clay: glazing through the gloom

Anxious on election night and probably expecting the worst (and yes, buckle up because it’s gonna be a fucked-up four years), I prepped for more cooking over the week and sought a little solace over the sink, chopping board, and stove. I boiled all the pureed tomatoes and cooked a comforting spaghetti and meatballs and made a salad for dinner.                       

 

I added to the stacks of reading in my bedroom. If I'm not cooking or making, I'm watching less t.v. and reading instead. As always, I'm streamlining and trying to get back to basics.

And I grasped at positivity by not watching the news and not drinking too much wine and instead heading to ceramics studio. I used a lot of this Copper Red Art glaze from Western on a lot of my maple leaves though 2 of the leaves will be green.

 

Since there was no room in the hand building room because a sculpture class was in session, I glazed a fuck ton of my bisque ware.

And the morning after, I am tight-lipped but determined to ride out the obnoxiousness and pain of politics and hone in on hygge and hominess. 

clay: sgraffito #1

My first try at carving into underglaze from even more clumsy techniques at throwing—-a bowl that I couldn’t successfully pull up more thereby resulting in a “blate” rather than a bowl. And since it was Bmix instead of reclaimed clay, I painted black underglaze into the interior and onto that superficial layer, I scratched with tiny loop tools an illustration of an avocado to make a very, very shallow guacamole bowl. Which I later overglazed with clear on top and Black Pearl on the exterior.      

It’s clumsy, but charming in my eyes. And so I want to persevere and make rectangular tiny bites plates for a tinned fish party, but make that outermost layer of underglaze, marine blue instead of black to carve underwater sea life like sardines and squid and seaweed as well as ocean waves.

The rest of my Sunday evening this week was comprised of trimming the pots that I threw on the previous two Sundays. This bowl was the biggest I've thrown thus far though I tossed another bowl into the barrel of trimmings to be reclaimed because I trimmed too thin and it became warped to hell.                               

For another pot, I thought was going to become a tea bowl, I instead made a handle...

...and inscribed text into it.

I intend to decorate the shit out of it. I'll probably overglaze it with Blushing Pink with a bit of Muddy Waters inside that text to make it darker pink and then adhere a bunch of floral decals on it. 

Meals in the meanwhile during my clay obsession have been multiple taco nights.         

I recently made Rick Bayless's raw tomatillo salsa and Pati Jinich's radish pico. Both of these fresh, chunky sauces are muy fantastico on Mexican dishes. The pickled radish becomes pink and is not too sour and is a crunchy counterpoint to unctuous pork.                   

But the raw tomatillo salsa is absolutely my favorite because it tastes so bright and fresh--it's like another vegetable but in slightly liquid form to a tasty taco. I see many nacho platters with this sauce for dipping.

Last night they were the toppings for a pork and white bean verde mole, which I served like a chili and lots of condiments like white onion, cilantro, Monterey Jack cheese, sour cream. Otra vez, mucho sabor.

clay: carving, glazing and throwing

Yesterday I could not help myself: I was at Clay Life from 2:30 PM or thereabouts until 9:15 PM. Most of the time I was carving. Figuring out the positive and negative on a black underglaze canvas from an illustration of artichokes was a challenge for my brain. I thought I’d better take a picture before I fucked the whole platter up.           

And I kept carving. Even though my border is so crooked and even though I touched up the ‘chokes which I probably should have left well enough alone.                                    

And after finishing sgraffito #2 (yeah I’ll be counting all I've done from now on), I also touched up pumpkin and pink underglazes on another platter and set a planter of the same texture (I’ll use Blushing Pink and Tangerine overglazes on that pot) on the greenware shelf. And then I finally decided on the color for a bisque piece that had been on that shelf for a couple weeks.                           

What I really appreciate at Clay Life is the reclaiming of ceramic materials. The rinse basins of clay tools and pans allow sediment to settle on the bottom and get mixed with trimmings which sit in barrels of watery sludge until it's put into the pug mill (the owner, David calls him Fred). There are also 3 rinse buckets in the glazing area, and all the glaze rinsed off tools and brushes likewise gets reclaimed in "mystery" glaze--Old Mystery looks blue with hints of copper and caramel, and I'm hoping those colors emerge on my curio shelf. And then after carving and glazing, I threw 2 bowls and a vase which collapsed a bit on its side, but I let it slump over and remain because maybe it'll make for an interesting glaze surface.

cook + consumerism = a tinned fish collection

It's my birthday month, and I've been spendy.  Yesterday at Costco besides milk for the hubs and poke for me, I also bought socks and undies in my favorite color palette of pinks and tans as well as wine and a large tin of lemon cream panettone. Got home and looked at the dining table filled with stuff I've bought or are in stages of  making and my stacks of tinned seafood. Besides the library book on Tin to Table, I'd also been perusing online articles on the topic. Here's my favorite from Serious Eats.                                

 

I know that Gabrielle Hamilton used to serve as a bar snack a tin of  sardines alongside Triscuit crackers at her restaurant Prune. I like a snack of smoked brislings and if I feel like expending energy, with a small baguette and butter and cornichons. And now, I'm thinking of throwing a tinned fish party. 

Drinks will be easy. I'll just tell guests to bring a bottle of their favorite wine.

And what's also going to be hip and stylish about a tinned fish party are easy sides which come from a jar too or as simple to cook as a pot of beans and slicing vegetables for salads.

And mustn't forget condiments!

As I read this, I realize how easy it would be to initiate a tinned fish club and maybe assign people to bring a can like I do for potlucks. However, in surveying my neighbors, a few are not fans of fish. I'll need to still invite them, but encourage them to bring a small wedge of their favorite cheese or a bottle of their favorite wine and drink their meal. In the meantime I ate my own with smoked brislings Cecilia gave me for my birthday, cherry pepper pickle, dill cucumber pickle, baguette and butter, and an arugula and heirloom tomato salad dressed in white balsamic vinaigrette.                             

I liked my meal, but I suppose others would not. I still want to host a conserva party.

cook: saturday supper of calamari steak

Weather conditions at Oyster Point were calm and flat--1.2 knots winds, but the currents were against us, and so outrigger canoe practice was still a workout. I was pleasantly sore and still high on endorphins when I got to the Central Park ceramics studio--my contemporary candelabra built from speckled buff is getting bone dry along with its catch plate; I adhered the iron oxide decal to my pear along with a little more green underglaze to put on the green ware shelf for a low fire; added a bit more green underglaze to another pear which I'll finish next week in order to bisque fire. Pictures to be posted next week of work hopefully done and works in progress. When I got home, I was ready to cook! I took my time with the calamari steaks. Salted them and then lay in an egg wash and then breaded liberally in Italian and panko bread crumbs before pan frying in olive oil. And then melting butter and adding lemon juice and capers to make a sauce to nestle the calamari in.                           

Likewise I took my time with the salad, emulsifying lemon juice, honey crystals, Dijon mustard and bottled white balsamic dressing before using it to mellow red onions before tossing with arugula greens right before serving. Ditto on the butter garlic noodles, first boiling the noodle for 8 minutes to be al dente and then heating butter and smashed garlic on a low heat and then adding hot cream with liberal sprinkles of black pepper and just a touch of salt before simmering the noodles to soak up the cream sauce with lights sprinkles of Asiago cheese. 

 

And of course, Patrick exclaimed, I thought we were gonna eat leftovers. No, silly man. The leftovers are what I eat for lunch at work.

Tomorrow I'm hosting my in-laws for lunch, and I'm thinking I'll cook Mexican if I don't decide to host at home and instead take them to Pacific Catch. Either Mole Verde with Pork and White Beans with Radish Pico or seafood bowls at a restaurant.

cook: salisbury steak night

This morning I’ll be paddling out from Coyote Point, probably to the tower and around in Brisbane just before you get to San Francisco, which you can see from Highway 101 in the Peninsula. There was exactly an overflow of 6 people on the sign-up, and so yesterday late afternoon I helped my club load another outrigger canoe from the club's cage in Foster City onto a trailer to haul it to the San Mateo harbor and marina for this morning's workout. But before I left, I started our Friday night supper of Salisbury steak.  I didn't remember the recipe, and so looked it up on Recipe Tin Eats. I didn't have panko bread crumbs, but I did have Italian seasoned bread crumbs. The recipe had me grate half an onion into the bread crumbs. And then added all the other ingredients including the 3/4 pound of ground beef leftover from hamburgers for dinner earlier this week: a couple teaspoons of Worcestershire sauce, a couple tablespoons of ketchup, a couple teaspoons of dry mustard, and a couple teaspoons of chicken bouillon because I didn't see until later the beef bouillon cubes.         

I also spooned a tablespoon of beef soup base into a small pot of hot water to set up the gravy and started browning the football shaped patties in olive oil in my cast iron. Before I left I also sliced up a package of large brown mushrooms and chopped another small onion as well as peeled two Russet potatoes, cut them up and set in water to boil later. 

 

In the hour that I was gone, I instructed Patrick to cook the small head of cabbage in the fridge. But he didn't want dinner at 7:30 he said, and so he cooked the mashed potatoes and started browning my onions and mushrooms when I messaged him to start my gravy. When I arrived home, I sprinkled flour on the onions and mushrooms and then added beef broth and water and put the "steaks" into the gravy to simmer for another 30 minutes during which my husband pulled out the boiled cabbage, buttered it and re-heated his mashed potatoes while I watched the proteins cook. I love a team effort. 

I would've liked a bit more crunch to the cabbage, but no matter, now I have lots of vegetable to add to my noodles or eat as a side with other leftover dishes. And tonight after paddling and then pottery, I'll cook the calamari steaks I have thawing in the refrigerator.

clay: underglazing and more sgraffito

A couple weeks ago I trimmed all the bowls I threw the couple weeks before, and instead of inscribing text into this one, I decided to not bisque it just yet and to paint black underglaze in the interior. One week later, I finally carved it on a Sunday night after glazing all my other bowls.    

I liked it; a classmate, Al said it was beautiful while I was carving it, and it has drawn some comments of praise on Facebook. Last night, another Clay Life member said she admired when it was on the greenware shelf. And I’ve since hand built a serving platter and want to sgraffito carve that pot as well but with artichokes. Another week later, I adhered overglazes on my avocado/guacamole bowl.  

 

I also spent the evening painstakingly painting pumpkin and pink underglazes on a platter with a texture I consider art nouveau minimalist for its pinstripes and swirls as well as red, pumpkin, yellow, straw, and green underglazes on these autumn leaves that will be tealight holders and embellishments (they're smaller leaves inscribed with "blessed," "grateful," and "thankful" for the Thanksgiving/Friendsgiving table).

I now also remember that I need to look on the bisque shelves the next time I'm at Clay Life for the snowflakes I cut out inscribed with lyrics from "Winter Wonderland" and "Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow." And now looking upon that leaf, I wish I was a bit more blotchy as opposed to streaky with my finger painting of underglazes.