FEBRUARY

If you’re a new subscriber, read what TXA TXA CLUB (like “cha cha”) is all about.

So much of our practice—integral to our ethos of artmaking, of food making, of hospitality—has to do with call and response. It’s a very natural and ordinary phenomenon, to produce and create based on one’s biospheric and environmental conditions. 

Supper Club has become a manifestation of this: each dinner is a culmination of place and space, as each venue offers something a little different. And the story of each host plays a considerable part in how we design and concept menu ideas for the dinner. 

We started our vis-à-vis dinner series as a way to engage even more directly—more face to face—in collaboration with other artists, makers, producers, growers…the list continues to grow. These dinners are significantly smaller, allowing for an experience that is extremely intimate and focused, and—for the most part—a return to dining in our home and kitchen studio. 

Our most recent vis-à-vis dinner was w/ molosco by Laura Letinsky. Each of the seven courses was inspired by or created as a direct response to either the molosco backstory or the dishes themselves: how shape, contour, or heft might inform what foods to serve and how they should be eaten. A way to create a dialogue between the vessel and the food it carried. 

Vessel. The association between hollow containers and boats seems consistent across nearly all languages. A thing that carries. Perhaps just as important as the contents within.

When artist Laura Letinsky began making dinnerware, she knew she wanted to use porcelain: it’s responsive to the touch, mercurial when fired, shifting in dimension and shape. Porcelain has an inherent aliveness, changing with its conditions, always full of surprise. Molosco is Letinsky’s line of porcelain dinnerware, and its name is meant to evoke a sense of holding, of cupping, of a network of mollusks, as the name suggests. Mollusks, who carry their home with them, both vessel and body are one. 

And so for this newsletter we’re sharing an early email convo that Liz had with Laura and Max of molosco as a way for us to draw inspiration for the dinner …

LIZ: Where did the name Molosco come from? I know we touched on the forms—how they resemble shellfish in the way they cup and fit together to sort of create a network for the dinner table. Was this form pursued as an inspiration from the beginning, or something that came from an organic, unknowing place? 

LAURA LETINSKY: I was working in Mexico, Guadalajara, when I began to think about a title for this dinnerware. Because they nestle into one another, like oyster shells, I thought of mollusk, and because I was in Mexico, molosco. 

MAX LI: A mollusc (or mollusk) is defined as a type of sea or land animal that has a soft body and is usually covered by a hard shell, for example a snail, slug, octopus, or shellfish. So I always think about the organic-ness and life of Molosco, just like the shell, to contain the soft and tender “life & body” within it, which is the food and the essence of a dinner table, and the beauty of the lived-in.

LIZ: Why porcelain? Why is it important for the brand? I enjoyed hearing you discuss the history of porcelain, the porcelain road, and how Europeans tried to imitate the material. Can you talk about this history and what it symbolizes for Molosco and other western artists working with the material today?

LAURA: Initially I wanted to work in porcelain because of its history and usage for fine dinnerware. As a collector with a limited budget, I’d gathered different porcelain pieces at thrift stores and inherited a partial set from my ex’s parent’s divorce as well as a slightly silly set from my grandmother, all with a white base and a gold line but ranging from Lennox to ornate Chinese to a more plebeian pattern. I set out to make a set of dinnerware that was white with a gold line so as to use with all of these odds and ends. Working with my hands, I fashioned bowls and plates, preferring the look and feel of these over wheel-made dinnerware.

As I worked, I read about and learned more of the tradition of porcelain, its roots in China and the long quest by Europeans to reproduce this technology, as well as its spread in Asia, in Korea and then Japan. The material is stronger in some ways than stoneware and can be made thinner, but it is also delicate, responsive to the touch, and a bit mercurial when fired, shifting in dimension and shape. I love working with it as it’s a constant balance, like dancing with a partner you know well but one still needs to attend to the other and can be surprised.

LIZ: What are both of your roles within the Molosco brand and business? You both seem to finish each other's thoughts in such a fun way. How has Molosco prospered because of this partnership? What are both of your backgrounds with food, with sharing food, both based on where you came from and where you are now in your lives? What's the most important thing to share with people when you share a meal with someone?

LAURA: The collaboration began very spontaneously as Max was in my studio and saw the dinnerware. When I told him my story of wanting to make it more available to a wider public, he was keen to work with me to figure out how we could make this happen, utilizing his connections in China—Jingdezhen, specifically—to produce the dinnerware.

We both love to cook and to share with others. I have a family with two sons, and often have friends over for dinner. Over a meal, making it as well as eating, there’s a commonality that fosters community, a giving and a taking that creates a bond. It is said that eating is the most intimate act we do (more than sex) as we take food into our bodies and it becomes who we are.  To provide this for others, and to have others provide for us in this way is a kind of alchemical magic. Even the simplest of foods, a ripe tomato sprinkled with salt, a warm bowl of chicken soup on a cold day, a slice of good bread with butter… a pleasure that satiates like no other.

MAX: After Laura and I had the initial discussions, I pretty much adapted myself into the manager of the brand, which means working with designers, manufacturers, logistics companies, sales partners and all other aspects of the operations of the company. I think of Laura as the art director, who gives main artistic directions to review and approve outcomes of production (dinner pieces, packaging, gift cards, websites, and all aspects), so I keep things in accordance with Laura’s vision, as closely as possible.

I grew up in mainland China, so lots of my dining experiences were around the big round Chinese dinner table, the big round table that sometimes seats 16+ people, and the super noisy, busy, crowded holiday (and maybe funeral) dinners. People spend hours preparing ingredients, cooking, ushering everyone to the table, eating, chatting, and speaking out our feelings and thoughts to one another. It is magical, also liberating, as the kids laugh and scream to one another, parents discuss their struggles with siblings and parents, and grandparents sharing their old days, and as I traveled, I think all cultures share moments like this in different ways. So now as take my art/personal/business practice more seriously, I do consider these dinners as a good way to rebuild and recalibrate (after covid) my social practice, and Molosco is a wonderful carrier for that purpose to bring people together, to connect through the time of cooking and convening. There is a film I love by Ang Lee, Eat Drink Man Woman, which tells a story of the happenings of a family, the affairs, life goals, plans, and struggles are all woven together through each meal they share.

I think the most important thing to share with people during a meal is our time and vulnerability. Time allows us to introduce and articulate ourselves, and vulnerability allows us to open ourselves up and connect like real human beings.

LIZ: How does your photography affect your other work? I know that this practice seems to be a much different language, but how do they speak to one another? I loved our conversation about art + craft and how they are supposed to be one thing or another. Can art be functional?

LAURA: This is such a great question as it’s an issue that I’ve wrestled with since I was a kid, and it has also undergone a huge re-jiggering in the last decade or so with the acknowledgement of makers whose work did not involve oil paint and bronze, but rather, weavers, ceramicists, designers, etc.

I never understood why there was such a prohibition about art being functional. When I was younger, I would make and look at things made by others as art. Which begs the question, what is art? This question is never going to be entirely resolvable or answerable. For me, art, be it words, a plate, a flower arrangement, a painting, a photograph, etc, brings me to see and understand something about the world differently. In the encounter, I’m provoked to reconsider presumptions and definitions and to consider why and how we/I’ve come to thing “X” and to reevaluate. Sometimes this is disconcerting and uncomfortable. Sometimes it’s deeply welcome and life-confirming. So, yes, craft can be non-functional and art can be functional.

When I first began making Molosco, a collector I dearly respect warned me not to mix the two but to keep my authorship and the objects separate in the world as my dinnerware might negatively impact how I was perceived as an artist. I chose not to honor this because it’s important that (for me) life and art are not separate entities. I won’t go so far as to write that everything I do “is” art, because I don’t think it’s true, but many things I do inform and run alongside my art making including growing things, cooking, my kids, reading the newspaper, etc.

In my art, including Molosco, there is a striving for some notion of perfection that is not achievable and then reckoning with the perfection of imperfection. Allowing things to happen as much as arranging for their appearance…. The only true control or perfection is, I think, death.  Life is messy, surprising, inconvenient, gorgeous, and only when I make room for life, mine and others, can art “happen,” that is, can I make art.

LIZ: Speaking of function, how do the forms of each piece speak to the user/diner/chef? Do they all serve a purpose? What was your vision for each form from a functional standpoint? Does each shape have a name? I love your phrase "alive in their imperfections." Can you talk about why this is important to the brand and how this might translate well for some but how you’ve received push back from others?

LAURA: I wanted to make dinnerware that felt good to eat from, that held the food making the experience, taste, feel, weight, all of it, a fuller experience. That the dishes are handmade gives them a feel of care, of attention, a moment out of the maelstrom that is the current digital landscape. I love grabbing street food like many, but there’s a difference eating from a plastic/cardboard/paper surface with disposable utensils that are then tossed, from that of partaking of food and drink (sustenance and pleasure) a nicely weighted visually and texturally inviting bowl and cup. Functionally, we made three different sizes of plates, bowls, and cups, as well as rectangular plates and serving dishes. Each of these are intended to be used interchangeably with and atop one another. Even along with the bits and pieces of dishes you might have from your ex’s divorced parents, the white with the gold common to so many fine China services, and the neutrality of the black, a statement of its own. 

MAX: We are an artist-run company. I think about the middle space, between the mass production, such as Monobloc Chairs, and a one-of-a-kind art object. In a post-industrial, post-revolution contemporary society in which more and more mega burnouts take place, while fast food and fast fashion sustains only temporary fulfillment, the middle space then becomes more relevant (as it has always been I guess). That’s what’s driving me to keep up with pursuing Molosco, an ongoing process of developing dinnerware with relevant iterations, maintaining the quality, the organic forms, and touch of Laura Letinsky. We work with a specific manufacturer who understands that we want to produce high quality porcelain dinnerware in small to medium batches, along with updates that are in keeping with our shifting world. All businesses are relationships, and we are lucky to have our artisans in Jingdezhen who help us manage and produce these gorgeous pieces, availing them to folks who are drawn to Laura’s sturdy yet delicate aesthetics and having this unique and timeless dinnerware on their dinner table.

LIZ: How does your personal practice affect your role in Molosco? Can you talk about your production background and why it's so important for the future of the brand? And about the other dinners you have produced and why food sharing is so important to you?

MAX: I started off my artistic practice through photography, documentary photography to be exact. I traveled so much, the human interactions drove me to go out into the world, to meet, talk and greet strangers, to enter, share their spaces, and express my interest, to learn from them and exchange moments of insight about our take on life, and how experiences are relatable beyond language.

As I increasingly move into a contemporary interdisciplinary practice, I realize production is fundamental to all making; a photographer needs to print and frame their photos, a sculptor needs to have an object casted, a business person needs to get 1000 lunch boxes made. Things need to be made in order to move into the real world for other people to access and engage.

There are countless ways to make, and each is built through effort. I dabbled with production before taking on Molosco, and it was because of Molosco I became super serious about the whole production piece, not only because I like to try, not only because I am Chinese working to invest in Chinese production. I think all the decisions, changes, and mistakes that happened helped us to be better and made us think more fully about what the product means, and how to relate this to our customers in their lives. So far, I have a few production projects from traditional manufacture to 3D printing, and it is the process that matters, its journey to being an object from its design, to its making, packaging, and transportation…

Food sharing is so important to connecting with people.  I think food brings us together.  Molosco is a host, in invitation to welcome those who care about how they live, how they experience their world, its pleasures and necessities… 

□ ∎ □

comin’ up

supper club 31

6 — 9PM

/ / / FRIDAY 02/23/24

at SPOKE & WEAL

1637 W Belmont Ave, Chicago, IL 60657

Custom, tailored, bespoke. Alluring terminology often used to spin a good or service as unique and exclusive. Special. Exceptional, even. But these words also express a core tenant of the kind of hospitality we believe most deeply in, one that uses intuition and response to offer generosity in its most intimate forms. And it's this same kind of hospitality that the artists at SPOKE&WEAL strive to give their clients. 

Their approach is about responding to the intrinsic qualities of each individual’s hair, amplifying the inherent body and movement, its texture and form, and doing so with a commitment to the health of both mind and body through using natural, responsibly-sourced, plant-based products. Because we, too, believe that the individual good is essential to the good of the community. And falling in-step with this core tenet of S&W’s ethos, we’re planning another all plant based Supper Club. One whose menu will be focused on highlighting the essential qualities of the ingredients we use and techniques that showcase them.

The dinner will be in SPOKE&WEAL’s Lakeview salon. You can expect some warm, wintry flavors and preparations like coconut-creamed mustard greens with perilla leaf and water chestnut; glazed and slow-roasted carrots with pomegranate, fresno chili, and walnut; and a plantain carmel with fragrant black jasmine rice. So get gussied up and and join us for a dinner that’s—dare I say it—a cut above the rest.

GRAB TIX

MARCH SUPPER club ///

at the Chicago Tool Library

FRIDAY

march 29th

/// 6-9pm

What is a community if not a complex network of sharing. Of gift and exchange, borrow and return. It’s one of society’s most ancient practices, before every potential offering became commodified, diminishing accessibility and shifting to transactional systems of value.

March Supper Club will be hosted by the Chicago Tool Library. Since 2019, the Chicago Tool Library has sought to provide equitable access to tools, equipment, and information to allow all Chicagoans to learn, share, and create. Located in West Garfield Park, the non-profit lending library houses thousands of items ranging from basic hand tools and table saws to ice cream makers and camping equipment (and everything in between), with the hope of reshaping the city’s relationship to ownership, consumption, and creativity. 

To prepare this dinner, we’ll be using special kitchen appliances that are available at the library. We’ll be dining in their lofty warehouse space amongst their aisles of incredible inventory. The menu (TBD) will feature some early spring fare with dishes whose histories tell the story of community ownership and creativity. Tix are still on early bird pricing until Feb 2nd.

GRAB TIX

□ ∎ □

APRIL SUPPER CLUB

vol. 33

CHROMATIC HARMONY

‘Chromatic harmony in music blends the atonal with the synchronous to create tension and release. Similarly, in visual art, chromatic harmony integrates simple and complex, geometric and organic, to create tension and resolution for the viewer.’ - ALMA

Chromatic harmony occurs when notes or chords from outside the dominant key are introduced to the passage: two successive chords from two entirely different keys, or borrowing notes from outside the scale for the purpose of introducing a new tone or color, a surprising texture or feeling. It’s a form of modulating from one framework to another; a change of perspective; an angular shift. Using the entire chromatic scale opens up the possibility of play, of discovery, of revelation. Allowing for dissonance means opening up to the potential for surprise. The minor fall, the major lift. 

Operating within this kind of gradient scale works with the palate as much as it does the palette. White asparagus and strawberry, fish sauce and cocoa, mushroom and papaya. Whether through colors or chemistry, this dinner will be an exercise in visual and gustatory play. 

We’ll be exploring the concept of CHROMATIC HARMONY through flavors and plating in conjunction with ALMA’s concurrent exhibition featuring artists Jackie Kazarian and Yvette Kaiser Smith. We’ll be dining in the contemporary gallery space amongst the artists’ works with a dynamic menu featuring some of our favorite early spring ingredients. 

friday April 26th 6-9PM

@ ALMA gallery

3636 S Iron St Chicago IL 60609

GRAB TIX

□ ∎ □

recipes

c r a z y w a t e r

Acqua Pazza. Crazy water. It’s the term for a wildly vibrant broth of fish and tomatoes, and a motley slew of other aromatic components.

The old fishermen of Naples would poach their fish in seawater—as salt was an indulgent expenditure—with tomatoes and any number of other rambunctious ingredients on hand. Chilis, capers, olives, fennel, herbs. You name it. Flavors not too dissimilar to the beguiling wafts of puttanesca. You might be familiar with some other ben conosciuto dishes of this lineage: cacciucco, cioppino, bouillabaisse, even.  

For this dish, we’re making a relatively tame adaptation with blistered tomatoes, bird’s eye chili, and anchovy, and incorporating some ingredients from southern Italy introduced by trade routes, like golden raisin for sweetness and saffron for a touch of florality. We’re finishing the dish with our own togarashi spice blend, which lends a touch of dry heat, dried citrus, and nutty sesame for a bit of complexity. Most Asian markets carry a variety of togarashi seasoning blends (also known as shichimi or Japanese 7-spice blend). 

The dish is remarkably simple, combining only 3 primary components: fresh pasta, clams, and a buttery smooth rendition of crazy water. While the clams and the sauce are more commonly found in southern Italy, we’re making a thin tagliatelle called tagiolini, or by its Piedmontese nickname, tajarin. It’s more egg-rich—giving a more buoyant chew—than what you’d find in most southern Italian pasta doughs. 

For the sake of brevity, we’re omitting directions on making the pasta and preparing the clams. Also feel free to use pre-made tagliolini or any spaghetti of choice.

—here we go…

(serves 4-6)

1 batch tajarin

2 lbs steamed little neck clams

1 batch acqua pazza

1-2 tsp togarashi seasoning

TAJARIN

210g AP flour

82g semolina flour

2 whole eggs plus 3 yolks 

1 TBL olive oil

½ tsp salt

Roll dough to no. 6 on pasta machine, then use the spaghetti cutter attachment. 

ACQUA PAZZA

(makes ~3.5 cups)

2 pint cherry tomatoes

.25g (¼ tsp) saffron

70g (½ cup) golden raisin

24g fish sauce

3g thyme sprigs

12g garlic

28g shallot

2g salt

2 ea birds eye chilis, seeded

½ cup dolin dry vermouth

FOR THE ACQUA PAZZA: season tomatoes with olive oil, s/p, and broil until slightly charred, about 6-8 minutes. In a pot over medium heat, sweat sliced garlic and shallot with salt until translucent. Add chilis whole thyme sprigs and cover 2-3 min. Add charred tomatoes, golden raisins, saffron, fish sauce, and vermouth, cut heat to low, cover and let simmer 10 min or so. Remove thyme sprigs and transfer everything else to a blender or vitamix and blend until desired consistency. 

When preparing the pasta, warm acqua pazza and add ½ to ¾ cup pasta water (or reserved liquid/soffritto from steaming the clams), add pasta and clams to the mix, and give a thorough toss to incorporate. Plate pasta with 4-8 clams per plate, and finish with a sprinkle of togarashi seasoning. 

□ ∎ □