cook: carne asada americana tacos with pickled jalapeños

Patrick brought home eggplant and peppers, and my vegetable bin is brimming. 

I loved my breakfast taco at Aptos St. BBQ so much that I wanted to riff on it for a dinner. I even took a small to-go container of their delicious barbecue sauce for that exact intention. And so on the same night I stir fried bok choi and re-heated leftover rice, I made a jar of quick pickle jalapenos. And set some black beans to soak for chili night later this week. 

 

And took said favorite barbecue sauce and tossed it in the tiny cast iron with a bit of chipotle adobo, cumin, and hot smoked paprika over leftover rib eye steak to re-heat. Then chopped produce for our couples' taco bar.

 

Instead of a fried egg, I decided cheese would be the unctuous element of our flour tortilla tacos. Husband made his tacos with cheddar cheese and topped it with fresh medium salsa while I made my tacos with ghost pepper jack and then topped it with my quick pickled jalapenos.

 

Instead of my usual chopped white onion and cilanro and lime, just lettuce and sour cream as the topper.

I loved this change-up in tacos and plan to do the fried runny yolk egg this Sunday.

cook + clay: breakfast brisket tacos + handbuilding and glazing in progress

I did go back to Aptos St. BBQ for breakfast. I'm just sorry it was too early to have a pear cider with my brisket.                      

I didn't think a flour tortilla would work for a taco, but it was the perfect vehicle for the over easy egg, salsa ranchera, brisket and pickled jalapeños. And I loved the crunch of the jalapeños, and so this week, I think I'll make pickled jalapeños and either make carne asado tacos with leftover steak and flour tortillas and maybe pickled red onions too.

Back home from Santa Cruz and Aptos, it was a Sunday late afternoon and evening of clay. First to the parks and rec studio to put this baby on the greenware shelf to adhere its iron oxide decal...

...and remembered to glaze this kurinuki box. The studio hadn't New Light Turquoise in ever a long time, and so Meral had me test this commercial glaze called Riptide.

I forgot to clean up the box and put it on the glaze shelf and will call Meral today to stop by while she's teaching. I think I'll also pick up the 3-taper speckled buff candelabra I started that late Sunday afternoon to adhere the taper holders.

Onward to Clay Life to overglaze these sgraffito plates, #3, #4, #5 respectively.

I also managed to throw 2 bowls and a cup in the beginner throwing class. I rather hope this clay train never ends or at least resume for a very long time.

chill: north central coast getaway

I was supposed to take a linocut printing class this weekend, but the class was canceled at Cabrillo College. I reached out to the artist teaching the class to request a private lesson in her studio, but she said it was too small even for her and that I should enroll in a similar class that she's teaching in January (I'm already enrolled). Sigh. I already had a room booked in town that I already paid for. Hubs encouraged me to go away for the weekend and just r-e-l-a-x. Sigh. Okay.                     

I started my morning at the Elkhorn Slough. I looked at a pelican and sandpipers on the boardwalk that was still above salty water in the marsh. King Tide (high tide at 10:17 a.m.) covered the muddy flats almost completely, so that all one could see was eel grass and pickleweed. Birds were sleeping while waiting for low tide to happen at around 5:00 p.m. to feed.

 

I was tempted to try the pickleweed below; the plant takes in salt all the way to the tips which turn red and fall off in the autumn--quite bitter. I learned a little bit about the restoration efforts of Hester Marsh and turning the former dairyland back into its natural habitat. I walked a mile to get an aerial view of the marshes.

 

From the Elkhorn Slough, I drove to Aptos for lunch and ate a huge salad with brisket at Aptos Street BBQ. Omigosh I forgot how delicious brisket which I hadn't had since breakfast in Kentucky with Meral and Bob. I tempted to go there for breakfast Sunday morning. After lunch, I made my way back south on Highway 1 to Manresa State Beach and walked for hours.

  

I had made a dinner reservation for David Kinch's latest restaurant in Aptos for 7:30 and then canceled thinking I would find a pizzeria and then take a pie back to my hotel room, knowing I would enjoy it immensely, but what the heck, decided to walk in and eat at the bar at 5:00. Kinch's Italian restaurant is a lot more casual than Manresa.

No fine pottery or bespoke plates like at Manresa. Just unassuming mass-produced porcelain with the restaurant's logo. I ordered a quartino of an Italian chablis and pistachio pesto and mortadella pizze topped with an arugula salad

The pizze is ginormous. The other half is in the backseat of my car because of the cold weather which will help it keep until my afternoon supper.

But what I enjoyed the most was my affogato of a decaf espresso with a fior di latte gelato that had a sprinkling of sea salt.

Dessert was solace for a disappointment of not taking an art class. Let's hope my linocut class is not canceled in January.

clay: personal creamer bowl

I failed on throwing a little pot, but salvaged it and pulled on the lip to form a pour spout. I then glazed it with Black Pearl. And it was inspired by this little pot at the Pacific Catch restaurant.

And here’s mine from the finished ceramics shelf I found yesterday.

Okay I needed to close the mouth of the whole bowl and pulled the spout out a bit more. But let me see if I can throw little. Which is harder because smaller balls of clay are harder to center on a wheel.

clay: sgraffito #2

I was honestly stunned by my platter when I picked it off the finished ceramics shelf at Clay Life yesterday. I usually have glaring defects on my pieces.                                 

I love the wabi sabi carving of this sgraffito platter so much that I made three more "blank canvases" for more carving and then tried to carve sardines and waves before glazing last night. I'm loving the imagery of food, first an avocado and second these artichokes. What next? Peppers? Tomatoes? Eggplant? All my favorite subjects in cooking.

clay: this is not a pear

There's a grisly story or the slang for dupe that I didn't know about in my latest handbuilding obsession of making pears. Really I was riffing on Magritte's 1929 painting, "The Treachery of Images." My meta message is only that my pear is really a rattle.                         

And I guess my pears (one yellow and the other green are on their way: to the glaze kiln and the bisque kiln) are my attempt at trompe-l'œi.

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.