Spicy Soup in a Jack Sures Bowl

I want to start off with something special, and this is probably the most special thing I have. It's a bowl by Jack Sures, a legendary artist who taught at University of Regina for decades before retiring in 1999. I remember meeting Jack during my first month in Regina in 2004, and being somewhat intimidated by his reputation. The intimidation became more of a mortifying terror when I got trapped alone in an elevator with him one day. But it all turned out ok, because Jack's a pretty good guy. I went on to do a little studio work him, helped him ring in his 70th with dim sum, and got to know some of his family a bit as well.

Last year I was back in Regina again, this time teaching at the university myself, and Jack was still there. He's a professor emeritus and basically a lifetime artist-in-residence. He's in the studio almost daily, and is perhaps the busiest octogenarian I know. Jack gave me this bowl, though I can't exactly remember why. (Perhaps I helped him load a kiln?) It's one of Jack's classic forms but it's wood-fired in the (at the time) brand new wood kiln they have on campus. There are not a lot of things like this in the world.

I most often use this bowl for soup because it's big and enclosed. I like to make a citrusy, garlicky, savoury concoction that some former roommates of mine had taken to calling Bhopal Disaster or Chemical Burn Soup, on account of its intensely aromatic spiciness. Jack's bowl is the perfect soup bowl - it can hold a full serving with no worries about spilling, and the foot ring is deep enough that the bottom is cool to the touch even when full of boiling liquid. The chopsticks, by the way, are a pair that I carved out of an apple branch a few years ago while living in Corner Brook.