Our Juicy Life

Christmas Dinner for Two

                  

What do you do when it's just the two of you for Christmas dinner?  In our case, it's a chance to try a new recipe and to have duck.  We just love duck but you can't find cut up duck here in Los Angeles.  I have to buy a whole duck and cut out the spine, cut off the wings, legs, breast.  It's a big job with sharp scissors, but it's so so good.  I use my Le Creuset of course, because it makes the juiciest meat.  All I do is make up a butter, herb de provence and garlic mix and stuff it under the skin.  Salt and pepper each piece and then brown it in olive oil and then put it in the oven for 30 minutes.  So easy and so good.  I also made roasted potatoes and a new salad called Bettes de Vigneron (vineyard-style swiss chard).  A parent of one of our students gave me this fantastic cookbook called "The French Market" and I love it.  There are so many authentic french recipes from southwest france.  I had to try this 'warm' salad.  It has swiss chard, onions, garlic, raisins, walnuts and lemon juice (salt & pepper too).  It was really good, very earthy and yummy.  Something we will be eating again soon.

Here is the duck.  Don't get tons of mean from this little bird...just enough for two.

The Swiss chard salad was so good. Very french.

But the best part of making dinner is that Bruce always cleans up.  I love to cook, love to try new recipes and he's so open to try new things and he's always there to clean up my big mess (although I try to clean as I go so I don't have tons for him).  I was going to make this traditional french dessert called "floating islands" - which is custard with meringue and caramel sauce, it's in the "french market cookbook", but after reading it I decided it would be too much work.  I'm not feeling 100%.  Been fighting a sinus cold for a few days, so instead we had vanilla bean ice cream with this armagnac (a french brandy), sea salt, caramel sauce that another parent (who happens to be a food writer for the LA times) made for us.  She told me that you can basically put it on anything and it was unbelievable on the ice cream. 

We had a lovely day.  It was about 70 and sunny here.  We relaxed, took the dogs to the park, went for a bike ride (although I had to turn around after 8 miles because I wasn't feeling great...Bruce ended up doing 38 miles).  We ate some great food, we exchanged gifts in bed this am with all the dogs and took a great nap this afternoon.

Can't ask for anything more! 

Cookies...yum yum!

Been baking lately.  Last week I did traditional chocolate chip cookies - I really don't like chocolate chip cookies (I know I'm crazy) but they really don't do much for me, but they are easy and Bruce loves them.  I did some of the cookies with nuts and liked them much better.  I guess I like the salt & sweet combination.  This weekend I added a twist to Oatmeal Raisin.  I did Oatmeal Cranberry/Coconut.  Yum yum...these are good cookies.  Bruce is chocolate man, but he really likes these.  They are very simple to make too.

I got this recipe from Martha Stewart  - Oatmeal Raisin Cookies, if you like raisins then go for the 2 cups, but the cranberries add a little something special - so I replaced the raisins with 2 cups of dried cranberries. 

I'm having some oven troubles.  I have a 1949 General Electric stove.  It's electric - seriously...and yes, you can cook on electric.  I think you end up being a better cook when you cook on electric because you have to be more careful with what you are doing.  Anyway, my stove has 2 ovens (thank god), because my main oven has decided not to heat up properly.  It probably gets up to 250 but that's it.  So I have been using my 2nd oven, which is a bit smaller but am finding out heats really really fast.  The recipe says 18 minutes for the cookies to bake - WHAT - it took mine 9 minutes to be nice golden brown.  So if you have a fast heating oven, watch the time.

Try these out and let me know what you think.  I think I'm going to go have another right now.

A POTTERY EXPLOSION

                  

This year I was invited to participate in about 7 holiday bazaars.  I only did 1.  Why, well all of them were either on Saturday or in the afternoon during the week and I had to work.  I did one because I committed to it early on and didn't want to disappoint anyone.  I left Bruce at the studio alone for 3 classes on a Saturday.  He was such a trooper, he decided to do clay with the kids.  It's an easy project when you are alone...you don't have to worry about standing up and giving a lesson, passing out paints, etc...  But I felt bad that he had to do it alone and I don't really make that much at bazaars and it's a pain packing up all the pottery and unpacking and being happy and cheerful for 8 hours.  I did sell quite a bit of stuff though, so thanks to everyone who bought something. 

 

New color for me.  RED.  It's the most expensive glaze but I like the results.  Alone it's not so good - fire engine red, but I really like it pared with brown.  Most of my colors are blue, brown and green, all cool colors, so I like having a warm color in the mix.

I shared a table with a woman named Rebecca Hahn .  She chose me to share a table with her and that made me smile.  She is a very talented illustrator and it was her first bazaar.  I bought one of her t-shirts for Bruce.

I was panicked getting ready for this bazaar.  It was 1 weekend after I got married and I wanted to make sure I had a big variety of stuff.  I was also doing a very large custom order for a good friend of mine and she wanted everything for Thanksgiving.   And my family was in town for 1 week.  It was crazy.  BUT, I haven't thrown since then.  I would love pottery to be my full time business, but sadly it isn't.  The Studio is my full-time business and it brings in the bucks.  It's hard to find time between cycling (which is very important to me and usually takes 2 - 2 1/2 hours a day to do) and napping (which is also very important to me).  Pottery takes time, you have to weigh out your clay, then you throw your piece, then you trim your piece (or add a handle), then you let it dry, then you  load into the kiln for the bisque fire, then you take it out, then you wax bottom, then you glaze it, the you put it back in the kiln for the glaze fire, then you take it out and finally you are done.  Hopefully if we move to France I'll be able to throw full time.  It would be great to spend 1/2 the day doing stuff that I know sells and the other 1/2 experimenting. 

So, here I am, this small little pottery studio.  I don't do any marketing because it's not a full time job and I just don't have the time and if I market myself then I have to make more and I just can't do both businesses right now.   I sell my ware in 2 stores here in Los Angeles and at our studio.  I have some very loyal customers (thank you if you are reading). So, imagine my surprise when last week I received an email from a writer with the New Jersey Star newspaper.  She was doing an article about handmade gifts, found my website, loved my pottery and wanted to feature it in the article.  WHAT?  So, I send over some pictures and it was in the home section of the paper on Saturday and it's on the home section of their on-line paper for 1 week.  SO hurry and check it out.  Handmade Treasures.  My sister asked me what would I do if all of a sudden I got tons of orders...  I'll keep you posted!