Pottery

The first time I traveled to Japan it wasn't for the food, but for the pottery. Back when I was a TV news producer in Washington in the early nineties, I caught a number of phenomenal Japanese pottery shows at the Smithsonian's Sackler-Freer Galleries that simply blew me away.

I heard from a few readers curious about the beautiful piece of pottery in the picture of my post on simmering kabocha and chicken. This stunning vessel is the work of the esteemed Karatsu potter Jinenbo Nakagawa, who I met years ago and wrote about in a story for the late, great Gourmet in 2005.

I met the renowned potter Shiro Tsujimura in a Kyoto office quite by accident, as I admired a flower vase of his, a rugged, raw column that looked like a...

The tiny hamlet of Onta sits deep in a forest about ten miles by narrow road from the nearest country highway. Eleven families have been making traditional...

A gallery owner in Tokyo introduced me to Mr. Kajiwara. When I heard he was a potter from Karatsu -- one of my favorite styles -- I quickly asked if I could...