A visit to Adrienne Baba

Last weekend I stayed with potter and chef, Adrienne Baba, at her house in Bloxham, near Oxford.  I helped her make some bread, which was fun and her delicious walnut shortbreads looked very elegant on this black dish.

She recently served the same thing to the famous pastry chef from the Japanese restaurant, Zuma, when he came to discuss a commission.  The recipe comes from The Popina book of Baking by Isodora Popovic (Ryland, Peters and Small 2010) which I use a lot for tarts, biscuits and cakes.

It is great to hear about a potter being commissioned to  make pots for a restaurant.  This is a huge part of a potter's income in Japan, but is almost unheard of here in England.  Adrienne has worked with Japanese restaurants in London -  Zuma, Roka and Soho Japan to produce a range of pots for particular dishes.  These include platters, boat-shaped dishes and rectangular slab dishes.  Her pots are simple and elegant and show food to great advantage.  We also visited Whichford Pottery and saw her pots on display in the gallery there.

They have a good choice of pots in the gallery, many of them good for serving food, as well as an extensive display of garden pots outside.