Fishies

Back from Albuquerque. Brrrr...

Disturbing discovery: a standard 750ml bottle of wine fits perfectly in my car's cupholders.


Fishies!

Promises, promises

I bruléed bacon!

Ole

Chicken and potatoes with pumpkin seed molé.


And creme brulée.


And cheesecake.

Sitting on porcelain

The lasagne series of tiles were dropped off to be bisque fired this morning. I like working with clay because it's exactly like kneading dough and rolling things out in a pasta maker. Hence, the lasagne series where I sandwich differently colored sheets of clay into a block. The one on the right is "fishies swimming through ocean." I had that one sketched out for a month, just now making it. Most of my tiles had been queued for a little over a week now. So a large batch finished today. Junko was taking them out of the kiln when I arrived.


This one is "balance." Lots going on here, but the abridged version is that nature and technology coexist in kind of a yin yangy way. Air, earth, water, plants, animals, etc... all that hippie new agey stuff. And the corners are broken off like ancient ruins to show time and permanence. This series had been stewing in my head for over a year. One morning during the house construction, I saw near the rubbish bins a discarded carbide saw blade with a large feather next to it. This is what came out of that.


House numbers. I'm still not sure I like this one. My first reaction was that it looked like bloody snot. But now it looks like pizza. I'll leave it in view for a while. I can always paint it a different color and still preserve the really cool random bubbling cheese effect.


Color experiments. These were made from the trimmings of clay slabs. That's why they have straight sides, and one very irregular edge. I tend to do better with the blues and greens versus the oranges. The orange glazes always come out too "dairy" for my tastes. These get shoved in a box for future reference on what the glazes look like. I labeled the type of clay and the glaze on the back with a sharpie.


This is "person chasing shooting star" aka "man reaching for giant vagina."


This one is like the attic vents to the big house next door. A bit of an asian-y california craftsman kinda thing. But actually it's just an experiment to see how the glaze reacts to varying depths of carvings.


More 'speriments. I'm going to use more of the matte finishes now. The glossy ones don't show shape or form as well.


Failed cat tiles. They used to have primative cave painting cats on them. But the crackle glaze had gone horribly wrong. No matter. I really didn't like these much. Not in the vein of the usual Davy style. I dreamt of a cat in the shape of a parallelogram a few weeks ago, so they became the subject of these tiles. Live and learn.


On the otherhand, the cheesecake that I thought was a goner turned out extremely good. It settled down overnight in the refrigerator and now the texture is perfectly smooth and creamy, but not too fluffy. Marscapone cheesecake with shortbread crust on persimmon purée. One of the rare happy accidents in my notorious bad baking record. Why do I even try?


AND creme brulée.


AND persimmon gelato. Tonight was a three dessert night. Lactose intolerant Asians! I laugh in your face!

Cutting cheese

Cheese cow.


Butchered cheese cow. Clockwise from the ass: round, sirloin, short loin, rib, chuck, tongue, brisket/shank, short plate, and flank.


70's flashback. Fondue night. I do not own any fondue accoutrement, so the cheese is nested in a bowl within a bowl with a hot water moat. No fondue forks, chopsticks will do. Must dip quickly before the cheese becomes solid again, but it sure beats breathing sterno. Purple was delicious.


Choices choices. Do I want creme brulée or persimmon gelato for dessert? Both! Tonight's dinner would kill my lactose intolerant kin.


Baking marscapone cheesecake for tomorrow night. When I took it out of the oven, it was puffy, pale, and jiggly like Chris Farley doing that Chippendales routine on SNL. I was tempted to salvage my baking failure by calling it a cheese soufflé. Why do I bother baking when I just can't follow directions?

Eat dust

Fennel, romaine salad. With parmegianno reggiano shavings and anchovy balsamic vinaigrette. Beautiful fennel bulbs with wet dirt still on them, $1 each at the farmers market. The nice kid offered to cut off the fronds at the stand. Since I'm paying for the fronds too, I'm going to bring them home for the compost bin. I left the stalks sticking out of the grandma cart for extra style points while trundling along exploring strange varieties of vegatables.

Artichoke caponata with sourdough croutons. Caponata is a traditional eggplant and tomato stew dish hailing from Sicily. Note the colors of the Italian flag in the dish. I normally use frozen artichoke hearts. Those pesky artichokes are time consuming to dissect. But the texture of fresh artichokes made a big difference tonight. I eat my share of crappy convenience foods, but sometimes only fresh will do.


Kiwi creme brulée. This carton of eggs was surprisingly flavorful. Made the creme brulée extra rich, decadent, and nearly saffron colored. I love my blow torch. I will find a way to brulée bacon. Mmmm... bacon...


The stirrings of persimmon gelato for tomorrow night. "PersimmonFest 2006 (tm)" and "Thar He Blow(Torched) 2006 (sm)" are happening concurrently. Confusing, but with all the craziness in my life right now, what's a little more chaos?


A string of bad luck in the drink department lately. Sucked into gimmicky jalepeno beer. Yuck. Banished to Bad Drink Limbo, next to the turkey and gravy soda. Got sucked into buying aronia berry juice at Trader Joe's today.

The label says, "Yup, you read that correctly. Aronia Berry Juice. (that's ah-roh-knee-ah) And just what is an aronia berry? We're glad you asked. Aronia berries are dark pigmented berries that extremely high in antioxidents. Higher than blueberries, higher than cranberries, higher, even, than pomegranites. This juice is a terrific mixer-with everything from sparkling water to lemonade to vodka. Give it a try-just for the health of it."

The woman at the register warned me that it tastes like dirt. But adventurous Davy still wanted to try it. Afterall, I did like Cynar artichoke liquer. Mais Oui! Aronia berry juice DOES taste like dirt. "Terrific mixer" means that it tastes like crap by itself. I think they need to print in bold letters like the surgeon general's warning. "WARNING: TASTES LIKE DIRT. DRINK HAIR DYE INSTEAD."

High fire

The first tile experiments are back from the glaze kiln. These are the celadon series. The difference in color at the top tile is from smudging with a finger. The difference in color on the right is from double dipping and then sponging the ridges.


Cheesy garlic bread and roasted vegatables.


Persimmons have been taking up space in the freezer since November. Time to clear them out. Persimmon bread tonight.


Happy lucky kiwi octopi.


Blow torch s'mores. The first two attempts involved setting the marshmallows on fire. It's a very fine line between toasted and flambé. I'm probably going to burn down my new kitchen with the blow torch.

Lifting fog

Foggy morning. Very rain foresty. I will have to borrow some gorillas to go with the mist. My hairy friends would probably do.


Finally permanently connected to the electrical grid. House renovation is officially over! Moment of silence...


The grandma cart I bought in Chinatown was the hit of the farmer's market this morning. A most stylish wheeled vegatable conveyance.


I'm going absolutely gaga over these cauliflower heads. I lingered at the cauliflower stall picking out the three most perfect heads of each color. The orange one is creamy, purple is spicy. The math geek in me absolutely loves the green cauliflower for it's infinite fractal spirals. The flakey artist in me loves the chartreuse color and the Thai goddess head dress / tower minaret shape. It's just a gorgeous vegatable.


Napping in the sunshine. Dogs always know the perfect thing to do at each moment.

Brain dead

A moment of silence please. After a two hour exploratory surgery and many jolts of the defibrillator, the patient is pronounced brain dead. It's major organs will be salvaged and put to good use. Laptop, I will miss you. It's time to let go and move on.