon pepper chicken breast cut into chunks, and a slug of my Chardonnay to cook into a thicker sauce. Next went the thin spaghetti and lots of ribbons of fresh Italian basil and the slightly cooked tomato chunks. I tossed pasta, protein, tomatoes, and sauce for a constant 5 minutes to emulsify and coat the noodles. No pasta water needed as I let the pasta soak up the flavorful juices.

Served it up saucy and wet like we like it.

No leftovers as I like to eat the tomatoes as fresh as possible and can easily cook this dish again in under 30 minutes.