“Bread, Butter and Sugar” for the late night firing crew

Bread, Butter and Sugar

Tonight, November 18, 2011,  it will be simply “Bread, Butter & Sugar” to fortify the late night firing crew, for although I am the ace purveyor of their food, and always have something homemade ready - as inexcusable as it is - I just need to employ some shortcuts on what I send out to them tonight.

Their supper was locally grown London Broil which had stewed gently all afternoon, dissolving into a soft medley of sweet potatoes, tomatoes, garlic, red wine and a fistful of pickings from our backyard herb garden of rosemary, sage, bay, and friends. There were also collards sautéed with more garlic, and Joan’s fresh-baked sour dough bread from today’s Farmer’s Market.

But now they need that late night snack.  When you are on the midnight to 6am shift, stoking a wood kiln, you need sustenance.

“Bread, Butter, and Sugar.”  The truly Wonder snack. Was anyone else raised on this after-school staple? The bread back then was, of course - Wonder Bread, white as the driven snow. Even my mother, who took great pride in being a Bellevue nurse (the toughest hospital in NYC in the early 1940’s to spend your residency in, and who was a stickler for good nutrition,) had still fallen for the hype of Wonder Bread.  When five hungry kids hit the kitchen table after school with numerous friends in tow, “Bread Butter and Sugar” was her fast, almost instant, energy laden snack.  We loved it. I can make them in my sleep.

Joan’s sourdough bread, made from Lindley Mill flour and local butter, was warm when I picked it up at the Pittsboro Farmer’s Market on Thursday.  Tonight I lathered it with more Maple View Dairy butter and generously sprinkled organic sugar on top.

How many years have gone by since I sank my teeth into this culinary masterpiece? As I took my first bite, the memory of that taste slammed me back to happy days in my childhood home. Back to memories of times at our kitchen table, and of my mother’s smile, and then of her laugh, which matters most.

Wow.  I have to admit, that is delicious. 

Maybe it’s ok to step back in time once in a while.  And bring back a childhood favorite, and a simple treat from another era.

Bread, butter, and sugar.  I suspect it will not be years before I enjoy this simple snack again…

Epilogue: After careful consideration I have decided to order a few more loaves of Joan's bread and set up a make-your-own “Bread, Butter, and Sugar” station in the workshop on Saturday and Sunday afternoon so you can try this treat for yourself!

That's after we've finished off the the homemade pumpkin muffins Saturday am!

From the *new* pottery kitchen

First the good news.  A week ago we moved back into our newly renovated kitchen.  It's beautiful, with heart pine cabinets, a two-inch thick walnut counter, and plenty of shelves and drawers for pottery, and provisions.  And the not so great news?

An intense thunderstorm accompanied by a twister swept through our property on Monday evening and took down three ancient oak trees.

I wrote a press release and sent it out to the papers. I doubt they'll print it, but here it is.

PITTSBORO, NC -

An earthquake, a hurricane, and now a tornado, and the largest pots ever made by Mark Hewitt, one of North Carolina’s best know artists, are still standing.

On Monday night about 6pm a twister spun through the yard at the Hewitt home and Pottery, taking down three massive oak trees, and landing one of them on the front half of the Hewitts’ late 18^th century farmhouse.  Luckily no one was in those rooms at the time.

Miraculously an installation of twelve large pots, including eight that are tall, life-sized sculptural ceramic sentinels positioned on their lawn, all survived the tornado without sustaining any damage.

Stand of Curvaceous Sentinels

Recent exhibitions of Mark Hewitt’s big pots at the Nasher Museum at Duke and the Ogden Museum in New Orleans were artistic milestones that pushed Hewitt to explore new aesthetic territory. In this recent firing were the largest pots Hewitt has ever made – not only bigger, but with new shapes and glazes.

This weekend and last the Hewitt Pottery is hosting their Summer Kiln Opening, showcasing these new massive pots, as well as 1,500 smaller functional salt and ash glazed pieces, spanning from bud vases to cereal bowls, mugs, pitchers and lidded jars.

“It’s exhilarating to work on a monumental scale, and expand my repertoire from functional pots to more sculptural ones,” said Hewitt as he loaded his large wood-burning kiln. “And for the smaller pots there are more colors, including new blue glazes I'm experimenting with. Another one creates a lovely streaky black/rust color that I'm very excited about made with a granite dust from Rockingham, NC, dubbed "Rocky X".”

Exquisitely made pottery at such a massive scale is found in only a few places in the world.  Maybe it’s Hewitt’s 30 years of experience making pots, or his early training in England, Africa and Asia that give his work such simple beauty and a sense of timelessness. Either way, it takes more than a tornado to discourage Hewitt.

“These are the biggest pots I've ever made, more abstract and animated, they have a power and majesty that commands attention wherever they are placed,” says Hewitt.

The Hewitt Pottery will be open to the public on Saturday, September 3^rd from 9 am until 5 pm and Sunday, September 4^th from noon to 5 pm.  Directions can be found at their website, www.hewittpottery.com.

“We can always rebuild the house,” says Mark’s wife, Carol. “But these big pots are a significant departure for Mark and they each have their own personality and presence. I was so surprised and relieved to come outside and find all but one standing assertively and safely on their pedestals!”

- END -

Boy, is that the truth!

I still believe that everything happens for a reason, and everything happens for the best. As we sifted through the debris today we found one special object after another that had somehow survived. There was the antique English Fremington pitcher that our friend Svend had given us as a wedding present and the commemorative umbrella pot that Mark made for my late parents with the date they were married and the date of their 50th wedding anniversary etched along the rim. Both were unbroken.

We did make the front page of the Triangle&Co. section of the News Observer today, and Dave Hart's article was both accurate and generous. "No picking up the pieces for Pittsboro potter - Storm's violence damages his home but not his outsize ceramics" was the headline.

Meanwhile folks have been calling, sending emails and dropping by with food and offers to help. It is both heartening and humbling to be part of such a thoughtful community of friends and neighbors.

Emma (just back from Ithaca, NY) and Meg (now living and working in Arlington, VA) are both planning to be here this weekend to help out as well.

And the "new" pottery kitchen will be put to good use, making coffee cake for Saturday morning, and cookies for Sunday afternoon. We still have loads of Locopops in five different delicious flavors!

Come on by and see the pottery survivors and new colors, check out our post-tornado clean up progress - and enjoy a Locopop or two.  

Like the Coconut Lime Basil or the Blueberry Orange....

Slow Money Feeds A Spring Kiln Opening!

Planning the menu for our Kiln Openings is always fun - ordering homemade cookies from Joan and Betsy, goat cheese from Fleming, and cinnamon buns from Arlo. Each time it varies based on what is in season, and what I’m in the mood to make.  Scones?  Muffins? Brownies? 

"Abi" of Abilicious Bakery

This time I tried something different.  At the opening night of our Spring Kiln Opening, on Friday from 4-8pm,  along with enjoying about 1500 beautiful new pots, we will be dining on food from the farms, bakeries, restaurants and a cheese shop that are recipients of our local Slow Money NC loans.

Similar to Slow Food, the Slow Money movement is sweeping the country, giving folks that care about building resilience in their local food economy a way to have an impact.  By making low interest loans to sustainable farmers, and food enterprises that support them, we bring our money “back to earth” rather than send it off to faraway investments. It’s easy, deeply rewarding, and the results taste great. The returns are much more than just financial.

Right here in the Triangle area, in less than a year, we have helped launch three new bakeries, a cheese shop, expand a restaurant that features local food, and increase production at two small-scale sustainable farms, all for about 25K.  And on Friday night we’ll be tasting the results!

Angelina!

There will be platters of local veggies and London Broil sandwiches coming from Angelina’s Kitchen, a cheese platter from The Reliable Cheese Company, sweet treats from Abilicious Bakery, deviled eggs and chicken salad from YNot Farm, and much more.

I recently spoke with a young man who had been at a Slow Money gathering several months ago. He said he had taken away one small but clear message from that conversation: “We vote with every dollar we spend.”  That comment had stuck with him. In particular, as it related to his food dollars. As a restaurant chef he has since started sourcing as much as he can from local farmers instead of getting everything from “the truck”, the mega-food distributor of faraway foods and supplies.  “That one idea has changed everything,” he said. 

I was raised in a rural corner of New England with farms on every road. There were more cows than people in some of the neighboring towns.  Feeding ourselves with food from our local farms just makes sense to me.  Certainly here in the Piedmont of NC where we can grow food year-round, we could at least try.


Slow Money NC has that as a goal.  We will create more local, sustainable farms and the businesses they need to get their production to their eaters. And build a resilient food economy less dependent on shipments of food from across the globe. We get to eat fresh, delicious, healthy food and build a strong, caring community in the process.

So on Friday night, we will celebrate this recent kiln load of lovely pottery and enjoy some fine gypsy jazz.  And we will dine on delicious local food thanks to the wonderful folks in our Slow Money NC community.

I think my love of Slow Money might mirror my love of pottery.  I like things that take time.  Things that travel at a pace I can understand.   And things that are valuable in more ways than one.

Thank you Emma!

Daughter #1 - Emma

The 80th Firing Kiln Opening Festivities last Friday evening were wonderful, and I want to thank Emma for all she did to make that so. 

From renting port-a-johns to making me laugh until I cried, I could not have done it, and certainly not have enjoyed it the way I did, without her.
Thank you sweet Emma.  

Let's do this again!

Gearing Up

This has been a unique week in the Pottery Kitchen.  After eighty firings of the salt kiln, eight firings of the alkaline kiln, and about thirty Kiln Openings, many things had become routine - meaning easier!  Joan and Betsy made delicious cookies, and Simi and I added various local cheeses and dips and vegetable bits. There was coffee and scones, hot cider or lemonade depending on the season, and whatever else I had fun rustling up to serve to our customers.  Good food, good friends, and pretty pots as well.  It has been a good twenty years or so.

I can’t help it. With Italian heritage, and from generous stock, emotionally and physically (those of you who had the good fortune of knowing my parents will attest to this, I expect) it follows that I like to feed people.  And I care about the food I serve, and I care about the people that are indulging in my choices. Delightful conversations, connections with old friends and new, seem to happen again and again around the refreshments table in the pottery workshop. 

Which brings me to this event. This is the 80^th firing of our first and only Salt Kiln.  I remember, as a young bride, watching it being built, six thousand bricks and several months of Mark’s labor in the midsummer heat. He had left England to try his luck in the US, and together we had chosen this somewhat isolated location. I remember thinking to myself as I watched the bricks being laid,  “clearly, I’m not going anywhere, anytime soon.”  Raised in New England and having traveled to forty-two states as a young adult (stopping to live in four of them) this was a new paradigm. I loved to travel, and never stayed anywhere for very long. But stay we did.  We chose this town, this farm, and we settled in.

It was 1983. Mark dug sixteen post-holes for a kiln shed in the heat of the summer sun.  Lucien, eighty year-old neighbor, said it best. "He’s not from ‘round here, but he’s the workin’est young man I ever did see." Luckily Mark only had heat stroke a couple of times that summer. Compliments about newcomers from Lucien, who had lived on this road for decades, didn’t come easily.

Then, with help from his German friend, Stephan, they built the kiln.  Meanwhile, I went off and got a real job to pay the bills. 

While he turned a chicken house into the workshop.

Today, we are still here. And, thankfully, those bricks have held up for yet another 2400 degree firing. The new pots are lovely.

So we have invited all of you to come and celebrate with us.

Our daughter, Emma, a natural events coordinator, is getting tents set up, and has been invaluable in helping coordinate what has grown into quite an event. We could not have done this without her. (Thank you so much!)

Our daughter Meg will be here, with her friends, to help with the checkout.

And so many others are cooking, cleaning pots, helping park cars, and the like.

Happy Birthday, you champion of cooked chunks of clay.  You have done a magnificent job at making soft clay into treasures.

We salute you. And we will eat delicious mostly local foods from farms and friends nearby, we will toast you with local beer and not-so-local-wines, all because of the gifts you have given to us all.

We are gearing up for quite a celebration.

Now all we need is a few folks to come and join us. Please do.

 Mom and Dad cleaning planters in the sun, about 1990

In memory...

Tonight a dear friend stopped by to ooh and aah about the new pots in the barn that I was busy arranging for this weekend’s Kiln Opening.

It’s true. It is a beautiful firing, and once I finished moving things around, attempting to turn this old barn into an adequate retail space, I thought it looked quite nice.

Then we headed into the house for a glass of wine and a conversation that led to the subject of mothers and daughters. I have two daughters and they both have been gracious enough to make time this weekend to work the check-out at the sale.

We talked of difficult mothers…she has one of those…that can make you feel guilty and miserable so easily.

And we talked about tyrants… mothers who rule their households with guilt and fear, fear especially of upsetting them, and incurring their wrath or criticism.

I lost my mother eleven years ago this October. For many years she and my Dad would fly into the local airport on Thursday before the kiln opening - to help out, and to get the first crack at the new batch of pottery. This usually led to squabbling between she and Mark, for although there were almost 1500 pots, Mom would spot something and want it…and it would be a favorite of Mark’s, one he planned to keep for himself, or for an exhibition. I have no idea where she got her eye for good pots, but it was hysterical to listen to them argue amiably over who was going to get the prettiest pieces.

“I’ll pay you for it,” she might try.

“And you’ll be able to come and see it,” might be tactic number two.

I stayed out of these discussions.

On Friday she would make up a great pile of sandwiches for the Saturday checkout crew to have for lunch.

Then, having loaded up on pots, and made themselves wonderfully helpful, they would fly on to Nashville to visit my brother and his wife.

As we were comparing mother/daughter stories, and reminiscing my friend told me this sweet one about Mom.

It seems that many years ago we had all gone out to dinner and Mom made a sweeping gesture with her hand and knocked a glass of red wine across my friend’s brand new white sweater. Laughs and sponges later the stain remained, and though she never wore the sweater again, she held onto it as a souvenir of that wonderful time with my folks.

Often when we open a new kiln load I find myself with an odd feeling.

I run a check… I’m not hungry, nor thirsty, but something’s wrong. And I realize what is missing is Mom. She loved Mark’s pots. When Dad was dying Mark went to him at his bedside and asked, “Is there anything you need me to do for you, after you’re gone?”

And he said, “Yes. Shirley loves your pottery. Can you make sure she has a pot from every firing?”

 

“Of course.” 

Mom only lived two more years, but Mark kept that promise.

Tonight the pottery kitchen is busy. Emma is baking banana bread and I am shelling pecans. If Mom were here, she would be making sandwiches, and maybe spilling red wine.

 

And I have shopped for her. This time there is a new tumbler shape. She would have liked it. I picked out an amber one.

My friend finally sent that sweater to the Thrift Shop. 

Time moves on, but I am thankful for friends that remember Mom and Dad with such fondness.

 

As do I.

Peaches!

The other day I picked two buckets of peaches, many still partially green, from our tree.

Now I stand at the kitchen sink, picking out the ripest ones and quartering them. The worms have gotten there first, so by the time I gently scrape out and cut around the brown mush they have created, and peel off the skins, I have only small chunks They are not that big to start with, these white peaches, and so it takes 10 or 12 peaches to get even two cups of small pieces, enough for a snack bag. I dump them in, press it flat, getting out all the air, and slip it into the freezer.

And start again. Because they taste delicious, and they are mine. I know for a fact that they have never been sprayed with a noxious pesticide and their fertilizer is our compost and leaves from the yard. They’re like family.

As I work I try negotiating with the worms. How about next year we work out a deal, I suggest? You guys get all the peaches on the east side of the tree and I’ll take the west (not foolish enough to vie for the south side that gets more sun.) But they’re not very cooperative, nor communicative.

But that’s okay. About ever 7th or 8th peach I get a pleasant surprise. No worms! I got to this one before they did! And the bag fills more quickly.
It takes a while, but in the dead of winter, when there is nothing but fruit from faraway places in the stores, fruit that flew thousand of miles just to get here, I will be able to pop a few chunks of North Carolina peaches into my breakfast cereal. And it will make my day. Hopefully I will also get enough to make some peach muffins for the August Kiln Opening here at the pottery.

I saw a wonderful bumper sticker yesterday. “Local Foods, Thousands of miles fresher.” (from AppalachianGrown.com.) And thousands of miles more sane. Here is Chatham County we can grow food all year long. And with the help of a freezer, or some canning equipment, and our farmer’s markets, we can eat local fruits and vegetables most every day.

Which takes me back to these peaches, and the way they connect me to the land we live on. We planted this tree many years ago and I remember picking peaches with Emma and Meg when they were little, and making peach cobblers at Christmas.
If you don’t have your own tree, treat yourself to a basket of local peaches at the Chatham Marketplace, or your local farmer’s market. You may not find any worms to talk to, but you can skin and slice and find your way into a few bags for the freezer.

Hopefully in a few months you will pull one out and smile. And I’d like to think, those local Carolina peaches will make your day too.