Saturday too blingin' early but here I am ....

Me and the wife were out for the HAWT date last night. Can I tell a secret? She is of a VERY ADVANCED AGE and getting older....birthday soon. She deserves to be treated like a princess for several weeks, don't you agree? We had the level two spicy Thai noodles and crispy veggies last night ...the wife may have been thinking level 5 spicy? But level 2 is mighty hot :) It makes your mouth sing without making your mouth NUMB, you know?

You might need excellent pots like the bunny bowl or monster mug below...on sale now at my etsy gallery....

pasta fool? pasta fazooly??????? pasta fagioli?

Pasta fool? Pasta fazool? Pasta fagioli?

I saw a recipe once on the back of a bag of white beans, for pasta fagioli, and it looked wicked simple and delish, I had to make it. BUT, more importantly, here is my first pasta fool? Pasta fazool? Pasta fazooly??? Pasta fagioli???? Story.

The wife and I lived just outside of downtown Chicago in Little Italy 20 or so years ago. We had a 2 bedroom apartment with the tallest building in the world, which was just a few blocks to the east, right outside our window. A million dollar view for a clean and tidy 2 bedroom apartment that cost only 350. Anyway, it was an old stone and brick 6 flat like most of the buildings there, and next to us, across the alley, was Mr Russo. The alley, I should mention, was less than 3 feet wide. Maybe just a little wider than a person's shoulders walking down at street level, and we were 2nd floor. Anyway, Mr Russo was 80ish and had a big open terrace-like area ...what to call it....rooftop across this alley from our back door and porch. Our kitchen window was right next to his kitchen window. Mr Russo walked his wife in circles every day on his rooftop, talking to her--and she clearly loved conversing with him, she always smiled and laughed. They had been married about 60 years, and her body was alive but her mind was a victim of alzheimers.

Chicago's Little Italy was a funny place, after an Irish mayor tried to bulldoze it. Chicago is that way, you know? Always the question of "who's the boss, who's got the dough, who's got the muscle?" and its amusing because it is just such a tough city. The remainder of Little Italy was beautiful and charming, BUT that Irish mayor had built a huge highway on 2 sides, dumped several enormous and dangerous housing projects on another side, and built a huge hospital and university on the fourth side, making it this little island. There were fantastic restaurants and groceries and delis and beautiful parks and buildings within the neighborhood. Outsiders were not welcome though, it seemed. There was only one major street that minorities used to walk up to the large grocery store at the top end of the area, and you NEVER saw them anywhere else. The Italians were losing to the yuppies, though, or people like us, who were like "350 for a big apartment just outside downtown?????". Anyway, my wife had lived and worked and studied in Sicily, and she was MORE than welcome, because she knew more about Sicily than most of these Chicago born Italian-Americans, and spoke fluently like a native Sicilian...Italian too.

So, Mr Russo, he spoke English, but not well. He had been in the US since he was about 15, and in that apartment next to us with his wife for decades. His kids were long gone, to huge houses in wealthy suburbs with great jobs and Caddys and BMWs....but the elder would not leave his apartment, because it had always been familiar to his wife.

He would tap his broom on our window nearly every day to say hello or something, and very often he shared his leftover dinner with us. I remember best his pasta fazooli, as it is often pronounced---simply, pasta, white beans, tomatoes and whatever.

One winter day Mr Russo tapped on our window madly and called us "she won't get up! She fall and she won't get up!!!" and we ran over. I saw Mrs Russo on the floor and asked my wife to call 911 which she did. Mrs Russo was sitting on the floor, looking around, frightened, clearly in trouble. I picked her up and held her and she looked at me and blinked and her eyelids fluttered up and....she died. She gave out a long rattly final breath, and that was it. The paramedics arrived and took her from me.

I have never told that story to anyone.

You have to admire the Russos so much. That Mr Russo stayed in his little old apartment for years, caring for his wife there. We all live and die, and what do we learn from that story of love? I am lucky that I shared a little slice of their lives.

We moved some months later. All of the younger Russos offered apartments or rooms or whatever Mr Russo might want, but he would say he was in no hurry, although I believe he later moved to sunny Arizona with his adult grandson.

OK, my pasta fagioli? Based on this recipe which is a good start, but mine is BETTER and works so perfectly and beautifully and simply. http://www.goya.com/english/recipes/pasta-fagioli

Gary's pasta fazool

--Saute about ten-13 minutes, until tender looking, diced: 1/2 onion, either 1/2 bell pepper or a carrot, 3 cloves garlic, one jalapeno, one vegetarian sausage

--add 15 oz can diced tomatoes or pint chopped fresh, drain and rinse add 15 oz can of white beans and simmer 5-10 minutes

--add a boullion cube to 1 1/2 cups warm water then pour into pot, add one cup dry pasta, bring to a boil, turn down and cook 8-10 minutes---until your pasta is al dente and most all of the liquid gone

--season with black pepper and basil, oregano, whatever, eat up!!!! perfect and delish!

time to be thinking: BUNNIES and Easter.....

Time for yet another opportunity for all my lovely friends to throw their money at me! NEW bunny and Easter items at my etsy gallery, check it out!

(Penny reluctantly poses with stuffed Easter beagles....sometimes she tells me "...that flash...you are always following me around with the darn flash......")

no Heffalumps today....

(elephant teapot by Gary Rith) Somebody asked when I would make another elephant teapot, here tis!

Penny and I dropped off the wife Wednesday and walked at Cornell's arboretum--grey February day, but my favororite walk indeed :) It was so quiet!

is your idea of a romantic dinner bean burritos????

I was talking about chip and dip Godzilla bowls the other day. I took the first dip bowl for US, as you will remember, and made another. This dip bowl? Godzilla is EATING IT. He looks pretty gleeful, hmm?

I noticed nobody commented on my monster 'stache from 1999 yesterday. Except for my wife. I had that thing ten years (I looked tres Magnum PI, totally HAWT....right?) and she never said a thing about it.

Is your idea of a romantic dinner for two bean burritos? Maybe a little guac to go with it?

IS THAT WISE??????????????

I made heart shaped scones for Valentine's day :)

Buster Boo 1999-2012

Tuesday:
I wrote about Buster yesterday afternoon, after he passed away, and you can see it below. I am adding a couple of thoughts this morning. I was a little blown away, people on facebook who knew him or just know us wrote to me yesterday to say they were sorry...something like 76 messages! Holy cats...gosh. This is maybe a small thing, to some people, the passing of a pet, but this was an extraordinary dog, and my experience is like the quote "the more people I meet, the more I like my dog". Dogs give us the most pure and loyal love and friendship anywhere, something humans can learn from. And they ask for so little, just to be with us, some crunchies in the bowl, some play outside in the fresh air and ear scratches. Geez, mere pennies, and what does a shrink charge per hour? Or a high maintenance spouse????
Further, to be frank, when you sitting there cuddling and stroking a dog who is clearly happy to have you near, but then they pass their last breath and heartbeat with you, you have also learned a great deal about life and death. Buster had been in a lot of pain and discomfort his last 24 hours, weak and tired, and as my vet told me "he is at peace now" and "now he can join his old brother Jack and play once again". I hope so.

Monday:
You probably think I am this tough and macho guy, eating nails for breakfast and horseshoes for dinner and wrestling rattlesnakes for lunch. That may be true, but good golly I can cry like a baby or worse. So, this real man can sob real easily (the DESCENDANTS, the look on Clooney's face when he looks down into the container of his wife's ashes? Blubber and SOB)
I have shed buckets of tears in 2 days.

Anyway, the silliness above is entre to the subject of our old dog Buster Boo. I am glad we have snapshots new and old, so I can share these with you.
Here is our story with Buster:
April 1999 on my birthday, the wife and I had been out carousing and she was driving us home on a beautiful evening. A neighbor was out in their yard playing with a tiny and adorable lab-mix puppy, and the sign on the tree said PUPPY FOR SALE. I convinced the wife, and she is extreeeeeeeemely nice to me, to stop. In 3 seconds we told the girl we would take the puppy, and this is what she explained: he was about 6 weeks old, his mother had been a 126 pound rottweiler, a lab father, and he had just incurred a terrible accident a day or 2 before: he was being chased by one of the family's goats and ran in front of a car and wound up with broken rear leg and a concussion. They were going to PUT HIM TO SLEEP rather than seek treatment, but the daughter decided to sell him if she could. I mean, gosh, here was this beautiful, sweet puppy enjoying a spring day...full of life and sweetness!
Our vet checked him over and looked at the xray, explaining that actually, the break would heal fine. Buster would grow up with maybe a limp, but he would be OK with a little treatment, and he was.
There is a photo below showing Buster the day he was in his playpen and wanted to look out, and got up on his hind legs to see us. Oh gosh, his leg had healed!!!! That was one of the most inspiring moments ever for this potter, because I was like "why don't I make mugs with a dog hanging over the edge, like that?" and I did. The first animal on a pot I ever did, and since then, almost every pot I make has animals.

Of course, 2 months later, he was big enough to simply walk out of the playpen, but he was always docile and well behaved, his whole life. Afraid of cars, naturally, and with a small limp, he walked and ran miles with us over the course of his life, up until even early Sunday.

Buster loved Penny, our little beagle we got 5 years ago, and Spike cat too. He wrestled with Spike everyday, actually, and both Spike and Penny napped together too. This picture here shows Penny snuggling with Buster a couple of hours before he passed.
The vet had warned us that as he approached age 13 he was losing weight and ill and old. But he was moving around, eating and happy, and enjoying the most mild winter the north has ever had. But Sunday's weather was horrible. He twisted his foot on the ice somehow, and suddenly couldn't move. I was carrying him in and out. He stopped drinking water. Just refused it. No animal does that unless it simply knows they are at the end. He got weaker and weaker and weaker, as you would imagine. The vet came over and said he had been so ill for so long, but just could not go on, hurting his foot was the end. So here, with Spike and Penny to say goodbye, on his couch, Buster passed around noon Monday. The absolute nicest dog, so sweet.

Buster last summer walking near our house....

Below, Buster puppy with the first Buster mugs and bowls. He broke his own, seen here, the next day...he went through a few dishes in his time....

Buster puppy the first time he was able to stand on his back legs, thus inspiring a thousand pots...

Full-grown Buster, me making a Buster mug and sporting a full-grown 'stache....

Buster and Penny snuggled together Monday morning.

one dream and one fact, LITERALLY! we need YOU today to check in...

Read on to find out what this is all about today, but please, go to comments and share ONE FACT and one DREAM with us! I love hearing from you....and now....


FINALLY got my favorite (only) cat Spike (he would be your favorite too) with this mug type that he models for. You can tell by the wide bodied profile of the mug who it is modeled after indeed....

Saturday night into Sunday I dreamt that I drove to pick up the wife from a class she was taking at my clay supplier...who does offer classes. She had taken a clay decorating class using underglaze and wax resist (techniques I have never done together before), and when I arrived, she had done some awesome work, I liked the instructor, and I said to the wife "you should join me in the studio! we could do some things together, or whatever..." and I told her all about this at breakfast and she got into the idea too.

Fact is, the wife was involved in clay at the Kansas City Art Institute before I was born, and throughout childhood. I met the wife because she has a nice mixed bag of literary and artistic skills, and was running a gallery and studio. But she has not touched clay in years, never in my studio, and so yesterday was kind of a first. Amazing. All kinds of people invite themselves over, but she has never...(and I am realizing that I have her grandmother's rolling pin, seen here...)

SO, point a) she came in and got started on some tiles to decorate and b) my dream gave me tremendous ideas to try , that is a fact, and more on that later this week....

walking in that winter wonderland, or hey, anybody wanna take me with them to Key West?

We have had a little winter here and there this year, but mostly awesome and mild. We get 100-200 inches of snow in a typical winter in upstate NY, some places get more. We have had only a few inches total, it seems, until today....
here is me in front of our purple house, and me and the wife and beagle out in some pretty fiercely unpleasant weather....about 8 inches more or less down so far....

monster Sunday....

Had a nice surprise Saturday: my monster bowls came outta the kiln looking OOOOLALA and I like the little one here so much I kept it. Later that same day, Amy came over to see us and I had a chance to put it and other favorite pots out for afternoon tea....
have an awesome Sunday!

cats cats cats cats and more cat mugs!

You may need some cat mugs....gotta bunch listed at my etsy gallery...you will recall that my old friend Pete saw my heart mugs and was like "could you shape a heart into a cat? People love cats." and Summer was like "could you do the handle like a tail????" and its like, now I am making cat things left and right.....

Buster is like "I don't need a cat mug" (the very first animal mugs I made were of Buster and inspired by him, nearly 13 years ago...."

the s3xiest thing you have seen in your life is: one fact and one dream, we need YOU to check in

(Godzilla dismembering and eating a person while making a rude gesture, sculpture by Gary Rith)

I am NOT saying the above is the s3xiest thing you have ever seen in your life, but maybe, like me, you have that sick sense of humor, and you find it amusing.

I was thinking, actually, that the wife here should probably consider it a FACT that I am her own personal baker boy, all that chocolate yumminess, made just for her. So this picture below is her dream: me holding up a plate of chocolate cookies*** wearing only a smile....but I shouldn't put words in her mouth, ideas in her head, .....

ANYWAY, looking ahead to Valentine's, what is your ONE FACT and what is your DREAM? S3xyhawt versions optional, please go to comments and let us know!

(Penny was like "that plate looks a little tippy, bet he drops it then they are MINE" bwahaha!)

***amazing chocolate chip cookies from the newspaper

I was poking through an actual newspaper recently and saw these simple and tasty cookies and wanted to try them...what amazed me was I put these little spoons of dough on the pan and they became these HUGE cookies! Magic!

--preheat oven to 350

-put 3 tbs. softened margerine in bowl, add an egg, stir around a lot, then add 2 tbs. oil, stir some more, then 1 tsp. vanilla and 1/2 cup brown sugar and 1/4 cup white sugar---stir it all around

-add into that 1/2 cup whole wheat flour, 1/2 cup white flour and 1/2 teas. baking soda, stir entirely, then

-add 1/2 cup or more of chocolate chips and 1/2 cup or more walnuts or pecans, stir one last time

-scoop spoonfuls onto baking sheet--recipe says 20 cookies, I made 11...

-bake 10 minutes, cool on wire rack, YOWZA! BE the s3xyhawt baker of your own household this weekend!!!!

meooooow!

(cat teaset by Gary Rith) came outta the kiln this am looking superbo indeed, and had already sold before it was even fired, now off to its new home with another crazy cat lady (her own words!!!!) in California....
Obviously, just now, I made another set......and started thinking "large cat bowls = EXCELLENT idear too..."

heads or....???

SO, like I was saying last week, it seemed like a fun idea, make a pair of Godzilla wall pieces, and have them enjoying a teaparty. The question is, though, is that teapot made out of a head? What about the cup??????
Also below, as I said yesterday, you make guac and you start thinking "I need to make an elaborate Godzilla chip and dip pair" and in this case, the small bowl has an enormous monster and the large bowl has a small one (otherwise it would fall over, doncha think?).

(pottery and sculpture by Gary Rith)