Neighbors Coming Together

"Always ask how local needs might be supplied from local sources, including the mutual help of neighbors", Wendell Berry.

With the help of neighbors and friends the earth oven was completed and we held a pizza celebration on Halloween afternoon to initiate the new, and very beautiful, earth oven.

Our good friend and artist, Larry Hunt, embellished the oven with a whimsical sculpture of an owl, my chosen totem. Stuart, master pizza maker, delighted us all with several delicious pizzas - caramelized onion and mushroom, roasted home-grown vegetables, pesto with veggie sausage. It was a great way to share in the delight of burning wood and cooking in a natural way, outside, with the leaves falling off the trees and the light of the low angle of the sun casting long shadows. We huddled around the oven and the fire in the adjacent stone fireplace to ward off the chill.

After the pizzas were finished and eaten, I put two home-made rye bread doughs into the still very warm oven, to bake. We didn't push the coals back far enough so the back sides of the breads got a little black from being too close to the flames. We realize, after checking our book on the subject, that one is supposed to remove the coals for bread and just close up the opening. The residual heat is sufficient to cook many loaves once the pizzas are done.

We are planning a community bread-baking session, about once a month. I usually bake bread once a week. Now I plan to make about 6 loaves once a month and anyone who wants to come over and bring their bread dough, is welcome to bake their loaves in our "fire-stove", or a casserole. Watch this space for dates.