Tag Archives: wood-fired oven

Tuesday night on Tuesday night

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If this was a hard-hitting and controversial blog I’d probably write about how we’d hosted a group tonight where few of the kids had any manners (as in a complete lack of “please” and “thank you”). but as it isn’t, I’d probably have to go on to say that it probably wasn’t their fault, but that of their parents.

Yes, I’m nice. This isn’t natural, I’ve have been using relaxation techniques and such stuff and I can now look at them with a fond smile and think “I really hope this karma stuff works because you’re coming back as a pustule, young man.”

Don’t get me wrong, the majority were nice affable people you’d be happy to meet at any time and one or two were so pleasant and friendly it was a true pleasure to meet them. But, as with rotten apples, it only takes one to spoil things. They are the ones you remember. I will say no more, but as part of my mellowing process I am growing more Wodehousian, and there were one or two tonight who were absolute blisters.

On the plus side, we’re getting better with the wood-fired oven and one of the pigs has had eight piglets. We’ve normally managed more, but eight is still good.

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The morning after

We had a good night in the kitchen, though we did need to enlist the help of an electric fan. I had the fan, the participants had plastic aprons and a wood-fired oven – that really tested their capacity to stay cool under pressure.

In a way it was fortunate that we’d decided to light the fire by committee. I asked the farmer if we could have it lit and he passed the message to Tim. The farmer thought 4 pm was soon enough to light it and Tim was a bit on the cheese-paring side with the wood. All in all, we didn’t end up with the roaring furnace that I would have done, but I suppose we could say they were being careful with the Earth’s resources.

You could also say they were being tight, but as I use TESCO’s cheapest flour and cheapest tomato sauce I’m not one to talk. I’m not known as the Prince of Parsimony for nothing. (OK, I admit I just made that up).

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You test the temperature of a pizza oven by bravely thrusting your arm into it. If the hair on your arm instantly burns off, the temperature is right. Of course, you can only do that around twice a month. Ideally I would have had a variety of dough and casseroles available to cook as it went down in temperature.

If it doesn’t burn off you aren’t up to temperature. I still have two hairy arms. However, it’s a challenge rather than a disaster so you just have to be patient.

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Fortunately everybody was patient and good-natured, but it did take over an hour to cook all the pizzas. It isn’t the fastest process in the world, even using baking paper, but it should have been quicker than that. If we’d used an electric oven the convenience of the eating experience would probably have been improved, even if we may not have laughed so much. We ended up using the electric ovens for the last few anyway. Funny how we’re retro about food, with wood-fired ovens and old methods, but I don’t see anyone sitting on the side of the river bashing their washing with stones.

Just a thought…

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