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The end of the harvest season…

It always amazes me what a difference 1 week in Minnesota can make! Last week,  I was overheating in my light 3/4 sleeve shirt and jeans. While this week, my 3 layers, scarf, and head band were not enough to keep me warm. We continued to plant the garlic, which brings the entire garlic experience full circle. In June we started the battle with the weeds. I felt rewarded with the introduction of a garlic scape. July brought a heat index of 130. On a cloudless Tuesday, we yanked the garlic out of the insanely hot field, and loaded them onto the tractor to be heaved into the barn loft for curing. Weeks later, we sat in the sun talking and “breaking” the heads for planting. My last day at Loon was spent riding behind the tractor, pushing the last of the cloves into the dirt. I’ll remember this forever as the summer of garlic. I wanted to share a recipe I tried last week. Part of my decision to be a work share this summer was for the opportunity to be exposed to new vegetables. Here is the recipe for my new favorite way to make brussel sprouts. I adapted a recipe I found in Loon’s newsletter. I made this dish in my Flameware Skillet. It was delicious, and the leftovers kept for over a week.

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Paula Wolfert and Flameware Pottery

As followers of Clay Coyote know, we’ve been working on developing a Flameware Stovetop Ceramic Cookware line for clay pot cooking some time now.
We just got our copy of ‘Food and Wine’ magazine today, in which Paula

Wolfert has a great article on Cooking in Clay. Her new book Mediterranean Clay Pot Cooking will be out in a month. As she was writing it, we had some long conversations on why food tastes better when cooked in clay pots. If you’ve tried our new Flameware Stovetop Ceramic Cookware, you’ll probably agree-food really does taste better when cooked in clay pottery.
My theory is that metal pots transmit heat very quickly. Clay, on the other

hand, is an insulator. When you put heat to a clay pot, it comes through very slowly. I think the metal causes a very slight burning where the food meets the pan. If you control your heat in a clay pot, this doesn’t happen and the food doesn’t get the bitter, burned taste that metal gives. Paula thinks it’s because the indigenous low fired clay pots that will withstand direct heat

gather flavors over time. In low fired ware, there probably is some flavor transfer. Our new Flameware is high-fired and I don’t think the pot itself picks up any flavor…so we’re probably both right.

So far we’ve cooked an apple pancake that starts in the skillet and ends in the oven, oatmeal almost daily, scrambled eggs and ham almost daily, risotto (fabulous) in the casserole, tagines in the tagine, Pollo Verde in the cazuela, stir-fried vegetables in the skillet and many more.

We’ll be getting some recipes on the website and would like to hear your thoughts and shared recipes.