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 BY ABRA BENNETT
PHOTOS BY ABRA BENNETT AND SHEL HALL
We all start out making mud pies, relishing the sticky-cool squish between our little fingers. Long snakes of clay, coiled into primitive bowls on a kindergarten afternoon, are among our first gifts to parents. Some of us eventually move on to making pies with pastry, some keep working the clay. Personally I cook, eat, and serve on clay whenever I can, but I’ve never made a functional clay pot, plate, or platter. I admit to feeling a special thrill each time I tuck something destined to be delicious into a pottery vessel, leaving the clay to work its slow magic. My shelves are stuffed higgledy-piggledy with glazed and fired clay creations. I’m an unabashed clay pot addict, and I’m not looking for a cure.
Although I began cooking in clay pots just because they were pretty, I really learned about cooking with clay from Paula Wolfert. Long before it was trendy to cook in Moroccan tagines, French daubières, or Spanish cazuelas, Wolfert was advocating their use, telling us how to achieve superb results using traditional ethnic ingredients and recipes. Her book Mediterranean Clay Pot Cooking opens the door for explorations of any imaginable sort of cooking with clay.
Wolfert takes an almost mystical view of cooking in ceramic vessels. She writes “Most food…tastes better cooked in clay…whenever I conduct a comparison in my classes of slow-cooked dishes prepared in clay and in metal of any sort, clay wins out.” She goes on to say that “Ceramic cooking pots speak to me of soothing and nurturing grandmother-style dishes. Each of my vessels has a story to tell…each piece evokes a gastronomical moment frozen in my memory.”
I wholeheartedly agree that food cooked in clay pots is soul food, and so when I heard that there was a potter on Whidbey Island, Cook on Clay, making flameware pots, I went in search of some local soul. First I read up on flameware, which is a special form of pottery that presents different possibilities than the more usual earthenware, which must be treated gently. Flameware is mighty mud, made for use directly over a high flame, and is able to go straight from fridge to stovetop and back again without fear of cracking. At Cook on Clay, the pots are fired for 28 hours to 2300° F., in a home-built soda-vapor kiln, and which holds 40 pots at a time. This produces a pot that is vitrified, glass-hard, impervious to metal utensils, dishwashers, thermal shock, and the retention of flavors. That’s what I read, but I’ll confess that I was skeptical.
Before visiting the Cook on Clay studio and meeting owners and partners Robbie Lobell and Maryon Attwood, I arranged to borrow one of their pots, to give it a test run. I chopped some kale for my Kwanzaa Stew (recipe on page XX), poured some ice-cold chicken broth into their flameware casserole, set the pot on high heat, and jumped back about six feet, just in case. Wincing, I waited for the explosion and prepared to dodge the resulting clay shrapnel. To my semi-surprise, my kale simmered peacefully, and eventually I relaxed enough to prepare the rest of the dish.
Following a bucolic, sunny ferry trip to Whidbey, I met Robbie Lobell, who was dressed in flame-colored clothes, all gold and red. A potter for more than thirty years, she tells me “Clay has always been something I loved, but I never let it be the primary part of my life until I was in my early 40s. At that time I decided to commit myself to a life in clay.” I ask her what it is about clay that speaks to her, and she replies poetically “Clay is a material that is totally alive. It has live organisms in it, it is from earth material, it has a plasticity, it is lively and as a potter you can imbue it with the breath of life, and so to me that has been always a compelling part about working with clay as a material. I’m a wheel worker and on the potter’s wheel you get to center the clay over and over again, and there’s a connection that happens in my solar plexus, Just the act of centering the clay keeps me centered too.”
The pots are strikingly sculptural, reflecting Lobell’s sculpture training. “I see my pots as works of art for the kitchen” she says. When I mention that their prices reflect that, Attwood adds, “We think of these pots as becoming heirlooms. You’re paying for the design, like buying a designer dress. We’re not only dressing the stove, we’re dressing the table.” Lobell addresses the issue of cost by saying “Our goal is to be successful, and to be able to afford to pay for health insurance, and to retire someday. People ask why we don’t have our pots made in Taiwan. I could do that and it would cost a whole lot less, but making them here on Whidbey Island I can’t charge any less. But they’re not just cooking vessels, they’re works of art, and there is a value to that.”
The pots have an international appeal. The couple recently spent two weeks in Tuscany, teaching flameware techniques at the La Meridiana School of Ceramic Art. The chef at the school, Lucia Zucconi, tested their pots against her usual cookware, and awarded them a big air kiss, saying “Mwah! Oh my God, I love your pots. I have never cooked like this before.” That’s high praise, coming from an Italian chef.
Both women speak passionately about their pots as the center of community gatherings: meals lingered over, prepared with local foods, anchoring them to local farmers and growers. Deeply committed to community involvement, Lobell tells me “we also donate 10-12 pots per year to local non-profit organizations that are raising money to support our local community, and 1% of our web sales goes to the new Greenbank Farm Training Center. That’s part of the price of being a member of a community where we are engaged in each other’s endeavors in a way that builds community.”
As I’m leaving, Attwood wistfully tells me “Our goal really is to have a small production facility here on Whidbey Island so that we can make more pots. We’re looking for investors for that project.” One thing’s certain: whether you decide to invest in Cook on Clay, or in one of their pots, or in the first gorgeous clay pot that catches your eye, you’ll be investing in better cooking. Your meals will take on a depth of flavor and spirit that you may not have been able to achieve before with other cooking methods.
Clay pots cook gently, retaining an even heat for a long time without developing hot spots. With the exception of flameware, clay pots breathe in the aromas of the food, only to exhale again the next time you cook with them. Food cooked in my unglazed Moroccan tagine tastes more Moroccan with each use, which I and many chefs see as a virtue of clay, that concentration of flavor. And then there’s the historical part, clay being undoubtedly the material used for the very first cooking pots. There’s a connection with clay pots, with the potter, with the past, and with the Earth itself. All of this lends a delicious mellowness to the experience of cooking in clay. As Paula Wolfert told me, “Think of the letter C – clay coddles food.”
Abra Bennett is a Bainbridge Island freelance writer who has lost count of how many pieces of pottery she owns, but she's sure it's not enough.
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