Noms

I had a good day at pottery, except for discovering a damaged piece of my greenware on the firing shelf which I will try to replicate and improve upon today (there's no way the repaired piece will ever be anything other than chipped and damaged even if it does emerge whole from bisque firing).  Complaints about people who aren't more careful around greenware will have to wait for another day.  But it does hammer home the need for a place of my own to work.  I glazed four pieces and made three more.  There will be a tiny teapot, two cups and a tray.

I missed out on the kickwheel in Lakeland.  Not having anywhere to store it made the bargain price easy to resist for a change.  But missing the opportunity still stings.  It helps that the portable slab roller works nicely. 

I came home and made dinner - do not rush slow cooked country ribs, save them for another day if you can't cook them all day.  They were tasty, but they could have been more tender.  There were these six very ripe pears that needed to be dealt with - I told Mom the other day to "deal with" the swiss chard I brought home and she told me if I bought it again I could "deal with it myself" - hee.

So I peeled and cored and quartered those bad boys and booted up the trusty laptop and found a tartin recipe that called for... you know what?  It was completely different from what I made, I just stole the idea of making a carmel topping for the pears in a crust.  That recipe called for stove-top cooking and oven baking in an iron skillet with the stems left on. 

There is a cup of sugar (or so) and 6 T butter and the juice of two lemons, ginger and allspice in the carmel sauce poured over the pears which were then wrapped in crust and baked until brown.  Mom added that the lemon juice and spices probably would have been better mixed with the pears (and flour or other thickening agent - I didn't use one so this was juicy) and the carmel left basic - butter, sugar melted and browned - to be added later.  She definately has a point.  As she did when she said the whole shebang would have been better with a handmade crust.  It was still really good.

This is our "greens."  Sue me, I was tired. :)