In the country kitchens of southern France, a wide bowl like this one was where the day’s cooking began, the dough kneaded, the vegetables washed, the milk left to settle so the cream could be skimmed from the top. Found in France, this tian is thrown terracotta, left raw and rosy on the outside and glazed a deep amber brown within, with a few strokes of yellow slip brushed down the inside wall. The glaze was there for a reason, sealing the clay so milk and water could not soak into it, which is why tians were always glazed on the inside and almost never on the out. Sylvie fills it with lemons on the kitchen table, the yellow against the brown.
