Community Oven, Los Angeles, California

To contact us Click HERE
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).

Bottaro Wood-Fired Pizza, San Diego, California

To contact us Click HERE
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.

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

To contact us Click HERE
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.

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

To contact us Click HERE
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.

AOA Bar & Grill, New York, New York

To contact us Click HERE
My Google alert pulls through again, this time finding a mention of the AOA Bar & Grill in New York City.

This looks like a real beer and pizza place ("25 craft beers and over 50 bottled").

In addition, they have a regularly scheduled pizza-making class. (Now I know why people were thinking the price for my all-day oven-building class was not out of line with New York prices.)

I did find a limited-time offer for the class at a significant discount (but check out the fine print).