I've been reading a lot about food preservation lately; making the most of what you have already, etc. etc. I've been reading "Independence Days: A guide to sustainable food storage and preservation" by Sharon Astyk. It's OK so far, but she had one quote in there from someone else that really rubbed me the wrong way. It said,
"When you cook it should be an act of love. To put a frozen bag in the microwave for your child is an act of hate." - Raymond Blanc
Really? Then I must really hate my kid. You know what else? Eff You. Not all of us have time or energy to stay at home and, as my neighbor so eloquently put it, "stock their shelves with organic wholesomeness." I do what I can. And I cook. A lot. I garden, I can, I bake, I store, I recycle, I reuse. And you know what? occasionally I microwave something for my kid. It's not like I'm the idiot out there buying the individually wrapped bags of 8 grapes. So, if this makes me a bad person, than so be it. I realize I am sounding a wee bit defensive here, but come on.
I thought I was all clever last week because I found a wild persimmon tree in the park and collected a bunch of them. Feeling rather smug with my find, I planned on cooking them down into puree and then freezing it to use in jam or something else later. They're pretty small, and the seeds are large, so trying to peel them by hand and smush out the seeds by hand was time consuming and frustrating. So instead I just cored them and put them in a saucepan with a little water and let them cook down, and then put them through the food mill to get rid of the seeds and skins. This was all fine and good, and when I was done, I decided to taste it. It was absolutely horrible. It has the same effect as eating raw eggplant or perhaps the stringy part inside banana peels...that feeling that your teeth are suddenly gritty and your whole mouth puckers. Terrible. I chucked the whole batch. Maybe I did something wrong, but I decided to chalk it up as a failure and move on. Yech. I suspect that there was something enzymatic at work there... perhaps some lemon juice would have stopped it, or cooking it longer. I'm not sure, I had to go to class last night and didn't really feel like putting any more effort into it.
Class was great last night... I was having good luck with running things through the slab roller. I had a couple of leaves work out really well, and I'm going to make them into small footed plates. I also tried the circular cutout metal parts from a furnace air filter and made a square tile that I'll make into a trivet. Of course Marc's first question when I told him about it was, "So, you trimmed it so that the circles end the same way on all the edges, right?" (???) Anyway, I got a brainstorm that I might make some ceramic picture frames or frames for mirrors. I also saw a piece inthe Clayworks show that was a hanging planter with a windchime attached underneath it, which I thought was really cool. I might try something like that next. I also signed up to be the supply shop girl on Tuesday nights, which means I run the cash box if people need to buy clay or supplies, or pay for stuff to go in glaze firings. Basically, I earn Clayworks credits, which I can put towards my own firing fees, or another class next semester. Good deal, especially with Christmas coming up.
Finally, the black edges are dry and I'm ready to apply the grout. I use gloves and really scrub the grout into the spaces between all the tiles. This shot is the initial wipe off of grout. Once it dries up a bit, I will clean teh surface more. I don't want to mess with it too much in case the water in the grout mix softens the glue holding the tiles down. In the morning, I'll hit the surface with a green scrubbie pad. Then, I need to paint the back black and add the hanging hardware. Almost there!
