clay: black candelabra

Clay: Bmix with Grog

Cone: 6

Glazes: Black Pearl, Nights in Black Satin, Amaco Velvet Jet Black

cook: sunday simmer

It’s been a valentine holiday week that included some window shopping--don't buy, look and re-create. Here's the spoon rest I'd really like to re-make. The spoon rest that's on my stovetop needs to have that shallow rim with a lip that curves over upon which the spoon handle can rest.   

I looked at my own minimalist spoon rest. What a difference in execution, but then again it's been working for me.

And gosh darn it, look at these vases also at World Market.

These organic and sinuous forms are giving me ideas of vases to make coordinate with my candelabras. Just as my candelabras are hand built, these vases too should either be coiled and pinch potted.

 

And I need another tote bag like I need another bag of clay, but I picked up these two tote bags at Trader Joe's because they're so darn cute. The sardine-themed bag I bought in December hauls all the tinned fish I collected.

And whenever I host get-togethers now, I always pick up ingredients for a charcuterie board from Trader Joe's. 

The store really does have the most reasonable prices for meats and cheeses and crackers and vegetables and fruits for a spread to share.

For the lovers' holiday, I went to my husband's favorite chocolate shop, Läderach, which just happens to be not far from Anthropologie, my favorite store for eye candy and inspiration on what to build in clay. I saw these wooden cheese knives for charcuterie boards. And it's got me longing to whittle wood.

 

I've already metal cheese knives, but if these were on clearance, I could see myself adding to my kitchen tools.

And holey moley, cute table runner, also giving me ideas of textiles to add to a pottery pop-up pottery and textiles sale at Christmas.

 

But really I've been wanting to make pots for a plant bar, and have for sale some of these creations at Anthropologie's Terrain shop.

And yeah of course ceramic, this is reminding me to....

look at the driftwood in my storage unit to integrate into some potted plant creations.

And then it was Valentine's Day. And instead of our usual dinner at six, I swam and then ate cheese and crackers before bed. The tulips are still in wild bloom.

Sunday morning, and after a thoroughly lazy Saturday, I am in the mood to cook. I started heating butter, heavy whipping cream, crushed garlic, and chopped herbs of rosemary, thyme, parsley in a 400 degree oven. Into the poaching liquid, I cracked two eggs and sprinkled grated parmesan and popped it back into the hot oven with sourdough bread, 8 minutes later....

 

Ooh la la. 

The herb baked eggs were fucking delicious. 

Thus fortified I was ready to do some cooking for the week. Simple refried beans with just onions and garlic and a handful of oregano fried in bacon fat.

The cup of dried pinto beans that were soaked and then boiled for an hour and half and put in the fridge were dumped into my frying aromatics and boiled again into a luscious creamy soupy mass to be eaten as a side with my lunch.

  

Alas I had no hot sauce. But thank goodness for pickled jalapeno peppers. I cooked a cheese quesadilla.

 

And instead of a grilled cheese and tomato soup for lunch, quesadilla and frijoles de olla.

I just bought tri tip and flour tortillas, which will be the making with the bell peppers and jalapeno and onions for fajitas this week.

cook: nigerian stew

Despite having just cooked Asian chicken and rice, I decided to cook another chicken dish even if meant Patrick would complain that he would be growing feathers from so much yard bird. Instead of poaching the chicken thighs this time, I browned them until the skins were crispy and removed the thighs from the pan, so I could then sautéed sliced onions in the fat.

Into the softened onions, went garlic and lots of grated ginger. And the starch component this time was sweet potatoes, which I'd peeled and cubed.

A West African stew or Nigerian maafe also requires cayenne, which I didn't have and so I substituted harissa. And next into the stew, cumin. And ground coriander for which I had to grind the seeds in my mortar and pestle.

Then crushed tomatoes and peanut butter and dry roasted peanuts. Because my stew needed spice, I also added hot smoked paprika. 

I always have to have a green vegetable, and kale was a good addition. I added the stems first.

And then the leafy greens. Lastly, a garnish of fresh coriander.

In retrospect, still not spicy enough. Crystal hot sauce to the rescue.
 

cook + celebrate: lunar new year feast

Ever since I discovered Dan Dan noodles, I've been cooking more Asian dishes and am such a fan of heavier Northern Chinese cuisines with its wheat-based foods of noodles and dumplings. And so even as far back as early January I planned a hand-pulling noodle party to celebrate 2025's lunar new year.

And even tempera painted a banner to hang over the club house fireplace.

Cecilia had the same idea when her friends taught her how to pull noodles, and of course, I enlisted her to make the dough and teach how to pull it into noodles. I had fun the day of decorating the table with themed-napkins, fortune-telling cards, almond cookies, White Rabbit matcha candies, and Cecilia's tea cups.

 

With the table all set and the décor in place, I was all ready to prep ingredients for cooking....

....and that meant washing and chopping lots of green vegetables. Nothing says health and prosperity than Chinese greens like bok choy, chrysanthemum greens (tong ho) and garlic chives. Cecilia had also brought broccoli, both Northern European and Chinese (gai lan) and cilantro, which I also washed in preparation. I had also brought a pot for boiling water and a nonstick skillet for frying while Cecilia had brought her carbon steel wok.

The counters were getting too crowded, guests were arriving with more ingredients like Napa cabbage, oyster mushrooms, enoki mushrooms, wood ear mushrooms and Chinese sausages. Nancy arrived with her Korean cucumbers.

Four of us started pulling noodles, and Cecilia delegated the boiling of the noodles as soon as they were pulled. As soon as the making and cooking of the noodles were done, I started cooking even more by stir frying the noodles with Dan Dan sauce while Cecilia stir fried her noodles in a sauce of soy and oyster and ginger and garlic along with ingredients that guests had brought.

Cecilia also got busy with cooking a tofu dish and started throwing in other ingredients with it like the mushrooms and the Chinese sausages. And maybe I got overwhelmed by getting cooked food on the table while still hot and stir fried the tong ho with the Napa cabbage.

I put Dan Dan noodles and other stir fried noodles in the oven to keep warm and then started stir frying the bok choi while Cecilia stir fried the gai lan, both with garlic and ginger and soy sauce.

We ate, we talked and joked, we scratched our fortunes. Party over.

And now I keep ruminating about porcelain lamps. Here's a photo I took of a lovely Chinese lamp in the window of an importer closing his business. And it's giving me ideas of the bag of Frost I have as well as some rice paper decals of various colored florals in red, yellow, blue and black. And so I must not forget to come back to this idea and initial brainstorm of a porcelain lamp with decal work in a more modern bent.