clay & cook: another butter dish & green chicken enchiladas

In order to finish building a butter dish, I needed that extra forty-five minutes that Meral extended to studio hours because she didn’t have to work her second job at the Great American Music Hall 

I made this butter dish smaller than the one I made last Saturday, sized to fit a supermarket cube of butter rather than a warehouse-sized cube that’s double in volume. Next week I’ll sand it while manning the ceramics popup sale. I was going to just put my vases in the sale, but Patrick has been complaining about too many succulent planters on the picnic table. Yada yada. I guess I’ll sell pottery and plants too. Maybe. 

I came home after ceramics to this partial tomato harvest (the ones we didn't give to the neighbors).

That orange tomato in the front? It's called Accordion. Then I took 2 of the green zebra tomatoes to chop for dinner. Below is the green chicken enchiladas-making station: said chopped green tomatoes, cilantro, onion (I should have used scallions to make it even more green), sliced jalapeno (also part of the garden harvest), green enchilada sauce (I had neither the time, nor the patience to roast tomatillos and green chilies), roasted chicken thighs (18 minutes, turning over halfway in a 425 degree oven), shredded cheddar and jack cheese, and of course, the making for a lazy person's margarita (sparkling lemonade and tequila baby).        

I softened the corn tortillas first by frying them each for some 14 seconds in vegetable oil and a hot nonstick pan. I then spooned chicken and cheese on to the tortilla and rolled--six of them--which I placed in a casserole dish. I then sprinkled the rest of the cheese, sliced jalapenos, chopped green tomatoes and onion on top, reserving some of the chopped tomatoes and cilantro for after the casserole cooked.

I was too lazy to also cook calabacitas or summer squash, but that would have been a delicious accompaniment. I did however have avocado hot sauce to "gild the lily."

 

The chicken and cheese enchiladas baked in a 325 degree oven for 20 to 25 minutes after which I sprinkled the rest of the green tomatoes and cilantro (lazy person's salad).

Dinner with condiments of avocado sauce and sour including tequila soda is done.

I look forward to cooking for Helen and myself at the beach house. Some foods are verboten for her, and so I'll be eating Caprese salads on my own but will be sharing vegetables from our garden supplemented by proteins I hope to find at seafood markets.

clay: cocktail cups

I was so charmed by Zan’s shot cups she’d made for her cousin’s wedding shower that I made cocktail cups from the leftover slabs of my butter dish.

I had to take them home to finish, and today’s hot weather was making them leather hard so that I had to work fast. I’ve a feeling they’ll be bone dry by tomorrow. I posed them next to a cup with glazing that didn’t please me at first, but now I’m not as annoyed by the crawling. I think the next cups I make will be fluted, which will create interesting glazing I think.               

I’ll have “bonus cups” for whoever buys whiskey cups. And here's a mug I saw online of the same clay that I used.

I love that ombre effect of pink which segues into orange. And of course, I've got to make cups from the Obsidian clay I've been making into plates like the brown stoneware mug below.

I misted the butter dish and put it inside my damp box that has no plaster.          

I’m wondering if I should make a new plate for the butter dish. I should’ve slabbed together smaller slabs to make the plate part bigger, but I’ll bring the two parts to clay club and see if I can make edges for the lid to fit into or make another smaller lid and then have two butter dish prototypes. So many tasks for my clay ambitions. I took home a bag of white stoneware clay to maybe use on the wheel I borrowed. I also need to call Clay People in order to identify which of my 25-pound bags contains Navajo Wheel or Dixon Sculpture. Or maybe I just make fucking plates from all 50 pounds of clay and see what results. I also want to pick up a bag of plaster to make hump molds and a damp box with this plastic container. Speckled buff plates are happening this year! I should probably drop in on Meral's class on Monday to drop off these cocktail cups and pick up my sea salt crock to add white underglaze to except I'm out of white underglaze because Zan used up the rest of what I had. And not only did I put in an hour of ukulele practice today, I also cut and stitched a bunch of crosses that maybe I can finish bordering tomorrow and maybe hand quilt during my beach getaway. But really I want to maybe not do any sewing this time around in my vacation rental and just stare at the waves and sip herbal tea or take long walks on the beach. I've a feeling the temperatures won't even be as hot as it was in March in Palm Springs.       

I really need to get back into the Always Quilting studio to rent a long arm and get all my finished tops quilted if I don't hand quilt this winter. There is never enough time for making.

clay: blessings from the kiln gods

I hadn't planned on going to clay club today, but we fired up the kiln twice this week, on Tuesday for a bisque firing and on Thursday for a glaze firing, which we unloaded the next day or today, Friday in the mid afternoon. The kiln was still super hot, and so I took out a peep and propped the lid with a 3" stilt.      

 

These shot mugs for a wedding shower were the reason for this quick turnaround in ceramics. That black gloss glaze inside the mugs is so beautiful. I love it and now want to make some too though I'll have to ponder how I would decorate the exterior.

Zan had also made dinner plates for a client/friend, whose cat had broken ones she made a decade ago, during a move. I love them, but I won't make ones like hers. I copycat her enough, and it's not me.

I especially love this one with the edges suggesting "decay."

I so love the contrast between black and white, and I'll take photos of the 4 plates I made next week when they've cooled in the kiln more.

Clay: Bud Vase

 

Clay: Laguna's Electric Brown

Overglaze (in text and interior): Colonial White

Clay: Bud Vase

 

Clay: Laguna's Frost porcelain 

Glaze: Coyote's Oxblood

Ceramics: My Clay Fever Is Coming Back

It felt like such a stupid long time to get my mud on when I went through my mid-life crisis a couple years ago, and then the pandemic hampered my renewed interest in ceramics. But then I got a couple pieces fired in the past few months, and it has been so gratifying. Especially when I saw that my niece posted these pics of her daughter holding one of my collaborative pots--my friend, Meral threw the cup and I decorated its surface: rice paper blue Chinese decals with a blue celadon called Downpour. And ain't Dani a cutie?!?

As always I resolved to strive for quality rather than quantity. I think I've found a groove where on my one day of the week that I do clay, I hand build just one pot and then break it up with glazing a bisque pot or two. My glaze collection grew from two bottles of underglaze, black and white to a ROYBGIV array and one or two Cone 5-6 overglazes.  

This latest butter dish was a lot of fun, and now I'm considering giving my loved ones homemade gifts of a butter dish plus a block of my favorite Kerrygold or a salt crock plus a bag of Himalayan pink salt.