Josh is a potter, open source programmer, avid food geek, former pastry chef, and serious home cook. He lives in Portland, Oregon.
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…
Read MoreA 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…
Read MoreIt'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…
Read MoreI 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…
Read MoreSpring 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…
Read MoreOne 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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