cook: with grace and economy

Tamar Adler's An Everlasting Meal was definitely the inspiration for this night's dinner. On my recent run to Trader Joe's, I bought just Coho salmon filets and one large Yukon gold potato. But darn it,  I forgot to buy heavy whipping cream, and so used mostly buttermilk, a bit of Patrick's lowfat milk (because he needed his glasses of milk for dinner and his chocolate cookie) and what was left of a mostly empty bottle of heavy whipping cream for the mashed potatoes. Lots of butter though, and so the starchy side was delicious. With most of the dill left, I used in the marinade for grilling the salmon with salt and butter and in the dill cream sauce for the fish (dill, mayonnaise, sour cream, Colman's mustard, lemon juice, garlic). I also had carrots for which I squeezed the rest of sad orange and tangerines from the holidays, honey, and salt for the orange vegetable to simmer until tender.

I sure leaned into the orange on this meal: salmon, carrots and even blood orange soda. 

I wondered if beta carotene accounts for the orange color of the salmon? Why yes! The natural color of salmon comes from compounds known as carotenoids, particularly astaxanthin, which they acquire through their diet of krill, shrimp and algae. As these pigments accumulate in the flesh, they create the characteristic orange, pink or red colors.

clay: teach a friend the cylinder

A neighbor and friend held me to a promise to visit Clay Life, and when we realized there was hardly any winter break left, we went into the studio the last Friday. Tracy said she intended to just watch, but I made her put on an apron and set her to making a slab cylinder. While looking at texture tools, she spied fondant silicon molds for leaves which she wanted to play with. I delivered more lessons on scoring and slipping.

 

Tracy really enjoyed making those leaves. And I think her mug turned out pretty great. 

In the meantime, I had re-made a mug for Maggie. Because I did a shit job on the glazing of one.

The mugs had been on the bisque shelf for a week, but finally I glazed them and they’re finished. I thought I told Tracy I was going to dip them in Celadoney and touch them up with Floating Green, but did I add Caramel to this glazing? 

 

I suppose it doesn't matter. Tracy liked the results.

 

The interior glazing sure has a lot of blue, and perhaps I just poured Floating Green into the interior.

 

The previous mug I remade for Maggie was a dud, glaze-wise. But I sure like this glazing better: a dip in Floating Green and then a dip in Copper Red.

 

So interesting how the two glazes interacted!

And now I need to find the texture mat or roller that Shirley used in order to re-make her mug.

clay: christmas ornament

Clay Body: Frost Porcelain 

Glazes: Black, green and red underglazes; clear cone 6 clear

Method/Firing: Hand built/puppy's actual paw print, stamped and drawn/Cone 6

I just put away Christmas tree, ornaments and decor, which included this ornament not finished in time to hang. However, two neighbors made or ordered ornaments of Scout's imagery that decorated the tree. Next year, I'd like to make more ornaments with the two pictures of I have of Sadie and Elmo too.

cloth: bay area modern quilting + redwood shores public library

Four years ago I dropped out of a quilt guild, but have recently rejoined the sewing tribe. It was time. The meeting started with Lynette from my slow sewing group, showing and telling about the making (and test driving) of her latest travel totes. I was messaging Cybil at the same time that I do not have the skills in craftsmanship that these women have (a bit of imposter syndrome really).

And then Jaye, the president (who I pointed out to Cybil is also a librarian like us) stated that the BOM or block of the month is Flying Geese.

Oh yeah, I will use Kona Snow in order to tie all my blocks together in the quilt I'll make with this group. November and December's BOMs were the Checkerboard and the Friendship Star.

After quitting the group, I had moved most of my fabric stash into a storage unit and freed the real estate in my brain of sewing projects and obsessed on ceramics instead around 2022, but I still kept a pulse on sewing and was kindly welcomed by Bonnie into a Slow Sewing group of which I hosted a monthly meeting here and there. For 2026, I decided enough of those fabrics languishing in storage. Ironically, the 2026 Challenge is a UFO one, which starts with a list of 12 ufo/wip (unfinished objects/works in progress). Well shit my rebellious brain said fuck no, even though that was my intention for rejoining BAMQ. But if I were to make a list because I am not submitting my list of shame to the group...

• Halloween (log cabin?)fabrics which I've yet to decide on a quilt pattern
• Lucky Spool BOM one year which I started with Carolyn Friedlander's foundation paper pieced block and then gave up and deleted that folder of blocks in my emails but will use those blocks in another quilt
• a Zen Chic quilt of strip pieced improv blocks of brown and pink and red fabrics
• Kaffe Fassett & Liza Lucy's Dreamy Hexagons Medallion Quilt (bought the kit but have decided to not sew it and use the fabrics in 2026)
• Advent calendars for sister-in-law's 8 grandkids (nope!)
• Amy Butler quilt top and backing hanging in the closet
• Zen Chic Bliss quilt top and almost finished backing hanging in the closet
• ROYBGIV foundation paper quilt
• Did I finish the purple Panda quilt and then give it to someone else?

The bullets above are what I remember, but I'm sure there are lots more. Okay I've at least two show-and-tell quilts for next month at BAMQ which are the only two quilts I have not given away: my own dimensions of Purl Soho's Prism quilt with Liberty of London fabrics and a quilt made from a pattern I think that's called Flower Garden and of all my favorite Cotton and Steel fabrics. Below are my favorites of January's BAMQ show-and-tell, and the assignment was to bring in your first or oldest quilt. Cybil really liked this Tula Pink (and I once checked out Tula Pink's 100 Modern Quilt Blocks), and the backing includes a large Tula Pink fabric panel of a serpent.

 

Now this mini quilt to me is quintessential modern sewing. 

Uh oh, I'm feeling again like a poser or a phony quilter. But wait, I did sew that Campfire quilt x 2 for my nephew's daughter and son. My stitching skills have improved. Okay here's envy of someone's grab from the free table: a Hokusai panel.

I used to take stuff from the free table, but like vowing not to buy more fabric that I wasn't going to use right away, I likewise thankfully did not take new clutter, not even the blue and white men's shirting.

Instead I explored the Redwood Shores public library of which this visit was my first.  

 

I wanted to check out that book on basket weaving but did not. I peeked into the teen room and admired the open shelving. However, I did check out the following book.

Yep, that's my intention for 2026 to make a difference somehow, and I love that--small acts for big impacts. Just like in my clay and sewing practices. I do plan on sewing the Checkerboard, the Friendship Star, and the Flying Geese Blocks, but I want them to be all the same size 12" block, which is why I ordered this book.

I know, I know, I know. I don't need yet another book, and so I intend to bring the block book I do have in my library to the next BAMQ meeting for the Free Table.

clay: first teapot

Clay Body: Bmix with speckles

Glazes: True Celadon, Floating Green, Juicy Fruit

Method/Firing: Hand built/Cone 6

 

 

Okay the silhouette may be a bit ungainly because there's no gallery or shelf inside the rim of the pot, and the flange is not perfectly centered with the lid overhanging at some of its edge, but upon immediately seeing the teapot on the finished firing shelf, I liked it!

card: homemade valentines and the resumption of basic mark making

I signed up this year for a handmade card event called the 4th Annual Lars Valentine Exchange. What drew me to it was their Instagram post on how to emboss metal to make ornaments. I loved that video so much that I even stepped into a Hobby Lobby (none at Michael's)to buy the metal and searched the internet for patterns to emboss. Googled myself into the rabbit hole of Valentine crafts and have decided to throw a small galentine party a week before February 14th.

And because I discovered the craft of Danish woven hearts, I am leaning into Scandinavia by offering to teach the craft and serving Swedish meatballs as an appetizer. However, no aquavit. Instead I'll be mixing a passionfruit Bellini, either alcoholic or not. Maybe I'll even have time to bake heart-shaped sugar cookies with pink frosting. Below is my valentine for the Lars exchange.

Yah, I just love the Galentine episode of Parks and Recreation and all of Leslie Knope's quotes ("You know my code: hoes before bros.")

The work week was a whirlwind of cutting, weaving, and gluing. And now it's the weekend.

This photo popped up in my Facebook memories.

And so I dug up this sketchbook which I last drew in two years ago and aim to get back to basics and taken pencil to paper.

cook: italian american blate

I can see to the back of the freezer! Even after my husband's run to Costco and the loaf of bread in the freezer. Cooking in my 60s has turned into cooking what I have, including scrips and scraps. Next up I sautéed a small onion and more mashed garlic in olive oil and butter to which I added a can of tomato sauce and the little sauce left in a jar of Rao's (in college, I subsisted on jars of Ragu or Prego). I forgot the 3 Italian sausages in the fridge! I removed their casing and fried and then added to the marinara. Into that pan of Italian sausage drippings and fond, enter the bunch of Swiss chard harvested from the winter garden, where I separated and chopped the stems, sautéing stems first in olive oil and then adding pounded garlic and leaves next and then bone and vegetable broth. And because I've been shopping my pantry drawer, I could see that I still had some imported Italian spaghetti, which I boiled in heavily salted water. Luckily I reserved some of that garlic for sourdough buttered toast.

And I'm able to see too to some parts of the back of the refrigerator and spied the small tub of grated Parmesan as well as the small can of Sicilian lemonade. Above was dinner for a sober curious January, where I wasn't frantically running to the grocery store after work for ingredients for yet another recipe I clipped from the New York Times, but rather automaticity meal prep and cooking. Note: I zhushed this sauce with oregano and thyme and basil--which I do have in my spice drawer almost always. I've decided once my fridge and freezer is nearly empty, I can unplug the refrigerator and do a deep clean. I know I have in the freezer chicken thighs and saw the chicken karaage mix in the pantry drawer. A Japanese dinner to come this weekend.

cook: monday meals

Monday morning before walking to school, I decided on a tuna salad sandwich for lunch. Luckily, I had the yummy Italian tonno packed in olio, Duke’s mayo and Grey Poupon to fancy it up. And it’s not salad if the sandwich filling doesn’t contain crunchy vegetables like celery, green onion and dill pickle. 

  

But I discovered that I’m not a fan of soft sandwich bread. And darn it, why did I forget to add the fresh dill I have in the fridge.

As a sandwich, tuna salad was lackluster. However, later that afternoon, I enjoyed a happy hour of said same tuna salad with crackers. Oh my that was the contrast of textures and moist and dry crunch I truly wanted at lunch. An addition of calamari and firm giardiniera and a champagne made for a very fine midafternoon snack.

For dinner, I had bought a Russet potato over the weekend specifically for a Monday night steak dinner for Patrick because his Sunday supper is just broth. 

The rest of our weeknight dinners are leftover bouillabaisse and carne asada tacos and hamburgers. And I haven't yet started Dry January because I just finished the bubbly wine. However, there's a carton of chocolate ice cream for milk shakes, and I'm jonesin' for some crispy French fries cooked in beef tallow.

cook: sunday roast

Not roast beef and roasted potatoes and Yorkshire pudding, but rather a hofbrau of roast turkey, giblets gravy, stuffing and mashed potatoes. I popped the turkey in the oven at 9, and the clubhouse windows were steamed and fireplace blazing before lunch.       

My plate of carbs made though for a sluggish one mile swim though glasses of champagne didn’t help either.

cook: sichuan eggplant “stir fry”

Husband harvested the last of Italian eggplant from the garden a couple weeks ago, but I didn't want to cook eggplant parmigiana again. I was in the mood for Asian and wanting to use the Sichuan peppercorns and Sichuan salt in the pantry as well as the ground pork in the fridge. I've discovered that if I can't achieve the smoke and sizzle of a super hot wok, then I can blanch the vegetable in the same water to boil noodles or in the case of this dish, steam the vegetable in bamboo.

I also wanted to eat more of the bok choy in the fridge. Atop jasmine and basmati brown rice, the spicy numbing Sichuan eggplant was a welcome change to the rotation.

The leftover pork and eggplant is going into my ramen noodle bowls for weeknight meals while the leftover rice will turn into crab pineapple fried rice.

cook: what you have

I had to throw away some El Pastor taco meat I made weeks ago, and it gutted me to waste food. And so to use up some of the tortilla chips still in my cupboard, refried beans I recently cooked, guacamole tomatillo salsa, white onion, and sour cream had to do.

I decided to co-host a holiday mixer prior to the new year:

A party merited more of a refrigerator cleanout. Into a baking dish went feta cheese and Kalamata olives and sundried tomatoes plus herbs and olive oil. 

There was still some of this feta dip after the party, and so I'll be making shakshuka with it.

More counter and refrigerator clean out of a pineapple, kiwi fruit, Christmas ham, gruyere cheese and half an avocado leftover from a crab salad sandwich leftover from crab cocktail on Christmas Eve.

The last of a jalapeno and a bagel from a neighbor meant jalapenos onto breakfasts of herbed creamed cheese bagel and an omelet with the last English muffin.

Yesterday after a mammogram, I stopped in one of my favorite grocery stores, but was pretty reined in by only buying what could fit in a canvas bag and being mindful of how much room was in the freezer, refrigerator, and pantry: two one-pound packages of ground pork, a bag of jalapenos, a bunch of cilantro, two bunches of green onions, a can of chipotle sauce, and family size frozen dinner of Stouffer's meatloaf. Patrick also harvested these eggplants, which I've since put into the refrigerator too.

I just watched a YouTube of a Eurasian Australian chef cook an eggplant dish where she steamed the eggplant for 25 minutes after slicing them into batons, made a sauce with Szechuan peppercorns, ginger and garlic, and then stir fried it in a chili oil (my friend, Feliz just gifted me her homemade chili oil though I may have to add star anise and cardamon if it's not already in there) and doubanjiang (which I happen to have in my Asian bin of ingredients) plus soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, and sugar. And so I'll have a mise en place at the ready when I cook the sauce before removing the eggplant into a bowl and then adding the hot sauce to mix and then garnish with chopped scallions. But I may just brown and then integrate crispy ground pork into the sauce. And I may instead just remove the eggplant into a colander and the move the vegetable into the wok.