Food, Vessels and Their Stories 08 | Practice Before Half-Farming, Half-X: A Life Practice of Half-Pottery, Half-Cooking | Tsai Li-ling, Ceramic Artist and Owner of Zhi Niao Coffee

[Food, Vessels and Their Stories] series writing visits studios and creators who make vessels, as well as restaurant owners with a deep devotion to vessels. We hope that while everyone focuses on ingredients, studies culinary skills, and tastes delicious food, they will also pay attention to vessels, discover vessels, and explore the world and stories of food vessels together.

Until now, almost all interviewees in the [Food, Vessels and Their Stories] series have been full-time ceramic artists, but this interviewee is very special: besides being a ceramic artist, Li-ling is also a culinary artist. She once took part in the early startup of Hao Yang Restaurant and Mushroom Coffee, and now she is the owner of Zhi Niao Coffee. She is a dual-hatted creator skilled in European-style bread and pastries and everyday cooking with local ingredients, able to serve food with magic and also create charming vessels.

Cooking and making pottery, one creating through food and the other creating through clay, seem to move between unconnected media, yet Li-ling interprets a common inner method within them, which makes people applaud and marvel.