clay: plates and plaster molds

Whenever I try to do too many things at once, I end up doing each thing half-assed. But let's hope that the stuff I made today won't crack. Today I made 3 plates and "babysat" 3 plates from yesterday.  

This plate to the right was made over a hump mold. Golly I need to make another hump mold or two. It’s so much faster than using these tins as slump molds.

And I glazed the 4 plates below and 2 bowls after under glazing my maker's mark and waxing the bottoms.

I also poured another cast of a soap dish as well as applied rice decals and underglaze to the one I cast yesterday. And also did a slip cast of a bud vase and another tea bowl.

I took up a lot space today in the studio. I occupied 4 tables!

And this morning, I admired again the cup I bought from Don Jower in the sunshine.

 

The beauty of a wood firing is the unpredictable but gorgeous results never to be repeated exactly the same way again.

Don told me he threw this cup very thick and then carved it. I'm guessing he used a hardware tool like a big putty knife. So cool.

cook: vietnamese grilled pork

When people ask what I did this summer, I'll reply I stayed home. But it's been a creative home stay. I thought I finished this crib quilt top, but upon looking at it, it needs another row. Probably two more rows to look balanced. And I think I've plenty of blue fat eighths to get it done. I also started a 10" square potholder in beach colors, and that's turning out to be an improvisational project. Maybe I'll get a potholder finished this weekend. 

  

I’d also been craving Vietnamese sandwiches and rice noodle bowls, and so I bought boneless spare ribs, which is basically pork shoulder. The recipe I found was very simple: brown sugar, soy sauce, fish sauce, chopped onion (I used shallot), minced garlic (I used the rest of pureed spring garlic in my fridge), a stalk of lemon grass (I used from a tube I bought at the supermarket), black pepper mixed to form a marinade. I then cut the ribs into bite-sized pieces, which I combined with the marinade.     

 

Easy peasy. The bowl of meat then went into the fridge until grilling time.

I told my neighbor, Cecilia to come over for dinner because she loves bahn mi sandwiches. I had pork belly frying in the cast iron and my mise en place all ready while I grilled.

My husband told me that he ate the bahn mi sandwich which I cooked for a neighbor's birthday party, so why did I think he didn't like them? I had told him I was going to grill a steak for him. Sigh. Alrighty then. I'll make them again for another dinner, but I'll use bolilo instead of French rolls which are smaller. Patrick also asked me to grill his squash harvest.

Cecilia thought it fancy that I skewered all the pork, but I was barbecuing it over charcoal and being on sticks makes it easier to cook than in a grill pan though that's an idea too--to cook it in my cast iron over the briquets to prevent the fat from dripping on the coals and burning the meat. However, despite the over caramelization, the pork was delicious.

This protein will make for more delicious sandwiches and rice noodle bowls. I wonder if Patrick will eat rice noodle bowls too. If I don't tell him that fish sauce is in the dressing, or tell him afterward that nuoc cham is fish sauce, lime juice, garlic, and birds eye chilies when he's already eaten it, he will no longer be averse to Vietnamese food. Today the kiln gods will be delivering me pots, and I've got this soap dish to put on the green ware shelf. I'm either going to adhere rice decals or paint marine blue stripes using tape resist on it.

Finally I've been getting some successful slip casts. It's a day for more slip casting (I'll make more Japanese tea cups, soap dishes, bud vases and a summer squash vase from a mold I made years ago) and glazing (obsidian bisque salad plates! porcelain salad plates too!).

cook: thai pineapple fried rice

On the 4th of July, I had bought fresh fruit on sale. Strawberries, blueberries, and pineapple. Lots of pineapple 🍍. Finished eating all the berries but not the pineapple. And so I’ve defrosted chicken thighs and studied 2 different recipes. One called for shrimp though it said you could also substitute chicken or tofu. The other recipe omitted protein though it said you could add prawns or chicken. One called for curry powder, soy sauce, fish sauce and said shrimp paste was optional while the other called for no curry powder, oyster sauce and fish sauce and offered 3 different options for sauces using the aforementioned soy and fish sauces but also Gold Mountain, a specific Thai soy sauce, and Maggi. Vegetables were different too. Peas and bell peppers in one and no bell peppers but tomato and green onions in the other. While one Thai cook put raisins and cashews in her pineapple fried rice, neither of those were mentioned at all in the other. And so I’m going to make my pineapple fried rice inspired by both. Chicken instead of shrimp, which I'll marinade in pineapple juice, soy sauce and Maggi. Aromatics like chopped onion and minced garlic of course.

 

Curry powder, turmeric, oyster sauce, fish sauce, and shrimp paste to flavor the protein and rice. Diced bell peppers, celery and carrots, and the white parts of lots of green onions. 

 

No raisins or cashews in mine, but definitely the fresh pineapple and previously cooked jasmine rice from the day before called for in both recipes. 

 

Per my usual, I softened the onions and garlic in hot oil first. And then added the marinated chicken.

 

Vegetables next. And wow was there a lot of liquid I needed to cook off before adding the rice.

 

Yeah a lot of stir frying on medium heat to cook off the steam before finally adding the pineapple and shrimp. The shrimp was an afterthought because I had decided to use shrimp paste in the sauce too and wanted it obvious that shrimp was in this fried rice as well as chicken. And generous sprinklings of green onion and chopped cilantro. And pineapple studding the top which you don't see below because Cecilia popped over for dinner, and I stopped taking pictures.

Okay I've never eaten pineapple fried rice at a beach shack diner in Southeast Asia, nor ever ordered the dish at a Thai restaurant. My recipe was more of what you'd find in Singapore or Malaysia than in Thailand. Cecilia said for my fried rice to be Thai, the fried rice had to be more fiery and less sweet. Meaning use Thai chilies or sauté Thai red curry paste with red chili peppers, garlic, sea salt, lemongrass, turmeric, and shrimp paste that had been freshly pounded in a mortar and pestle. Here's hoping my friend, Bob who is in Laos right now, will bring me a larger and lightweight mortar and pestle than the one I have from some Laotian market.

clay: palo alto clay & glass festival

I wasn’t feeling it earlier in the week to go to a clay show and sale, but I’m glad I did after my banana pancake breakfast.  I had two bananas I thought I was going to bake into a chocolate chip banana bread and decided instead to turn into pancakes and eat with the lilikoi syrup I wanted to try.

 

My pancake looked almost ready to flip.

I'm more in like with regular old fluffy pancakes and maple syrup, but I'll eat the rest of these banana pancakes with the lilikoi syrup and Spam in order to evoke my Kauai vacation. 

And then it was onward to pick up Meral and hit up the Palo Alto Clay & Glass Festival for ceramic inspiration. I had to find Laura Hennig's booth. Last year we fell in love with her huge fire sculpture, which a patron bought right away. And last year, there were no clay classes at the community studio where we practice and it was interesting to see how the pandemic had changed up some of the ceramics of artists we liked. This year, Hennig's theme was the ocean, which I've also always been drawn to when I went through a phase of sculpting whales and making ocean mugs. The biggest sculpture in front of Hennig's booth this year was a crab claw. If I owned a seafood restaurant that served cioppino and crab salad like the Beach Chalet, I would display this.

Likewise, if I had a coastal home for these other sculptures of a clamshell with barnacles and a mermaid in a wave.

 

This sculpture made me think "I am the Walrus....Goo goo g'joob goo goo g'joob." Hennig's surfaces are so awesome.

I walked to the back of this wave to find the squid on the other side.

And Laura Hennig insisted that we look at the glaze on the waves outside of the booth in the glare of the sunshine.

And then I got distracted by these twin dogs with their dyed tails.

Meral asked if this was Poseidon, but I think Hennig called it Rushing Water whereas to me, the face looks like the Green Man.

And I'm always drawn to more functional pieces and could see this bowl being a bird bath.

Of course, her son Ivar's booth was next to hers, where I admired his animal sculptures. I wonder if he had been the one to sculpt the walrus on his mother's wave.

I bought a tiny cup for just $12 from Don Jower, who explained how the wood firing had trapped the carbon gasses on one side of this mug, but didn't affect the other side and the interior which reflected some gorgeous glazing. It didn't matter that I hadn't bought one of his larger raven sculptures like the woman behind me in line, he just kept nerding out with me and Meral over his clay processes.

 

My new wood fired mug is displayed next to the little whiskey cup I had made with speckled buff and gloss white glaze. I rather love the exposed surface where the glaze crawled. I had also bought this little bud vase from another potter, who had only priced this at $7. In the sunlight, the glazing looked gorgeous.

I had spent less than 20 bucks on pottery and so I bought cherry dipped chocolate cones from the Mister Softee ice cream truck. We dripped ice cream and wilted in the blazing heat before walking a tree lined street back to my car. T'was a good afternoon for ceramics inspiration.

cook: tuna melt

I’d been craving a tuna fish sandwich and even went to the trouble of buying celery for another seafood lunch. With a fork, I mashed and mixed one can of Mediterranean tuna packed in olive oil (don’t discard) with mayonnaise, both Best Foods and Kewpie and the remnants of beer brat mustard and no pickle relish because I wanted my salad more creamy and not too tangy. I also added a stalk of celery, chopped, and red onion, finely diced. A sprinkle of salt and black pepper. But I realized I only had one slice of sourdough bread and since my crab melt had been so delicious, I thought I'd do it again, but with tuna. I toasted the bread in a 350 degree oven for a few minutes and buttered one side. Generously spoon tuna salad onto the toast.

 

Layer a slice of Swiss and some grated Gruyère atop to cover the fish salad.                      

 

I then broiled the sandwich on high for 6 minutes.

I loved it as much as the crab melt. And since I'm out of bread, I'll do it again but with a thick slice of tomato, which we're starting to harvest from our garden finally. And if I do make it to the grocery store, I’ll get English muffins if I'm missing bread. I didn't add lemon juice though I thought my sandwich perfect, but next time. Also Ina Garten flavors her mayonnaise with anchovy. That's brilliant! Okay okay dill would make the salad crazy ass delicious. I just made a green goddess which contains anchovy (and dill!) and will add that to my tuna salad. Retro comfort food? Count me in.