I have been eating, this evening, what might be considered a wretchedly simple repast: two small ostrich-burgers (my apologies to the vegetarians in the audience, if there are in fact any such) and some thin-sliced sautéed turnip.
It is not my purpose to dwell upon any presumed superiority of ratite over quadruped -- ostrich tastes rather like bland beef, it probably has less cholesterol and less saturated fat, and it seems to cost somewhat more, though the price is certainly nothing like what it was a year or two ago. 'Nuff said about that.
No, my target tonight is that glorious arcanum, the humble turnip, along with various of its relatives.
Nope.
I cooked the first few slices in the juices left from the burgers (I am tired enough that I didn't want to bother with broiling or grilling them, which would be very much my preferred method), along with a bit of extra-virgin olive oil. When they were partly done I added a little water and covered them to steam for a few minutes. That was good enough, and they went very well with the meat.
When I was a child, I didn't like anything that was notably bitter, and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have liked this. Moreover, there are very few children upon whom I would be willing to foist my little feast. ...But you know, my tastes have changed, and the turnip, with its quiet sweetness and its actually rather mild bitterness, is now something I find I like a lot.
Besides, the possibilities for cheating are endless: the last set of slices got real Danish butter instead of another little splash of oil, and that was just wicked.
As to why I take such delight in something so plain, simple, unassuming, plebeian, and (to many people, apparently) boring or déclassé as a turnip, well, some of us are easily amused.
I did say I'd talk about some relatives, and I
meant not just the botanical ones like the daikon
& the lobak, but also radishes and parsnips whether
botanically close or no; but it will have to wait.
Proper Yixing teapots and accessories are made of this wonderful stuff called zisha (in the Pinyin romanization), a word usually translated as "purple sand". Zisha is a clay that seems to occur in several colors at Yixing, and there are in addition some (like the dark blue-green) that are augmented by humans. The natural ones are, if I have this right, a blond, a range of reds and terra-cotta colors, and a range of browns, some of which really do have a purplish look about them, though I'd guess that the name refers to the color of the clay before it's fired.
This clay is not for the potter's wheel. I haven't had a chance to handle any of it, but my impression is that it is much more suited to handbuilding, and in fact that is exactly what the potters there do with it. As I think I remark in an earlier biscuit, there are lots of books about this stuff, all of which are full of cute photos, so I'm not going to feel too deeply obliged to present images of Yixing pots here. (I'm sure there are quite a few on the Web already anyway.)
Unfortunately, a good Yixing teapot, even one that holds about an ounce and a half of liquid (which is about the right size for certain kinds of tea, if you're going to bother to do them in "gong-fu cha" style at all), can set you back a hundred bucks or more, and I just can't deal.
Equally unfortunately I like tea, and I particularly like "gong-fu" tea. As I say in my squib about how I got into pottery in the first place, it was because I couldn't afford something I wanted. This same problem now leads me into an attempt to create a pottery body that looks and works about like zisha, but at full-tip porcelain temperatures. I may or may not succeed, but I'm certainly having a good time so far. When I have a moment I'll fill this in with some detail, and when the film comes out of the camera I will present an image or two. As one might expect, my first attempt is vaguely ludicrous. (I will admit, however, that it matches the color of some of the fairly high quality zisha almost exactly.)
In the meawhile, however, if you will excuse me,
I must return to packing.
Pseudo-mailto: jon [at] bazilians [put it here] org
Last modified: Mon Jan 29 20:09:17 PST 2001