Midwinter days – & Nights

Posted on 30/06/2016 by hotnsticky

It’s quite frosty these midwinter mornings, now that the rain has cleared. I wander out in the frost to see how the gardening is faring. Especially the small new seedlings and emerging seeds. Everything looks pristine and bright. The frost crystals fringe the leaves and make the foliage look so delicate. My fingers are cold, but I go back and get the camera to take a few images.

These cold winter days are so appropriate for minestrone. The Lovely picks carrots, cabbage, leeks and celery from the garden and browns an onion in good olive oil. She gas to climb up onto of the kitchen table to reach for another plait of our garlic that is hanging high in the kitchen ceiling curing. We are more or less half way through the garlic year and a bit more than half way through our supply of last years garlic.

I pick the last of the summers dried beans, still in their pods, shell them and soak them overnight. They make a great start to a wholesome soup base. With the Lady’s magic touch, it all comes together into a warming and nourishing couple of meals.

We are enjoying all the usual winter greens. The Brassicas are doing well just now in this cold weather. We have broccoli, cabbage, Brussel Sprouts and cauliflowers all on the go. A typical meals just now might be fish with 3 veg, but otherwise it’s just 3 or 4 veg.

Tonight we have a piece of fish with twice cooked home-grown dutch cream potatoes. Twice cooking starches converts the starch from instantly available high GI starch and sugar, into slowly digested resistant starch, which is very low GI. I Serve this with Brussel sprouts and kale.

I’ve been trying to find a way to enjoy kale, but it is rather limited in what can be done with it. I persist because kale and all the other older fashioned brassicas. The ones that still have their bitterness still in them, The ones where it hasn’t been bred out yet. These are thought to be very good for you.

Prof. Mark Mattson, of Johns Hopkins University has written a few articles about this. I read one in New Scientist magazine last year. “Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”. To summarise. The bitter principal in these veggies stimulates your immune system and tones you up. So, I keep trying to make it more enjoyable. I’ve decided that the best that I can do is to slice the leafy material away from the stem, slice it finely and simmer it in it’s rinse water and a little olive oil with loads of garlic. Then serve with a squeeze of lemon and some fresh ground pepper and a little of my fake salt substitute. It’s almost enjoyable. Once I mixed in some Ethiopian Cabbage and red mustard leaves with the kale. It must have been very good for me, because I could only just eat it. It was so bitter.

The best way that I have settled into wit kale now, is to simmer the peeled leaves as above and mix in 100g of diced feta , before serving with the seasoning and lemon juice. Have no more fear of kale. This is lovely. The feta makes it all the more delicious and balanced. The fat content dramatically improves the balance, mouth feel and taste.

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Home Again

Posted on 01/06/2016 by hotnsticky

We haven’t been home long and we are able to get most of our meals from the garden. We start with a very fresh and crisp green garden salad.

We find that there are a few ripe avocados still on the tree, so we pick one and add it to the salad. It’s a special bonus. We wouldn’t have any left at all due to the birds and possums if it weren’t for Janine getting out there and bagging the last of the fruit before we left.

I manage to find some time to get out into the garden and pull out all the spent corn stalks and dead tomatoes vines. I have a few goes at it over a couple of days and eventually make a bit of a difference. I lime the soil with dolomite. A natural mixture of calcium carbonate and magnesium carbonate in about a 50/50 ratio. It sweetens the soil and negates some of the natural buildup of acidity through our use of a wide range of organic composts. We make compost from everything that we have on our place here, including pine needles and gum leaves. Everything that is organic and can rot is composted down to a black/brown peaty compost and used as mulch somewhere on the block. Pine needles and gum leaves tend to be acid, so are good for strawberries and blue berries, but bad for other plants that like a more neutral or alkaline pH.

We also add a layer of composted chicken manure on top of the freshly exposed, weeded soil, then cover it all with more compost. I try not to dig unless I have to. The worms seem to do that for us, If left to their own devices.

I pick a cabbage and make our first home made okonomiyaki at home here after our return. The cabbage is a whopper. It has grown well while we have been away. I only use a 1/4 for 4 pancakes. I add in some other vegetables that we have including a grated carrot and a finely sliced red capsicum;. These wouldn’t usually be included in such a dish in Japan, but we aren’t in Japan anymore. We are home and this is what we have. And after all, okonomiyaki actually translates as something like ‘add what you like’. So I do!

The washing machine decides that it will only do one more wash and then burns out. It stops mid-wash and goes no-more. We have to drain out the water from the unit before we can open the door of the front loader. This machine has done well. Over twenty four years of continuous service. I can thoroughly recommend the ASCO ASEA brand for a quality, reliable, long lasting product. All you have to do is find a brand new and unused model from 20 years ago and you’ll have a good quality machine. God only knows what the current products are like in terms of long lasting quality. Anyway, I’m very pleased with our choice from two and a half decades ago. There is a lot of embodied energy in a thing like this and it really needs to have a long life to justify its existence, otherwise it just becomes more of the same old land fill junk that the big companies want us to cycle through endlessly at great expanse to the planet. Built in obsolescence is a crime against society. So good on you ASCO, for still stocking spare parts for this old model.

I knew that the water pump in the washing machine was wearing out for some time and I ordered a new one a few months ago. It took a couple of months to get here, as it had to come from Sweden. The new pump arrived just before we left on our travels, so we were lucky that it didn’t fail while we were away and cause Annabelle, our house-sitter, any problems. The local agent doesn’t carry spares for 24 year old products. I can understand. I’m pleased to get one at all after all this time.

I set to work to replace it, but like all these jobs, it turns out to be a bigger, longer, more complex job than I imagined. Firstly, the new pump isn’t complete, I have to take some parts off the old one to make it fit. Second, the old parts are quite well settled into place after 24 years in wet, humid conditions and take quite a bit of un-doing. I am forced to retreat from the laundry and go down to the workshop to get my hands on some serious tools. The Swiss army knife isn’t going to cut it on this job on its own.

I manage to get all the parts swapped over including the fan on the pump motor. I’m amazed that this isn’t included. It’s only a simple plastic part worth just a few cents. it has the be prised off the old shaft and it’s a tight press-fit on the new one. I had to pay $250 for this little pump. I’m amazed that they can’t supply a mounting plate and plastic fan for that money!

The electrical cable is just long enough for the factory technician to fit the pump, while it is up-side-down in the factory, in good light and with the correct tools, and plenty of practice. When I’m working down in a dark corner, on my back, in a confined space, holding a torch in one hand, a pair of pliers in the other and then with my other 2 free hands I am able to manipulate the electrical clips in the correct order, otherwise the last one won’t fit!!!!! I question the logic of this thriftiness. This all has to be accomplished in just 100 x 300 mm. of access space. I’m finding it quite difficult to get both my arms in there at the same time, never mind to be able to see what I’m doing and work accurately.

The last minor annoyance is that the rubber hoses are all crimped on with single-use metal clamps that need to be broken to get them off. Luckily, I keep a lot of different sizes of adjustable hose clamps in stock here for other uses. Fortunately I have 50mm, 35mm and 25mm dia clamps in my tool box. Eventually it’s all done. The only real joy that I can take from this is that I didn’t have to pay a technician another $250 to come out here and do it for me and most importantly, I have forestalled waste by keeping this old appliance going for another few years. So this is self reliance.

While I’m in maintenance mode, I set about rebuilding a Venco potters wheel destined for an aid project in Cambodia. It arrived here completely disassembled and in a few different cardboard boxes of loose parts. it has a reconditioned motor and all new grommets as well as a new rubber drive wheel. Everything reconditioned for a long life ahead.

It takes me an hour or two just to figure out the order in which I must do the job to get it all to work out. I have one false start and then it goes smoothly. If I had taken it apart myself. I would have remembered the sequence, but as it has all been completely disassembled by someone else, I have no memories to call on. I have to work it out using only logic.

It goes and it works OK, so I am happy with that. This old wheel will now have a new life ahead if it in Cambodia in a village pottery workshop for many years to come. More waste forestalled.

Tomatoes for 5 Months

Posted on 29/05/2016 by hotnsticky

We are now just back from our 5 weeks in Japan continuing our research into single stone porcelain. We were lucky enough to get to many more sites on this visit, where porcelain stone is, or has been mined. See my earlier posts below.

I have been able to make a few nice pots while I’ve been here. Actually, I made a lot of pots, but destroyed all of inferior work that wasn’t up to scratch and didn’t make the cut. I’m not here to make rubbish. I want to make things that I can be proud of, nothing less. My rejected pots have all been crushed up to dry powder, packed into boxes and shipped back home for a possible 2nd life. My best work was glazed and fired onsite and also shipped home. All my efforts are currently in containers at the port or on the high seas. I will see them again in 2 months. Hopefully they will still look as good when we are reunited.

This work is all a part of my 10 year project to go to all the places in the world where single stone porcelain has been made and then make some work at each of these places, out of the material that is to be found there. These works will then be shipped back here to Australia, where I will exhibit the whole body of work from all the sites along-side my own single stone porcelain pots, that I have made here, in one big show. I’m rather hoping that it will look good when all amassed together in one show. Only time will tell. I’m almost finished. Next year should see the end of it.

As soon as we are back home and settled in. We unpack our bags and put on a load of our soiled clothes into the washing machine, which grumbles and squeeks as it grinds along. I can’t complain, this machine is over twenty years old and still going – just. I think that it is the leaking water pump that is the problem. I have a new one in stock. I ordered it months ago when I noticed the water starting to leak from underneath. It took months to get here. It arrived just a week before we left on our long trip. I didn’t have time to install it before we left. Now that I’m back, I will have to make time.

After the basics are dealt with, then it’s straight out into the garden to check out how all the plants have fared while we have been away. Apparently it has been very dry for most of the time, with just one proper fall of rain. Annabelle Slougetté has been living here in our absence and has kept everything alive for us.

The first thing that I notice when I get into the garden, is how dead so much of the garden is. The last of the summer corn, has finished, dried out and turned up its fibrous toes. We made an effort to mulch as much of it as we could in the week before we left and this has really paid off for us. There are so few weeds now. A couple of days of intensive work will bring it all back into healthy production again, as there are loads of winter vegetables coming on. I made an effort to get all these planted early in the season, at the end of summer/early autumn. So, now we have broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbage and spinach ready to pick.

Surprisingly, many of the late summer plants are still lingering on and still producing food. Others, their time being up, have gone to the big veggie patch in the sky. They will soon be headed into the compost bin, where they will rot down and be fertiliser for next seasons crop of summer vegetables.

As I look around, I see that there are still some little yellow tomatoes ripening on the old, almost dead, vines. We have been picking tomatoes now for 5 months, pretty amazing for us. So this is global warming?

This will likely be the last pick, as the plants have lost all their leaves and are pretty much dead now. Interestingly though, there are still some small new tomato plants germinating and growing up. One is even flowering, but I can’t believe that this will amount to anything, as the first day of winter is only 2 days away. The first frosts can’t be too long after that.

We used to get our first frosts at the beginning of May, now its the end of May or early June and possibly later? A couple of years ago, we went right through winter with only minimal frosts, to the point that we didn’t get any apples on any of the trees the following summer. Apples need a minimum number of frosts (or winter chilling hours) to develop the hormones that are necessary to make the flowers fertile.

I go straight back out into the garden with my basket and fill it with little yellow tomatoes, the last of the lingering sweet basil and a load of capsicums and chillis.

I set about making a tomato/caps/chilli salsa by browning a few onions in good olive oil and adding 6 small knobs of garlic. The ones that are so small at 20 to 30mm. dia. that it really isn’t worth peeling them. They will add heaps of flavour to this mix and the small amount of skins and paper will be removed when I strain the whole batch. I let them softening down along with all the diced fruit over a long time at low heat on the wood fired kitchen stove.

I will pass it all through the kitchen mouli sieve to take out all the tomato and capsicum skins and seeds, then reheat it to sterilise it and bottle it in heated glass jars. It will keep for a year or so, but probably won’t last that long. It’s too delicious, although very ‘hot’ with chilli flavour. It will make a great addition to winter stocks and sauces over the coming cooler months.

This little effort marks the end of our summer preserving for this year. I’m very pleased, as I wasn’t expecting there to be any fruit left to preserve. This simple garden-to-kitchen-to-pantry excercise grounds me and resets my emotional and spirituual compass to ‘home’ after being away. This is what I do. This is what I live for. This is me. The self-reliant potter/gardener.

A close inspection of the garden beds reveals a lot of little germinating seedlings of onions, carrots, beetroot and rocket. I planted these seeds just the week before we left. I also planted a few hundred cloves of garlic. Most of which have now germinated and are showing their green shoots. Peas are also up and growing quite strongly, I hope to see them flowering soon.

There are a lot of capsicums ready to pick, so I decide to stuff them with ricotta and bake them in the oven, as the stove is lit, we are making hot water and warming the house up as well, seeing that we are now home and the weather is so windy and cold. Such a change from the weather in southern Japan, where it was almost summer and the weather was balmy to hot.

I make a stuffing out of whatever we have at hand in the fridge. Before we left I had bottled some little cucumbers and some dried tomatoes. I add these into a lump of fresh ricotta. I add a few cloves of our garlic, along with a few capers and an anchovy or two, a few olives, a shallot and some parsley. I dice it all up and mash it together with some veggie and herb salt substitute. I would like to add a little bit of finely diced feta cheese to give it a little bit of chewy texture to the cheesey mix, but I don’t have any at this time. I’ll add to my shopping list for next trip into town. There are plenty of capsicums left to pick, so we will be having a meal, not unlike this one again in the coming days or weeks. I like to use what I have in the garden and pantry. Our main food expense these days since we lost our chickens and ducks is protein, which these days consists mostly of fish.

The fresh fish truck is up from the coast today, so I buy a small piece of super-fresh sashimi grade kingfish, we have a small fillet for lunch. I skin it and slice it up and we have it with a little soy sauce, wasabi and pickled ginger in vinegar. Yum. Itadakimas!

Teppanyaki

Posted on 27/05/2016 by hotnsticky

On our way home, we let our hair down and go out for dinner a few times. Just cheap places, mostly okonomiyaki. We get three different meals in 3 different cities. We get to try okonomiyaki in Kyoto, Osaka and Tokyo.

Although the technique varies from city to city, from restaurant to restaurant. The general taste is pretty much the same, because most of the ingredients are the same. The overriding flavour is that of the brown okonomiyaki sauce and cabbage. The sauce, which is not unlike brown BBQ sauce and the smothering of kewpie mayonnaise add a very distinctive character. These tend to be the dominant flavours.

There is however, a noticeable variation in texture from place to place. In Osaka the texture of the batter is a little bit creamier. In Tokyo, it was a bit more dense and solid in texture. In Kyoto we saw one place where so little batter was used, that it was mostly the egg holding the whole thing together. Yet in another, there was plenty of flour in the mix.

Of course, I realise that you can’t just eat half a dozen meals and say that these represent the whole of each locality. We were eating at the markets and in cheap cafes and restaurants while in transit around the country. So what I write has to be taken with a sprinkle of bonito flakes and a pinch of salt!

It was an amazing series of taste and textural experiences in a short period of time. The Tokyo version was quite firm with what seemed like a lot of flour in the batter. I noticed that when the chef flipped it over to cook on the other side, the thing bounced a bit like rubber! Very dense indeed. I watched the other chefs cooking other varieties for other customers at the long teppanyaki grill table, and they were all of the same dense texture.

I Kyoto, the batter was a lot thinner and the resulting texture was a lot more fibrous with the cabbage showing a major influence on the finished dish. There is a very slim layer of batter applied to the hot plate first. Then a big pile of cabbage is placed on top. a dressing of some sort of liquid is ladled onto it and after some time a little hole is made in the pile and an egg is cracked into it.

Some more batter is ladled onto the cabbage pile and then the whole thing is flipped over and the other side is cooked. If bacon is to be included, it is added on top just before flipping over.

While in Osaka, the texture was soft and creamy. I’m told that they use a local mountain potato or yam, that when it is grated, it turns directly into a thick, sticky liquid and it is this that defines the taste and texture. I don’t know, so I can’t say. This is just what I was told, so I’m repeating it.

At the Toji markets in Kyoto we make a point of always having the okonomiyaki from the same stall. It’s a hot day this time around and the pancake goes down very well with a chilled beer. It’s a filling cheap and cheerful respite from the crowds and all the hussle and bussle and delicious with it.

In Arita, down in Kyushu, we were served a special okonomiyaki, made at the table of our friend, for a dinner party of mixed international visitors. This was the most rewarding to eat, because of the circumstances and company. We are very fond of the friends that we have made here in Japan and we value their friendship highly.

I get it!

Posted on 24/05/2016 by hotnsticky

The only bad thing about travel is the travelling! We have got used to traveling light. we can both pack bags that are under weight at 12 to 14 kgs. This is quite enough to sustain us for the 5 weeks that we will be away. Some of the extra weight that I carry above Janine’s slim baggage, is all the electronic garbage that we tote along to ‘keep in touch’. Taking all the necessary electronic chargers and adaptors to be able to keep more or less in touch while we travel is an extra few kilos that aren’t really essential, but optional. We travel prepared for all situations, communications wise.

Of course, we could just travel ultra-light with no ‘telecoms’, but I do like to upload our on-going adventures to our blog as we go and to do that we need cameras, phones and a lap top. This is of course showing our age. If I were a young person, I’d just have a modern phone and that would do all of that in one go. I must think seriously about updating and get with the light-weight modern option.

Janine has a rather more capable phone than I do. Hers is an iphone4 and it has a remarkably good camera on it. As good as my small pocket-sized Canon handy cam.

Another important thing that I have learnt to take on a long trip is a comfortable pair of shoes. I can’t go past these old leather ‘Walking shoes’ from Adelaide company ‘Slatters’. They are very comfortable for walking around in, something that we do a lot of when we are away. Slatters don’t make this model of shoe any more. They are now a discontinued line and this is very sad. They are not good-looking at all, but by gee, they are comfy! These are my second pair and have lasted quite a few years. The new range that replace them are not as good for me. They don’t suit me or fit as well, nor are they as soft and snug fitting. From now on, I will be looking out for some other solution for the comfortable footwear conundrum.

While we have been in Japan, we have been renting some studio space and making some work. This is all part of my 10 year long project to go to each place in the world where they make single stone porcelain and make some work there in each of those places. I want to have a show of this collected work next year at Watters Gallery in Sydney. I only have one more place to go now, so I’m getting quite excited at the prospect of seeing such a long term project mature to some kind of completion.

Some of my work, before and after glaze firing.

IMG_3600 Copying

Outside the studio, the bamboo is putting up new shoots. Its spring time here and everything is so green and luscious. The bamboo grows about a foot or 300mm. per day, so in a few days, it’s as high as Janine. We consider collecting some of the new small shoots, while they are still just 100mm. high, but there just isn’t enough time if we want to get our ceramic work done. And after all, this is what we have come all this way for. We see some fresh picked bamboo shoots in the local organic farmers market and this is excellent, as it is just as good and saves us so much time. It’s delicious added to a simple stir-fry/steamed mix of vegetables and brown rice.

Just finding brown rice at all in the supermarket here is such a breakthrough. I’ve never seen it for sale before. It’s a sign! However, it is only available in little slim 500 gram packs for extremists and health food weirdos, whereas white rice still comes in bags and sacks of 5 and 10kgs, up to 20kgs!

The next night I find some sole in the fresh fish mongers little shop, just down the road from our lodgings. He’s a lovely guy, so helpful and sweet. His wife is so lovely too. They operate this little business 10 hours a day, 6 days a week. Nothing is too much trouble. They tell all about the days best choices and possibly all about how to cook it too, but I don’t speak any Arita dialect and very little Japanese, so little, that I can only just pick out a few words. This couple are so patient with me though, I can’t help being totally grateful to them for persevering with me.

Each day they have something else different in their shop, whatever is the best option for the day, plus all the usual offerings. We get some super-fresh sashimi from them when-ever we pass the shop. One day, I call in a bit early in the afternoon and I suddenly get it. There is no sashimi in the ice tray display counter as yet. He hasn’t got around to it, too busy preparing all his other orders? He says to me a sentence that includes two words that I recognise. “sashimi” and “mata” and I get it! “The sashimi will be ready later on in the afternoon. I haven’t had time to do it yet” at least that is what I take from it. I nod, “mata” I reply and sure enough it is all there to choose from 2 hours later. I’m a bit chuffed at this little exchange. I suddenly feel like I’m starting to fit in a bit. I have experienced this sense of being able to hear more than I can speak on other visits to Japan. After a few weeks, I start to get my memory cells activated and somehow, I seem to know what people are talking about, without knowing all of the words that they are speaking. Freaky, but it happens consistently on each of my 6 visits here over the years.

I also choose some lovely lemon sole, or that is what I think that I am buying. I have no way of telling, but that is what it looks like. Mr Fish Monger San tells me a lot about it. I nod appreciatively, so then he cleans it and guts it, trims the fins, etc. His wife, Mrs Monger Okesama wraps it and then shows me the price on her calculator. I pay and then they pack some ice in a plastic bag for me to carry it with in my back pack, as they know all about me and where I am working and living. I haven’t told them a thing about me, but they know. The grapevine is working. They know that I’m walking, it’s a hot day and that I have a way to go. It’s all so civilised and pleasant and inclusive. I feel like a little part of me really belongs here. I serve the sole, steamed in a little olive oil, lemon juice and pepper with some steamed, fresh, hot, still crisp, broccoli on a bed of fresh finely shredded cabbage with some shiso dressing. Yum!

The next day at Mr Fish Monger San’s there are a dozen slim garfish sitting there on the ice. I buy them all, and cook them under the grill. They are so fresh that they don’t even smell of fish, just ocean! I share them with the others in the kitchen.

Now for something entirely different!

When I get a lift to go to the big supermarket in another town, I’m suddenly aware that there are pictures of whales on the freezer cabinet. I look closer and see lumps of frozen whale meat in vac-packs. I can’t say that I’ve ever seen whale for sale anywhere before, ever! I can’t resist taking a picture of it. So, this is where it eventually ends up. In little towns and villages, in the freezer section.

Later, when we are about to leave the supermarket, someone says to me that they saw me taking pictures of the freezer section with the whale meat in it.

Why?

I say that whaling isn’t approved of in Australia. We stopped doing it 40 years ago. They know precisely what I’m saying and put their hands over their mouths in a shy embarrassed sort of way. Oh yes! Australia doesn’t like it. With that, they let it pass.

I’m pretty sure that they know that Australia took Japan to Court and won the case. A little bit embarrassing for them, but they brought up the subject not me. Japan then withdrew from the court and refused to recognise the decision. They have been ostracised and have decided to go it alone. An environmental pariah. It was made clear in the legal case evidence, that there isn’t and never was, any scientific basis for killing hundreds of minke whales each year. It was just an embarrassing lie, and they have been caught out. Where does the conversation go from here? It doesn’t!

The Japanese government obviously decided that there was more political mileage to be made by going feral and pleasing its political backers with this unjustified whale slaughter circus, than there was in being a good global citizen. Even if it is all done at a loss and isn’t universally popular. We both probably know that there isn’t any profit in whaling. As I understand the situation, no company wants to fund it, to take the financial risk. It is entirely funded by the government, simply because it’s a loss-making operation. The decision is completely political. It’s desecration at a loss, funded by the political interests. We both decide to let it pass at that and we make our way out of the market. My own position on this is that Japan is an independent country and can probably do as it likes. As it is doing. However, they should be brave enough to tell the truth about it and not lie about the fake science.

Our time is up now and we have finished our time here. I crush all of my pots that were not good enough make the cut. About 50% of what I have made here this time. I burn my poetry. I clean up my wheel. I dry all of my turnings. I pack them into strong plastic bags and pack them securely into strong cardboard boxes and post them back to Australia. I’ll see them again after 2 months spent at sea in the cheap surface to surface mail system. It’s so much cheaper to post dry turnings than fresh wet plastic clay with 30% water content. We have perfectly good water back home in Australia to make good clay from these dry fragments. They may yet have another life?

As we catch the train out of Arita, I see the fields of over-winter barley are being harvested now. They were looking very ripe and going to head when we trained into here 5 weeks ago. The stubble is being ploughed in in preparation for the next crop. The other fallow fields are being flooded and ploughed ready for the next rice crop. The weeds and purple flowering, nitrogen-fixing ‘vetch’ that has been allowed to grow in the fallow period needs to be turned in as a green manure. It all looks good from the window of the train as we speed by.

When I was here 8 months ago the rice was being harvested, now it’s the early, over-wintered’ barly coming in, with the summer rice being planted.

The circle of life turns. I suddenly feel the need to get back to my own garden and do all of the weeding and planting that I know will now be needing to be done. Annabelle Slougette has been working in our pottery and keeping the place under care-and-maintenance for the past 5 weeks.

I can hardly wait to get home, now that I’m starting on the way back. I’m consoled by the beautiful bento box lunch on the train. It helps!

fond regards from Southern Japan

San-sho Pepper

Posted on 29/04/2016 by hotnsticky

I love San-sho pepper. It seems to be quite hard to find in Australia. We can get some that is already ground, from the Japanese supermarket in Sydney, but it is quite old by the time that we get to it and has lost a lot of its flavour. I’ve always been happy with it, but I didn’t know how good it could be fresh.

We are lucky enough to stumble onto a place where they are preparing some fresh san-sho pepper. We get to see, smell and taste the whole seeds, as well as the freshly ground san-sho pepper directly after being ground.

I didn’t know that it has a high citrus note in the aroma when it is fresh. It’s great stuff. It’s hot and spicy and so delicious. Be careful however, because if you get too greedy like me and take too much, then it suddenly overdoses the taste buds in the tip of my tongue and my tongue goes numb. It’s powerful stuff. Restraint is the key.

A little goes a long way.

We Go To The Markets

Posted on 28/04/2016 by hotnsticky

We go to the markets in the grounds of the Kitano shrine and see some amazing thing, but not what we expected.

On our way to the bus station we see men at work.

At the markets, we see how okonomiyake is really cooked here in Kyoto, or at least one of the versions of it. best of all we get to eat it and it is delicious.

We meet the amazing cat lady and her fashionista cat.

We see lots of old pots, a few of which I buy. But only the smallest sake cups, as we still have 5 weeks to go and I don’t want to be carrying too much.

We end an amazing day with a meal of fish grilled over charcoal. Oishi des!

The Last Beta Firing? Success at iteration 7

Posted on 09/04/2016 by hotnsticky

Janine has just completed the 7th firing and design iteration of the little wood fired kiln. It worked well and there are now no more obvious and glaring changes that need to be made to the design. Of course there are a lot of little issues that will need to be tweaked over the coming months. But I can’t see anything that will require a major rebuild. I think that this design as it stands now is a good one. – Until I think of something better!

The verandah of the pottery now has a collection of these little prototypes all parked there out of the weather. They all work well enough at lower temps, so I will use them for our raku firing weekend workshops. The image shows a very full wheel barrow of wood, enough for two or more firings to stoneware.

The design that I have ended up with is now ready for a limited production run.

This last firing of Janine’s was more or less perfect. Except that we managed to crack a kiln shelf. Janine had a lot of flat ware, so I retrieved a kiln shelf from the rack that hadn’t been fired for over 20 years. I think that the shock of a fast firing and possibly moisture absorbtion that couldn’t escape fast enough was the problem, as this hasn’t happened before. I would usually like to season a new kiln shelf more gentle. Perhaps by rubbing in salt and pepper with a little olive oil might work next time?:) By lunch time we’re famished. Because I managed to catch up with the fresh fish man, we have ultra-fresh sashimi grade tuna. So its sashimi for lunch.

I also make fresh pippies in white wine, chilli and saffron sauce for dinner. What more could you want to celebrate a successful firing day. Followed by a fresh salad from the garden. We have a local grower of saffron now, so we support them.

I have been making a new batch of spy holes for my kiln factory. I throw them on the wheel, very slowly, out of a very coarse mix of crushed high alumina grog and a small amount of kaolin to bind it. The mix is so aggressive that my hands are starting to hurt after just one pot-board full. This mix really takes your skin off. But that’s OK. 20 or so will last me for another year. If I wanted to make any more I’d have to wear gloves. I’ve heard some potters claim that they throw till their fingers bleed, but I’m not that stupid. I know when to stop.

I fire the spy holes in the little wood kiln. This little wonder fires cone 8 on the bottom shelf, cone 9 in the middle and cone 10 at the top. A perfectly useable working stoneware temperature range. Certainly OK for a 3 to 3 1/2 hour firing schedule. My bowls turn out well too. Some nice, soft, pastel glazes.

I’m really pleased that everything has come to a clear resolution at this time. As for the next couple of months. I’m fully booked on other projects and I wont have any time to play with this little kiln for a while. In the evening we de-seed chillies for drying in the kitchen window, along with beans and corn, destined for drying and grinding for polenta. I also finish drying some tomatoes in the oven. Once dried in this way they have the potential to keep almost indefinitely, but they never do. They are so yummy that I eat them like lollies. They never last the year. It’s great to add a handful into winter stocks. They add that certain piquant, sharp sweetness to sauces or a ragu.

This is just another day in the mixed household of self-reliance.

Best wishes from Mr. Beta and Ms Better

Pan Fried Figs in Apple Toffee

Posted on 31/03/2016 by hotnsticky

Because we are now past the solstice, it is time for the figs to begin to ripen. We enjoy them cooked in a little butter with a squeeze of lemon juice and a dash of our own preserved, concentrated apple juice. It slowly simmers down to a concentrate of apple toffee with soft poached figs.

It is pretty amazing, but last nights figs in preserved rich red preserved plum juice was even a little better I feel. It’s all so hard to say, as every bit of it is so, fragrant, soft and delicious. Wonderfully soft and engaging while being a little bit sharp and sweet and delicately textural. It’s one of the few times where a little bit of ice-cream goes so well. It improves it and extends the texture, mouth feel and flavour.

So simple, so flavourful, so easy. Plant yourself a fig tree and enjoy the benefits – if you can keep the birds away!

Nina had to spend quite some time bagging the fruit to protect it from the birds.

Peppers, with Peppers, with Pepperoni

Posted on 23/03/2016 by hotnsticky

This months meat meal is pork. Pork in the form of a hot spiced sausage. I know that I shouldn’t be eating preserved meats. There is plenty of evidence out there to indicate that the preservatives like sodium nitrate and not at all healthy, but on a special occasion once a year. I think that the phrase, everything in moderation might apply.

So, last night I made green peppers (capsicum), with chilli peppers and pepperoni sausage. Actually, it wasn’t pepperoni at all, it was chorizo, but I like the sound of the alliteration. I could have called it chorizo with chilli and chapsicum, but that isn’t as good.

It turned out pretty well. I was pleased with it. Everything except the sausage came from our garden. I started by frying very finely sliced leeks in olive oil until they were golden and crispy, then added 1/2 a knob of finest diced garlic along with the roughly chopped capsicums and chills, plus the chunks of chorizo. Stir fried for a few minutes and then simmered with the lid on for a couple more to sweat out all the juices.

It was hot and spicy, but still crisp and crunchy to bite into. lovely!

I am very grateful to be able to live this wholesome, self-reliant life.

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