Moretonhampstead Festival of Food and Drink

I have been busy designing and making a new range of tableware which I am planning to showcase at the Moretonhampstead Festival of Food and Drink on Saturday 9th March. The Festival is now in its 5th year and promises to be bigger and better than ever with stands all down the main street and cookery demonstrations throughout the day.

I will host two demonstrations at The Studio. The first will start at 11.30 a.m. and the second at 3.00 p.m. The demonstration will last for about 25 minutes. Influenced by the Japanese art of food presentation.

I am planning to put together a fruit platter and show how to assemble a salad platter from simple ingredients. I am excited (and nervous!) as this is the first time I have attempted anything like a cookery demonstration.

If you can, please pop in and have a cup of tea or coffee in the showroom whilst you have a look at the new pots and my demonstration.

New Tableware

January is always a tricky month in the workshop.  It is hard to motivate myself to get back to work after Christmas when the workshop is cold.  Luckily this year I had a Japanese potter friend working with me, who kept me going.  I was able to work on developing a new range of tableware.

The new tableware uses the soft grey and white palette which I have been trying out over the last couple of years.  It is great for serving many kinds of food.  These slab dishes are modelled on some which I bought years ago in Japan and have used a lot.  I have tried before to create something similar and these are the best yet.

The texture on them is inspired by the Jomon pots from the previous post.  I made some rollers using plaited string glued on to dowel rods and used them to texture the slabs.  Opposing corners were impressed using a shell I found on the beach last summer.

With the new pots, I am trying to keep it simple.  For me, that is often the hardest thing to achieve.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

I was at the British Museum yesterday - along with hundreds of tourists sheltering from the horrible rainy weather - and enjoyed looking at the Jomon pots.

This is what the Japanese were making when we were making Stonehenge.

What I hadn't realised is that they used them for cooking in.  They had a photograph of some fire pits which the base of the pot was put in to.  

I don't know what they actually cooked in them, but I like the idea of such ornate and exciting pots being used for cooking.  Quite an inspiration for the next making cycle!

Back to the studio tomorrow...

Christmas Dinner

We had our family Christmas dinner early as my daughter, Miya, was going to Germany for Christmas.  Taja made some wonderful marinaded fish and tuna sashimi starters, beautifully presented on a couple of his serving platters.

My contribution was a chocolate roulade.  I found a Mary Berry recipe on the BBC Food website and added some fresh cherries poached in brandy (with stones removed) with the cream inside, and some raspberries to decorate.

In between the fish and the roulade we had a delicious roasted chicken with lots of veg and all the trimmings.

On Christmas Eve, a Scottish lady came into my showroom looking for an 'ashet'.  I didn't know what she meant.  She was looking for an 'ashet' big enough to serve her turkey on.  Unfortunately, the one I had was only chicken sized.  Intrigued by this word, I looked it up in the Concise Oxford Dictionary, Volume 1, and discovered that it is a northern dialect word for a large plate - from the french, 'assiette'.
She did buy a jug for the gravy.


I'm hoping to make some larger serving platters next year, which will make good centre-pieces on the table and add to the sense of occasion,  when serving something a bit special.  Hopefully, I will be able to provide a suitable 'ashet' next time.

Christmas Show at The Studio

My Christmas Show at The Studio opened at the weekend and will be continuing until Christmas.
It seems to need an event to make me re-do the display in the showroom.  Now it is looking festive and stylish for the Christmas season.  I have used photographs from my Pots and Food Calendar to show the pots in use.

No more deadlines before Christmas, so I am looking forward to developing some new work.
I want to make some larger serving platters and will try and get round to showing some work in progress on the blog.  Always difficult to remember to document work in progress, when you're caught up in actually making it.

I made my venison casserole yesterday, using the recipe from the Calendar.  I used some of the spiced mulled wine which was left over from the Christmas Show opening, which made it particularly delicious.  Mulled wine is always great for meaty casseroles as well as warming up the customers!

Art in Clay, Farnham

It seems longer, but it is just over a week ago that I was exhibiting at the Art in Clay show at The Maltings in Farnham.
It was a good show and I really enjoyed catching up with other potters who I haven't seen for a while.  It is always inspirational to get out of the workshop and see what other potters are doing.

I did a pot swap with Margaret Brampton, another slipware potter.  She had made a series of these lovely bowls with a simple pea-vine motif.

By coincidence, I had been looking at recipes for pea and mint soup, so perhaps they will be good bowls to serve it in, though I think the shape is more suited to a risotto.  I have had an asparagus risotto with a pea-shoot garnish, which would look great.

I'm looking forward to using it, and will post a recipe when I've had time to try it out.

Busy making and firing pots for my Christmas Show which opens this weekend.  I'll also be doing some cooking, as I'm planning to serve some nibbles based on recipes in my calendar.

Another busy week!

Stuffed mushrooms

This is another photo from my Pots and Food Calendar 2013.  The platter is the same one which I used for the Pavlova in June.  Those lovely cherry tomatoes love my pots, especially the ones with a dark green or dark blue rim, which show them off beautifully.

This recipe is one which I have used for many years, originally from the Observer, I think.  The tomatoes are stuffed with a mixture of bread-crumbs, an egg, some chopped tomato, crushed garlic, grated parmesan, olive oil, parsley and the chopped stalks of the mushrooms.  The mixture is topped with some extra bread-crumbs and drizzled with olive oil, then baked in a moderate oven for about 15 minutes.  Great for a starter and substantial enough for a main course, too.