I’ve been wanting a tagine for a while. Just the idea of pulling one out of the oven, in mid-winter, and lifting the lid to reveal a beautiful lamb and apricot dish, makes me salivate. I recently took a clay class, and I thought it the perfect time to make a tagine for myself. In middle eastern cooking, there are cooking tagines and decorated serving tagines, but I thought, “This is 2006, why can’t we have both in one?” Indeed, modern glaze can handle a 350 degree oven. So here’s the design I drew up for the tagine lid, which would look like a birthday hat:

OK, it is a bit of a twist on the tradition, but we need a little color in our winter meals here in New England.

Unfortunately, a tagine of any useful size is way beyond my potter’s wheel skills. Everything I make emerges slightly (or severely) out of round, and that’s not a good thing when you’re trying a dish and lid that fit together snugly. It would also be wider than the wheel surfaces at the pottery studio.

So, my tagine dream is deferred for now, until I find time for another clay class. Meanwhile, I made something else I’ve always wanted—a tyg:

Some people call this a mug with “love handles,” which makes me picture two lovers next to each other at the breakfast table, drinking out of it at the same time.

I also think of someone with really terrible motor skills who needs both hands to pick it up. But the best reason for two handles is to pass the hot mug between two people. And it works very well. Maybe sometimes design isn’t all about simplification? Maybe sometimes the simplest things can be made a little more complicated?

Granted, I think the tyg was more popular back when the world had more space in its cupboards for mugs with two handles, but now that everyone has a McMansion, can we bring these relics back into style? I want to see the tyg incorporated into the next marketing campaign for Starbucks: our coffee is so damn strong, you need two handles.

Look for it in Spring of 02007.