Community Oven Radio Interview

I was interviewed on a Bronx-to-Barn podcast where we had a nice long talk about community ovens. This was later reproduced on the Twin Cities Daily Planet.

This is the second and longer time I have had a radio interview about community ovens.

We anticipate another interview in the spring where I will have a chance to talk about my portable oven building classes, especially the ones in Wisconsin.

Portable Oven Class Schedule for 2013

I have started scheduling my portable oven class for a variety of locations for 2013.

I primarily keep the list on my main Portable Oven Classes page.

In short, these are the dates scheduled so far.

04/20/13 Gale Woods Farm Park (Minnetrista, MN)
05/04/13 Tunnel Mill (south of Rochester, MN, might be full)
08/08/13 Tunnel Mill (south of Rochester, MN, Added in February)
05/12/13 Borner Farm Project (Prescott, WI)
05/25/13 Running Dog Ranch (near Stockholm, WI)
06/22/13 White Bear Center for the Arts (White Bear Lake, MN)
06/29/13 Borner Farm Project (Prescott, WI)
08/17/13 Running Dog Ranch (near Stockholm, WI
08/24/13 Borner Farm Project (Prescott, WI)

I expect to add fall dates for Gale Woods and WBCA.

Ten classes in one year would be a record, and there are even other locations under negotiation but not yet scheduled.

It's shaping up to be a busy year for teaching people how to build ovens in a day.

You can read more about my class in the pages whose links are to the right of the blog (under "PAGES").

January 25, 2013: I got an e-mail from Tunnel Mill telling me my class on 05/04/13 was already full, with a waiting list of two people. (That's four months ahead of the class.) We added another date (possibly June 8).

I also put together a map showing where my classes are scheduled.

Bootleg Batard, Skokie, Illinois

I first discovered Bootleg Batard through their Kickstarter page back in September.

In November I found their Facebook group page.

Eventually I found a link to their own domain, which automatically forwards to their current home page.

Their fundraising on Kickstarter was successful. They flew Pat Manley out to work on the oven core.

They got some good local press here and here (apparently dating from October 18 or so).

Theirs is one of the most ambitious community oven projects I have seen, but it appears they have the experience to carry out their plans. Theirs would be the second community oven in Illinois, and Melina Kelson was involved in building the other one.

D'Amico & Sons, Golden Valley, Minnesota Field Report

While looking for a place to eat dinner after attending an art exhibition at the Perpich Center for Arts Education I did a "search nearby" and found that there was a D'Amico & Sons location at 7804 Olson Memorial Highway, Golden Valley, MN 55437, about a mile away. Looking at the reviews on Trip Advisor for the restaurant, I saw one where it mentioned "wood fired oven" so that restaurant location seemed worth a try.

This time I didn't have my camera with me, so there are no pictures.

There is a menu that you can download from their page. The actual selections available in the restaurant were a bit broader.

The good news: They really do have and use a wood-fired oven to bake their pizza.

The bad news: They run their oven at a comparatively low 500 degrees or so.

As a result, their wood-fired pizza is just OK.

I ordered their Neapolitan (a highly ironic name considering the temperature of true Neapolitan pizza ovens), which had fresh mozzarella, tomato sauce, and basil. The pizza was thin crust, not overloaded, and had a bit of char on the bottom. It would have definitely benefited from some attention from a bubble popper. A couple of big bubbles had pushed the sauce and cheese away from substantial portions of my pizza.

Even with those problems, it was a pretty tasty pizza, and one I would order again.

Trinity Lutheran Community Oven, Fort Collins, Colorado

My ever-watchful Google Alert for community ovens found another community oven project underway, this time as part of Trinity Lutheran Church, Fort Collins, Colorado.

It's not clear where exactly they are getting their inspiration to build a community oven, but they have created a page for it on their web site, plus a Facebook Church/Religious Organization page and a Facebook Community page for it (the latter page is probably the better maintained one).

Colorado is already home to one functioning community oven in Carbondale (my links about them, their own site).

Some of their inspiration seems to be coming from the community oven built by the White Bear Lake United Methodist Church in White Bear Lake, Minnesota. (That's a guess, partly based on the fact that Trinity Lutheran used pictures of the WBLUMC oven on their web page.)

I wish TLC great success in their efforts.

Tracton Community Oven, Cork, Ireland

One advantage of having this blog and my Quest for Oven web pages is that I sometimes get information coming to me instead having to search it all out on my own.

In this case, I received an e-mail from Ireland telling me about a plan to build a community oven there (the first one in Ireland that I am aware of).

As of 10/13/2012 it's a project in progress, but the place where it is being built has a Facebook community organization page. (See the post for October 10.)

I have run across other art centers where a community oven has become part of the activities.

It's good to see the zeal for community ovens catching on in Ireland.

Nov. 17, 2012: I just checked their Facebook page again, and there is now a photo album titled Tracton Community Oven with 16 pictures in it, apparently added Nov. 1, 2012. Looks good. I could not tell much about the style of the oven or its size from what I saw.

Peterborough Community Oven

Sometimes there are coincidences. I discovered that I had overlooked some details in a couple of my sources about information about community ovens for Peterborough.

Someone else reviewing my links pointed out that I had confused Peterborough, Ontario, Canada (which has a Facebook community organization page). with Peterborough, New Hampshire.

Oddly enough, while I have been able to find a couple of mentions of the oven at Peterborough, NH, there is a bit more available on Peterborough, Ontario.

For Peterborough, NH, I found these two references:

• "Kin Schilling ... organized school kids to build a community bread oven in Peterborough" (link)
• "[O]ur community kitchen, grill, fire pit and outdoor Cobb/wood-fired C/Pizza oven offer great opportunities for cooking, often in community." (link)

For Peterborough, Ontario, Canada, I found these links:

• Their Facebook community organization page
• Mention of a survey asking for input about the oven
• A more recent online article that mentions the outdoor brick oven

It's kind of interesting to contrast these two efforts. The NH oven is a cob oven built in 2009. The Ontario oven is planned to be brick, but isn't built yet.

There is something to be said for having a good oven now instead of a great oven sometime in the future. (These are not mutually exclusive alternatives.)

Regardless of those issues, I wish good luck to both community ovens, and I'm sorry I got them confused.

Point Douglas Community Oven, Point Douglas, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

A community oven project that I had filed under "Aspirational Community Ovens" (which is to say community ovens that might be built someday) moved forward to actual construction.

This was the North Point Douglas Women's Centre Community Oven Project (link). Their page shows some pictures of the construction and past updates for the project.

Some of the history of the project is recorded in the original blog post that I found that informed me about the project. That post mentioned some of the arts component of the project, which is made more clear by this invitation in a blog post to come and work on the mosaic that decorates the oven.

Interestingly, there is an community oven in Cringila, Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia with a mosaic (link).

North Adams Community Oven, North Adams, Massachusetts

Another recent addition to my list of US community ovens is the North Adams Community Oven, North Adams, Massachusetts (they have a Facebook community organization page).

There is a picture of the oven being built as part of this page about a related effort to create a local sourdough culture.

This oven will be near a community garden.

This oven is one of a few built as part of a larger arts project.

There are some other community oven projects in Massachusetts, but this one is close to New York, which also has a lot of community ovens.

Park Avenue Community Oven, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada

I received a lot of notifications about community ovens recently, both from Google Alerts and from e-mail.

One oven that I found out about is the Park Avenue Community Oven, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada. This makes it the first community oven I have found in Nova Scotia.

They also have a Facebook community organization page.

As with many community ovens in Canada, this one is located in a park (the Leighton Dillman Park on the Dartmouth Commons) and near a community garden.

They have gotten some local television coverage, which is quite rare for these kinds of projects. Also rare, is that they got substantial local funding ($20,000) to build the oven and its environs, so the whole project ought to be very well established. (I like how the TV segment mentioned that some other organizations are now interested in having community ovens of their own.)

There was also some related press coverage (echoed here).

Oven Building Classes

This blog gets searched for subjects like "bread oven building class" or "pizza oven building class" or even "brick oven building class" (according to my blog's search statistics).

While I have a few posts here about specific classes, I do maintain a more general list of class information on a page as part of my main Quest for Ovens links pages. The class information is organized by state (for the US) or country.

The information might not be current; I record classes as I find them mentioned without tidying up past links. Partly that's because a place that once held a class is more likely to do so in the future.

This provides the best info available at the time.

If you are going to be hosting an oven-building class, I would be happy to mention it here and link to it if a link is available. Just leave a comment on the blog or use the mailto link on the web site.

Portable Brick Oven Features

I put together an initial web page describing the features of the portable brick ovens that I teach people how to build in my classes. It seems only fair to discuss what's good and bad about my oven designs.

Update 11/24/2012: Just to save you some mouse clicks, note that my oven designs are for ovens that are portable in sense that they are built of unmortared bricks cleverly stacked together. The ovens can be moved by moving the bricks from the starting location to the ending location and rebuilding the oven (which takes less time than you might think, about an hour, less with help). It you are looking for some other kind of portability (what I might describe as a mobile oven), you will need to look elsewhere.

GardenFork.TV, a blog that mentioned wood-fired ovens

Sometimes I see the blogs of other people with interests that overlap mine.

One case of this is a blog that has its own simple charm: GardenFork.TV.

I added a collection of links to pages of theirs that I found interesting or useful.

They do both their own stuff and republish other people's contributions that are related to what they have done.

They did a brick oven pizza video that got some responses from other people who had done something very similar, somewhat less similar, or not so similar.

Their brick oven pizza video even got picked up and repackages for a Make posting.

Their approach certainly seems to work, even if it's not the way I do it, but good for them.

Portable Oven Class, Gale Woods Farm Park, Minnetrista, Minnesota, Sept. 8, 2012

I have an agreement with the farm supervisor at Gale Woods Farm Park to hold my portable oven-building class on Sept. 8, 2012, from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m.

Tim Reese, who organized cob oven-building classes at Gale Woods, has been kind enough to let me return to Gale Woods. While I have not had my oven-building class there, members of the Saint Paul Bread Club did build portable brick ovens there in 2009, as recorded in an Extras segment by KARE-11.

We are aiming to leave the oven up to help Gale Woods celebrate their harvest festival Oct. 6 and 7.

Update August 3: Registration is now available on-line.
Update September 4: Class is now full, with a waiting list.
Update Februray 15: Next class is scheduled for April 20, 2013.

Bottaro Wood-Fired Pizza, San Diego, California

An article in the Encinitas Patch profiled a firefighter who started a mobile oven business as a sideline to prepare for retirement.

The article says in part:

After almost 30 years with the Encinitas Fire Department, firefighter John Gonzales began contemplating his upcoming retirement in 2015.

He thought it was time to shake things up in his life, and make a move, and this past July, he started Bottaro Wood Fired Pizza. Bottaro is the maiden name of his mother, an Italian-American.

In launching a business, Gonzales decided on a product that he loved himself and knew something about.

The business is Bottaro Wood-Fired Pizza, San Diego, California. The home page says in part:

Bottaro Wood Fired Pizza is an oven on wheels and as we like to call it "Pizza A-Go-Go". We also have salads and appetizers and cook all our food on site. You can find us at Street Fairs and Farmers Markets and also cater Private Parties and Events.

We use the freshest, local produce available, make our own sausage and use organic flour from Utah. Your pizza will bake in about 90 seconds in temperatures of 700 to 900 degrees. All your Family and Friends will appreciate the uniqueness of a Wood Burning Oven as we prepare and cook their food using "Old World" techniques right in your backyard or favorite setting.

This sounds like an interesting variation on the mobile oven business.

Community Oven, Los Angeles, California

The people who make up the Los Angeles Bread Bakers (a bread club) decided to build their own community oven. As part of the effort to document what was done, Alexandra Woodruff, one of their members, created a segment for the Good Food program on radio KCRW (the segment starts about 49 minutes into the show). Some pictures of the community oven were added to a post in the KCRW blog.

LABB has its own Facebook group page.

Alexandra Woodruff had interviewed me over the phone for the segment; I'm definitely in there. I am grateful for the opportunity to tell people about community ovens.

During my few words in the interview I mentioned a few community ovens that I know about. These included:

• Carbondale, CO
• Tenderloin National Forest (San Francisco, CA)
• Youngstown, OH
• Braddock, PA

These are all on my global list of community oven links (along with a map of community ovens in the US).

Portable Oven Class, Prescott, WI, June 16, 2012

I will be returning once again to Prescott, Wisconsin, to teach my portable oven class.

The contents of the class are fully described here.

Registration information for the class is on this page of the Borner Farm Project.

In short, I show people how to build an oven from stacked bricks, how to make the doughs for naan, pita, pizza, and bread, and then bake them all in an oven we build as part of class. We then get to eat all of that. In past classes we have baked up to 15 pieces of naan, 8 pita bread, 5 pizzas, and a loaf of bread in an hour and a half.

May 2012 Saveur Magazine, Issue 147

A magazine I never thought to pick up before, Saveur, has an issue, May, 2012, issue 147, with the cover headline, "Make this bread."

The executive editor, Dana Bowen, had some nice things to say about bread bakers on page 8.

The article itself starts with a two-page picture on pages 42 and 43, with a headline, "Special feature: American bread." There's discussion on the inside about the artisan bread movement. There's an interesting timeline about bread and baking.

One significant quotation from the timeline:

1983: The American artisan bread movement blossoms when Steve Sullivan opens Acme Bread Company in Berkeley, California, and Daniel Leader opens Bread Alone in Boiceville, New York. Both use natural leaveners and wood-fired ovens.

I do have sites marked for the Acme Bread Company and for Bread Alone Bakery.

I did find in interesting that my passion for wood-fired ovens seems to be a reflection of a trend that started almost 30 years ago. (What can I say? I'm snail; I'm naturally slow.)

Alan Scott-style Oven Class, near Twin Cities, Minnesota, July 13-15, 2012

Rae Ann Vandeputte has cancelled  her brick oven building course at her home in Victoria, MN.

The remaining part of this message just preserves the original details. It no longer applies.

The class will learn how to build an Alan Scott oven from oven-builder and rustic bread baker Derek Luchese. Derek teaches the oven-building course at the North House Folk School in Grand Marais, MN and is owner of Both Hands Bread, South Gillies, ON.

The course is offered at a significantly lower cost and near the Twin Cities so that

• more folks can learn how to build ovens
• Rae Ann Vandeputte can get some help building her oven

During the course you will actually build an oven to near-completion, gaining experience with pouring the concrete hearth slab, setting the firebricks for the hearth, and building an arched oven vault. All materials will be provided; you just bring some gloves and dirty clothes.

More details about the class can be found at the web site she built for the class.

If you or anyone you would know might like to take this fun course, have them look at the class registration page.
You can also contact Rae Ann Vandeputte at 612-381-7908 or raeann.vandeputte@gmail.com

Dates: July 13-15, 2012 (all day for each day)
Cost: $250.00 (meals provided)
Location: 8400 Allegheny Grove Blvd, Victoria, MN 55386

Original source

Portable Oven Classes, Staten Island, April 14 & 15, 2012

I have a person who really wants to take my portable oven-building class, but lives on Staten Island (part of New York City).

Update 3/29/2012: Not enough people registered for this trip to work out on these dates. We are going to see if we can find another set of dates that work further into the future. If you are interested, drop me a note.

If we can get all the materials and enough people registered, we would hold two classes, one on Saturday, April 14, and one on Sunday, April 15.

The costs to the students would have to be high enough to cover my normal class fees plus travel expenses.

If you are interested in learning how to build a brick oven in a day, or going from bare ground in the morning to wood-fired oven pizza for lunch, you can use the information in the announcement linked to below to sign up for the class.

This class is especially for people who love wood-fired pizza, but thought that building their own oven would be too hard and too expensive. These ovens are easier and cheaper than you might think.

The details of the class have now been set, and there is an announcement on Craig's List.