IT’S NOT A GOOD YEAR FOR C(K)LAY

By Alan Goldfarb

Jan. 17, 2024

The following has a lot of porosity (see amphorae below) but when I saw that a San Francisco Tunisian restaurant isn’t being allowed to serve food in its culturally appropriate vessels, I threw my pots. It almost made me throw up, too.

The reasons for my dyspepsia?

        • Tunisians have been eating from golas* for Millenia. Sure, some of them died along the way but, who’s to say now, from what? Golas? For the few of you out there, who may not know what is (are?) a gola – and you know who you are – they’re decorative terracotta bowls in which lamb and fish stews are baked. The restaurateur under kiln fire in San Francisco had 180 of the clay/terracotta containers made for his lamb and fish stews. He even assured San Francisco’s Gola Inspectors that they were lead free; the golas, not the inspectors. There’s a good chance the ancient Tunisian golas were lined with lead, but this is a new century where lead now is found only in our bullets. But I say, Let my golas go! Then yell it from the rooftops: “Golasgolasgolasgolas”.
        • Now then, are they going to come after the wine industry’s recent infatuation with clay/terracotta amphorae? There are probably hundreds of wineries around the globe using these adorable bulbous vessels just as their ancestors before them (who also likely bit the dust from lead poisoning). But the reason why amphorae has been used to store wine in, as with oak barrels, amphora too allows the wine to breath because of its porous nature. Back in new times, as if Napkins don’t have enough to worry about (think Napa government tasting room tyranny), are they gonna come after the amphora next? First they came for the prunes then they came for your wooden pallets (too much pollution), and now they may be comin’ for your amphora. And just to think, what will Dave Del Dotto put out in front of his wineries to replace his signature giant amphorae, if and when the Clay Cops come callin’?
        • And finally, as regards my upset kishkas, there’s the case involving the other clay, Klay Thompson, that is. The most beloved Golden State Warrior aside from Steph, Klay as we’ve all come to calling him (like Dylan), just might be nearing the end. The denouement of a truncated but nonetheless glorious career in which he was the other half of the Splash Brothers as the shootinist, tootinist, three-point scorers in the history of basketball, may be the final scene. After two well-chronicled and horrific leg injuries that kept Klay off the court for more than two years, he’s shown recently only a few signs of the old great Klay. Klay, bless his quirky and lovely heart, seemingly now is not able to use those legs to enable him get enough lift that will allow him to not clang the ball off the rim and/or the glass. Nevertheless, just watch the home crowd lift itself up in unison as though to elevate one of their heroes as he shoots. Only to collapse into their expensive seats with a big oy vey, when Klay’s ball goes awry.

Klay completes my troika of all things clay that are getting pounded from all corners of the dark earthen mud world. When they pry those Chinese-made and endorsed sneakers off Klay, he should become one of the Terra Cotta Warriors. Then and only then will my agita abate.

*Coincidental to our story:  Another of the greatest, albeit forgotten all-time basketball greats was a guy named Tom Gola. He played for the old Philadelphia Warriors, which begat the San Francisco Warriors, which begat Klay’s Golden State Warriors (prediction: soon-to-begat San Francisco, again). Like Klay, Gola was a vessel of talent and reliability. May their cups run over and their shots go in. Gola Goal!