Fish cakes for breakfast, kiln firing ...

Dee's Mondays off from June to early October often start this way, with breakfast on the deck under the umbrella. This morning, while the kiln was warming up in the studio, it was scrambled eggs and sweet red peppers with ham for her and fish cakes (striped bass) instead of eggs for me. Black coffee in Ron Philbeck's flower mug for her and in Michael Kline's slipped and combed teabowl for me.

Also on the table, a very nice and vinegary jalapeno hot sauce recently brought back from California by our friends Bob Skilton and Jo Ann Muramoto. "Coyote's Howl" is made in Arizona by Southwest Specialty Food (southwestspecialtyfood.com, which looks like a really cool website). This is not a paid endorsement, but the sauce is really good and great with fish cakes.

I've now done one turn-up on the kiln and, if things go as planned, we should be at cone 9.5 around 3 p.m. I'm going to try to keep the temp down a bit on this one. Wish me luck.