Reclaim bridges

Here's a picture of some of the reclaim bridges. I have at least 200 lbs of this reclaim that I'm going to have to dry out like this.

Looks like another beautiful day ahead but potato planting will have to wait till tomorrow . There's too much to do in the studio right now - pots to assemble and trim and some reclaim clay that will hopefully dry out enough to wedge and throw. I was in there at 6:30 this morning cutting off some pots and uncovering those reclaim bridges. That reclaim clay is super wet, but boy is it deliciously, plastic after sitting for months in that wettish state.

Yesterday's pizza experiment was almost a total disaster. The 3/4" silicon carbide shelf worked great. I preheated the oven for 90 minutes and turned it up at high as it would go 550F; but I thought it would take longer to cook than it did, so I went out to the studio to cut a few pots off the bats and cover them. Guess I lingered in there too long, because as I was walking back to the house I could smell that dreaded, almost burned odor coming from the kitchen vent.

Jim loved it because I made it quite thin and overcooking it made it really crispy which is how he likes it. It was disappointing but the whole pizza was gobbled up, so it wasn't a total waste.

I made a basic margarita pizza - mozarella, tomato sauce, and fresh basil leaves but I added thin sliced kielbasa since I didn't have any pepperoni on hand, and some thin slices of yellow, bell peppers.

My preference is New York style pizza - a crust you can fold up without cracking - nice chewy, not too thick, not too thin, and extra, stingy, mozarella. I'm eager to try it again this weekend with a different crust recipe. This seems to be a long learning curve to get this right; but there's plenty of on line help including very informative, and thorough, how to videos.

Time to get a start on what will be a busy work day followed by Mexican food with friends tonight. Somewhere between work and play I need to make another batch of pizza dough and feed my 250 year old sourdough starter.

Till later,
June