pottery, pottery tech, 3Dprint

ball opener mark 2

completed ball opener mark 2

Lots of potters by now are familiar with the Ball Opener tool, popularized by Tom Whitaker. Speedball even has a version for sale, although I'd argue that it's inferior to one you make yourself from PVC. I use ball openers when I make matched sets, because making sure that the…

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vegetarian, summer, good first recipe

facon, lettuce, and tomato

photo of an FLT sandwich on a plate, next to a small pile of tater tots

A little while ago the Washington Post taste-tested various "fake bacon" products -- which I'm hereafter calling "facon" -- with some surprising results. They decided that supermarket-standard brand Morningstar Farms (see endnote) was actually pretty good, and worked as a reasonably convincing facsimile of fried bacon. This was doubly surprising…

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vegetarian, baking, tomatoes, summer, french food

simple tomato tart for summer

square puff pastry tart with sliced tomatoes

It's now late summer, and if you have a vegetable garden like I do, you're festooned with a glut of tomatoes. Maybe you've already made gazpacho, fresh tomato sauce, Turkish salad, and more tomato things. The tomatoes keep coming in from the gardent. It's time for something French: a tomato…

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pottery, making pottery, 3Dprint

3d printed wheel shield clip

photo of a Brent pottery wheel, with clips on the splash pan, holding a strip of plastic as a sheild

I was having a serious problem with my new plaster bats. They're tall enough to raise the throwing surface above the edge of the splash pan on my standing wheel. This was resulting in a fair amount of slip spatter on the walls: It's a clay studio, so a little…

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pasta, vegetarian, spring

spring pasta with green vegetables

photo of a large serving bowl full of curly pasta with green vegetables and cheese

Spring vegetables are in, and around our house that means salads and pasta. With enough veggies, you can have both in one bowl. You could call this a "pasta primavera", I suppose, although that name has been abused enough that I'd just as well rather not. I'll give you an…

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eggs, vegetarian, cheese, french food

cheeeeeeeeeese!!! (and a souffle)

me holding a box full of gift cheese from Widmer's

One of the few remaining good food magazines is Culture Cheese Mag, to which we've subscribed for more than ten years. Because we love cheese. And one of the things that Culture does periodically is reader giveaways; we've actually won twice, once a decade ago, and once this month. What…

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