Cooking and Cooking Shows

With the new year I put myself back on the "no wheat, no sugar" regimen with a nod to the strategic impurity school of thought.  The holidays always sends me reeling for a month or two and this time I just rolled with it and waited out the January birthdays and picked up where I left off.  So it's back to cooking dinners at home as much as possible and planning lunches more carefully and looking around for ideas and recipes to add to the menu.

One thing I've discovered is that cooking and food shows are ego-driven, elitist diatribes and do way more harm than good to aspiring cooks and diet conscious people.

That sounds harsh but after a couple of months of monitoring the various shows offered across a wide range of satellite TV and working over the regimen to spot any weaknesses or potential improvements, I discovered that the last thing I needed to watch was a cooking show for ideas.

Now, all cooking shows are not the same so I hate to lump them all together since I have learned quite a bit over the years from a select few.  Well, only one actually.  And that's because Alton Brown works hard to demystify cooking and distill it down to its most basic elements without sacrificing flavor or creativity. The rest need to stop. They need to be taken off the air and sent to soup kitchens on the bad side of town where they can do some good.

(I'll exclude Gordon Ramsey as well since Hell's Kitchen is a great source of entertainment.  He screams at pretentious chef-wanna-be's and calls them "fat cows".  It makes me giggle.)

But cooking shows are evil. They make cooking to be more than cooking which, I believe, intimidates a segment of the viewing audience into never cooking again. Or they use ridiculous ingredients that the average person could never find.  Having some round faced diabetic tell me that my dish requires some delicate fruit harvested by constipated virgins three days short of new moon or it just won't come out right irritates me to the point of throwing the remote at the TV. Pretentious doesn't even cover it.  And even when they dumb it down and tell you it can be done in thirty minutes with locally sourced ingredients, then the pressure is really on.  Not only do you have a time limit, you have to embrace the guilt of shopping in the big box because you can't afford anything else. Thank you asshole cooking person on TV. Thank you for making me never want to cook again. I'll just live on fast food and beef jerky, swell up, get sick and tell other people how they can't cook.  Maybe Food Network will even give me a cooking show.

I don't like to cook but I love food if I don't cook then I can't eat the way I want. Simplicity is a requirement and access to basic ingredients a must.  I will not be intimidated by a bunch of fascist foodies that don't live in the real world where we have to cook and eat to live, and do it within a fixed amount of time, and do it within the confines of a budget.

That being said, if you don't cook, I would encourage you to try it again.  Step in the kitchen and make something simple and enjoy eating it.

And remember, cooking shows are not on the diet.

The Drought and Raku

This has been a hard, hard year for a raku pottery artist in North Texas.

The drought continues and the burn bans are thoroughly entrenched and while a raku firing is technically permitted (a controlled, contained fire akin to a BBQ grill), I've watched Possum Kingdom burn twice now and just can't justify the risk.

So I've turned to functional ware, sculpture and horsehair pottery to tide me over but I miss the drama and tension of the raku burn.  I normally fire at night since it's easier to see what's going on inside the kiln.  It also adds to the the sense of the primitive in the process, the fire against the darkness, turning destructive elements into a moment of creation.  Raku is the technique that sold me on the pottery side of clay art so regardless of my other endeavors, a raku firing is like going home.

But grass is so dry it crackles like brittle grass under your feet and even the mesquites are fading to yellow.  One spark, one stray ember and homes and lives could destroyed.

So I will pursue other endeavors for now.  But for those who live where the rain still falls, I offer one of my favorite manuals for alternative firings.  It's the source for white crackle glaze that is very simple and effective as well as a handy guide for a variety of pit and saggar firings.

I'm burnishing my heart out right now, getting ready to do some horsehair pottery.  I'll post the results next week.

Hot and Sour Soup

You either love it or hate it. Personally, I love it. I enjoy the heat and the flavors and it's remarkably easy to make. Basically, the base is chicken or beef stock with vinegar and white pepper and a choice of vegetables. Restaurants typically use mushrooms and tofu but they are by no means required. Mushrooms have to be prepped and cooked right to really shine in any dish and tofu simply absorbs the surrounding flavors no matter what they are which makes it an excellent filler and protein substitute. But if you don't need the filler or the substitute then it really adds nothing to the dish.

I like grilled chicken, maybe even blacked as the main protein. Grill up or blacken three to four chicken breasts and set them aside to rest.

Julienne one large red onion and sweat in a stock pot with olive oil. Season a dash of a cajun spice mix. Julienne two or three jalapenos, managing the seeds for heat (the white pepper is the main source of heat so be careful). Slice three or four stalks of celery and add to the sweat. When the onions are translucent, add four cans of chicken stock and two cans of water or use six cans of stock. Bring to a simmer and add two tablespoons of white vinegar and a teaspoon of white pepper.

Take three to four carrots and use a peeler to reduce the carrots to long strips. Add to soup.

At this point, start tasting and add vinegar, the cajun spice and the white pepper to taste. Be careful and add each in small amounts until you find the balance between hot and sour.

When the carrots are tender, the soup is done. Beat one egg and while stirring, drizzle the egg into the simmering soup. To thicken, dissolve two tablespoons of corn starch in a little bit of cold water and add slowly to the soup while constantly stirring.

Take the chicken breasts and shred or slice into cubes and add to the soup. If you want to be fancy, slice the chick and then serve in a shallow bowl and pour the soup over the chicken right before serving.

This is by no means a traditional version of the dish but I would put it up against any restaurant's recipe. Other versions have pork or beef as the base but chicken works well with the flavors.

This is also one of the best soups to fight off a cold or the flu. The heat helps clear the sinuses and the vinegar is reputed to have a cleansing effect.

The Mammoth finished...

I fired him to Cone 06 which I should have taken him to Cone 6 but this is the first big sculpting project I've done in a while and I did not want him to explode in the kiln. When he came out, there were some stress fractures on the base so the low fire was a good plan and also left the clay porous enough for paint.

As far as paint, I used acrylics over a black base and finished it with a spray matte finish. The finish came out a bit shiny but in the right light it looks good.

I'm not really sure why I went with painting but I got started at Peach Festival just to see what it would look like and before I knew it, I was done and happy.

Working on wolves next but as usual I have to find the time.

A Good Day

I modified the kick wheel a couple of weeks ago and finally found time today to test it out. It works but I still have some tweaking to do. I'm still amazed how profoundly different the kick wheel is from the electric. The electric gets the job done but the kick wheel puts me in a very happy place.

I also start a sculpting project and it's definitely a work in progress but I'm excited about it so I thought I would share. It's a mammoth, by the way, not an elephant. I got a lot farther on it on it than I thought I would


So, yeah, it was a good day.

Tortilla Warmer 3.0

This version of the tortilla warmer turned out pretty close to perfect. It's almost 10 inches across which is the size needed for the fajita style tortillas.

Low,wide forms are a challenge for me especially low, wide lidded forms. But I have a few more of these to make now that I have the process down.

I'm also progressing on the pylon project using slab techniques. Had a bit of a breakthrough in that area around mid-January.

Off to a great start, pottery-wise this year. Gotta keep up the momentum.

So what to do with this new year...

Ain't got a clue.  Think I'll just trudge on and see what happens.  I have things that need to change and goals to meet but interestingly enough, it's the same things that always need changing and the goals are the same long term goals so nothing's really that different.

I did want to mention that I'm way off the dietary lifestyle and now that the holidays are done, I'm back on it.  I expected it and relished it and gained weight but now its done and I'm back to it.  No guilt or remorse.  The Holidays are a holiday.  'Nuff said.

I do have a new favorite meal, though, speaking of.  It's not a 100% diet friendly but I think it's close enough.

Honey Mustard Coleslaw Fish Tacos and its better than it sounds.

Take 1/2 cup of mayo and an 1/8 cup of dark mustard and 1/8 cup of honey and mix.  Add that to a bag of pre-shred coleslaw mix.  This by itself makes a great coleslaw but add a half of a red onion chopped and and a jalapeno diced and it becomes your taco filling.  Bake some white fish in olive oil and seasoned with Zataran's Blackening mix and that becomes your protein.  Chop up the fish, layer it into a tortilla with the coleslaw and maybe a little bit of cheese and eat 'em like tacos.  Quick, cheap, easy and satisfying.

At the studio, I'm still working on tortilla warmers, bowls and candles.  I'm definitely going to stretch the creative muscles year and push myself a bit to see what happens.  That means painting and drawing in a addition to the normal pottery and clay work.  I got ideas and and only two years to get them done before the zombie Mayans return from an alternate dimension and beat us to death with their calendar.