Monday, October 26, 2009

Introducing: La Cocina Alegre by Tomohachi


I made a new friend recently :) I first came across her site when I went searching for a 'recipe' to make the perfect bread texture....this after Kiva started me obsessing over it over on her blog.

So, with my minimal knowledge of Japanese characters and the help of Google translate, I stumbled across Tomohachi's site.

Reading her english blog amused me somewhat, she has a very gentle sense of humour that I enjoy, and is very sharing with her trial and errors in mini-making! Her blog got me occupied for quite a while since it was full of WIP (Work-In-Progress) pictures, until I hit this fateful post...

http://la-cocina-alegre.blogspot.com/2009/04/rusk.html

now, that's, EXACTLY what i had been searching for! so here we have, a miniaturist who:

1) is generous in sharing her work process
2) takes beautiful pictures of her beautiful works
3) although isn't fluent in English, took the time to POST in English to my (ok, everyone who reads only English) benefit!

as noisy and vivacious as i might appear online, i am rather shy when it comes to taking the first step in making new friends...most of the time i blurt out stupidly what's on my mind and hope the other party doesn't take offence at my tactlessness. so composing an email with the help of googletranslate couldn't be great, communication-wise, for starting off an e-mail, and with the audacity to ask for a recipe for the work LOL but hey! my motto is, "if you don't ask, you'll never know"

and she replied! very positively too! and in such detail on how to achieve the effect! so here it is, with her permission, how she achieved the perfect bread texture ^ ^

I use bicarbonate of soda.
Please prepare a ball of resin clay "Grace" about 1.2cm in diameter and a
ball of Hearty about 2~2.2cm in diameter. Hearty contains a lot of air, so you would use a little more Hearty than "Grace". Mixing to soft, add about two earpicks full of bicarbonate of soda and several drops of water to the clay ball.
Mix again. Shape the clay into your desired shape and place on baking sheet. Put it in the microwave oven and heat it for a few seconds.
The heating time is different depending on the size of the item. I always
heat it for about 20~40 seconds. Please watch carefully when heating. If you succeed, you can see bubbles in the clay.

I have slightly re-phrased her explanation, hope you don't mind, Tomohachi!

Since I don't own a microwave oven, I shall attempt this with my toaster oven, presumably on a much higher temperature setting than what I use for polymer clay. Her tip was to watch for it and don't let it burn is all!

Also, she has also kindly reminded me to keep a few more things in mind:

1) success rate is approx. 90%
2) the clay shrinks a little after baking

I'm so glad I took that first step :) Thank you so much for your generosity, and patience with me Tomohachi! And no, your english is not poor at all, I understand you completely! I do apologize for my poor Japanese though (ok, for that, you can blame googletranslate! :P)

Please visit her site! It is chock full of beautiful pictures of her amazing and wonderful works.

Webpage
http://www.geocities.jp/la_cocina_alegre/
Gallery
http://www.geocities.jp/la_cocina_alegre/gallery.html
English Blog
http://la-cocina-alegre.blogspot.com/

Arigato gozaimashita Tomohachi, what an inspiration your work is!
--------------------------------------
私は最近、新しい友達がなさ:)私が初めて彼女のサイト全体の時'レシピ'の....完璧なパンのテクスチャを検索した来たこの後ライダーキバそれ以上に彼女のブログに悩んでいる私を開始した。

そのため、日本語の文字が私の最低限の知識とGoogleの翻訳の助けで、私はTomohachiのサイトに出くわした。

にちょっと面白がって彼女の英語ブログを読んで、彼女は、私は楽しむことができるユーモアの非常に穏やかなセンスを持って、非常に彼女の裁判とミ ニのエラーを共有して決定!彼女のブログ以来、仕掛品でいっぱいだった私はかなり長い間に占領(ワーク得たでの進捗状況)の写真まで、私はこの運命的なポ ストを直撃...

http://la-cocina-alegre.blogspot.com/2009/04/rusk.html

今、は、はまさに私が捜していた!ので、ここで我々は、細密ている人:

1)彼女の仕事のプロセスを共有する寛大である
2)彼女の美しい作品のかかる美しい写真
3)英語に堪能ではないもののがPOSTに英語で自分の(okに時間がかかった人は英語のみ)特典を読んでくれる!

と騒々しいと私は、私ではなくときには、新しいお友達と...時間のi最大限に活かしての最初の一歩になる内気な時を表示される可能性があります として快活にばかみたいに自分の考えでは、他の政党がないことを願って口走る私の要領の悪さは犯罪。ので、通信偉大されない可能性がある、電子メール、大 胆にも仕事大爆笑だがのためのレシピを求めてオフに起動するための賢明なgoogletranslateの助けを借りてメールを作成しちょっと!場合は、 質問しないで私のモットーは、"の場合、"知っていることがあります

と彼女は答えた!非常に積極的すぎる!などの詳細をどのように効果を達成するために!ので、ここでは、彼女の許可を得て、どのように、彼女は完璧なパンのテクスチャを実現しています^ ^

私は炭酸飲料の炭酸ナトリウムを使用します。
してください"直径グレイス"は約1.2センチメートルとの樹脂粘土のボールを準備する
2についてハーティの玉〜2.2センチメートルの直径です。心のこもったので、"よりも少しハーティを使用すると、空気が多く含まれてグレイス"。ソフト には、ミキシング2 earpicksソーダの炭酸塩と水の数滴の粘土のボールへの完全な情報を追加します。
ミックスを再度。ご希望の形や場所ベーキングシート上に粘土の形状。電子レンジ、オーブンに入れて、数秒のために加熱する。
加熱時間は、アイテムのサイズに応じて異なっている。私はいつも
約20〜40秒後に加熱する。してください。注意深く観察するときに加熱する。もしあなたが成功すると、粘土で泡を参照することができます。


私は少し再ている彼女の説明に言えば、あなたを気にしない、Tomohachi期待!

以来、私は電子レンジを持っていない、私はオーブントースターとはるかに高い温度の私はポリマー粘土のものを使うよりも設定推測にこの試みをしなければならない。彼女の先端を監視していたがやけどを聞かせていないすべてのです!

また、彼女は親切に私の心にいくつかのより多くのものを維持する思い出しています:

1)は、成功率は約です。 90%
2)粘土の焼成後は少し縮む

私は私は最初の一歩を踏み出したうれしいです:)ので、はるかにあなたの寛大さをありがとう、私と一緒に忍耐Tomohachi!とはまったく悪 いではなく、あなたの英語は、私は完全に理解して!私は謝罪を自分の下手な日本語も(いや、そのためにはあなたgoogletranslateを非難する ことができます!:P)は

してください彼女のサイトを参照してください!これはぎっしり彼女のすばらしい、素晴らしい作品の美しい写真がいっぱいです。

ウェブページ
http://www.geocities.jp/la_cocina_alegre/
ギャラリー
http://www.geocities.jp/la_cocina_alegre/gallery.html
英語ブログ
http://la-cocina-alegre.blogspot.com/

ありがとうgozaimashita Tomohachi、インスピレーションをあなたの仕事とは何か!

10 comments:

  1. That is the recipe that I was telling ya about! Thanks for posting about the measurements! That is the thing that did not get translated. Now I can't wait to try it!

    ReplyDelete
  2. omg you wrote in japanese Oo
    thanks for sharing anyway! not useful for me, I just stick to polymer clay lol, but I'm sure it will help others!
    And I'm now following her blog, and THAT is useful to me :)

    hugs!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thank you for the recipe (and the link)!

    I have never properly measure how much I should mix grace and hearty together, so this is a help for me too.

    I think I've also read somewhere that you can add baking soda to polymer clay too, the result is expands, just like a real bread.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I wish I paid more attention and was a load more hardworking in my 3rd language classes. Yea, I picked Japanese. Her work is amazing, Cindy. So have you tried making the bread ? How's your hands? I too read about your links at Kiva's :). That's how I know you are still posting despite a bad wrist.

    ReplyDelete
  5. AHHH~ I don't write/speak Japanese at all! I have only minimal basic Japanese character recognition (katagana fridge magnets from Daiso and "My Japanese Coach" on NDS) i used GOOGLETRANSLATE to help (i hope) her get a first read of the post > < i think i should highlight the disclaimer more prominently LOL

    You're welcome, Betty and Stephanie!

    Asuka, i -have- tried mixing baking powder with polymer clay. what resulted was a disaster. it turned out very brittle and crumbled to bits when i tried slicing into it (even when hot). maybe i added too much, i'll try again with a more moderate amount....

    TO THE LAB!~~~~~~~*flies with one arm stretched out*


    Sans, my dad got locked into his room last night, both of us spent an hour prying away at the doorknob (it malfunctioned) and passing tools under/through the door...so my wrist is wrecked yet again ARGHHHHHH :(

    ReplyDelete
  6. Cindy! really glad to have gotten to know you better over Flickr heehee, and may our friendship grow! :) Come collect your award at my blog okay! Don't pangseh me! hahhaha!

    Love,
    Jocelyn!

    ReplyDelete
  7. I've just come across this amazing blog and I'm so happy I have! Cindy you rock :))) In the past I did mess around with grace and paper clay (I first read about mixing them here: http://tinyurl.com/pinestudio ) but did not think about adding the bicarbonate. Only, what on earth an earpick is? (btw my experiments with the two clays ended up no good - and I'm a bit like you, when experimenting goes wrong and I waste time and materials, I get sooo depressed I won't try anything else for a VERY long time :). Thanks so much for sharing and for your humour - minis and humour get along so well IMHO :)))

    ReplyDelete
  8. Jocelyn, you already know i'm not gonna ;)

    Marcella aka milo, welcome! thanks so much! and also, for that awesome link! a earpick is something that us asians grew up with, memories of lying in my dad's lap as he negotiated my ear canal with that tiny spoon XD

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ear_pick

    and i'm glad we share the same type of humour, i've been to your blog, it's amazing!! i'm so glad you stopped by, i can't help gasping at all your wonderful little pizzas, they're....THEY'RE REAL RIGHT? i'm seriously in awe, i haven't yet taken that step in making something so complicated....i wish to though, pizza's one of my favourite foods!

    ReplyDelete
  9. @Snowfern, thanks for visiting and for the nice comment :)

    ahh so THIS is an earpick. Ugh. We western children grow up with q-tips instead, but they are useless to measure up powdery things :) Do you think *a pinch* would be a suitable alternative? Or does an earpick hold more than this?

    thanks for the nice things about my pizzas. There's a little secret about them, but what makes them really stand up are the wonderful slices from Angie Scarr, who makes the most amazing fruit and veg canes in the world (did you already have a chance to check out her new book? She's so generous in giving away all her tricks. I guess I could make a tomato cane now myself, IF I wanted to ;)

    Are you going to try Tomohachi's recipe? I can't wait to see the results!

    so glad I found you ^_^

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for taking the time out to comment! :D