Next stop is about as opposite of a world form the Wuerts Shop than any of you could imagine.
I was so excited to arrive at my good friend and Mentor Tai Goo and his wife Julie's home. Tai and I have been looking forward to getting together for some time, and this was a really special trip, because we really had no plans, but wanted to hang out & figured that we would for sure do some blademsithing and cooking, but mostly really just wanted to visit, and relax.
Tai and Julie were expecting family to arrive in two days, Julie's daughter was bringing her new baby boy, their 1-month-old grandson to visit for the first time, Tai's Daughter and his grand daughter who was so excited to meet her new nephew were coming over, what a lovely time with family!.......so we spent plenty of time cooking, relaxing and did manage to squeeze in some forging as well.
Tai has an amazingly simple studio, mostly all hand tools in his outdoor smithy, and next to it, a totally sweet camp-set-up, complete with outdoor kitchen! We had a blast to say the least. Tai had some pozole soup going when I showed up, I had some corn bread and veggies to add to the mix.......so that first meal we had was amazingly awesome! AND..... We enjoyed that pozole, and a fresh batch of cornbread, the next day while playing some of the records they had, many of the great vinyl that we all miss so much. Leadbelly, pork-shank pozole and cornbread...what more could you want?!
Tai showed me some of the local cactus fruits off the barrel cactus, the seeds of which are super-nutritious, full of protein and minerals, the flesh of which is a bit lemony tasting...... and SO...... I had the idea of making some honey butter with the seeds and a bit of the lemony-tasting-flesh from that fruit to smear on the cornbread! It was brilliant if I say-so-myself. Later that night for the family, we made steamed rice, and from scratch made sweet & sour pork with some fried broccoli to boot!
When we did get down to forging, Tai introduced me to some new, and highly refined blacksmith-knives he had been working on. He made me one called a "Bush-Bug" forged out of .75" round W2, and really wanted to show me how they forged-out, and we got down to forging one. Enjoying some time in the studio while it rained outside, only the sound of the forge, rain and hammer. It was a blast to see what a fine knife you can create out of such a small piece of steel. Later that day, before dinner, we shared some of the knives we had both been creating, did lots of test cutting with a new geometry on a chef knife I created at the Wuertz shop, and cooked some more, cut some, talked plenty and enjoyed life to the fullest, right in his desert oasis with family and fire.
We wild-harvested Ephedra to add to the ginger tea I was already preparing, created a tincture out of creosote to make incense, and played with tree saps, sage and other desert aromatics to burn by the fire...so much fun! We even played some music, Tai on his Ektara, that he made out of a gourd from...you guessed it.... The Wuertz Family Gourd Farm, and me on my Native American Flute.