Nate and I once had a dream.
A few years back, in the midst of our 'between farms depression' we took a road trip to the Midwest. The trip was to research a very special farm with a special oven. We actually visited several farms for the same reason, but one in particular stood out. This farm hosted a weekly pizza night and drew quite a crowd. The farm was run by a beautiful, down-to-earth family and we were truly inspired. By the community aspect, by the opportunity for folks to see and experience where their food comes from, and by the pizza.
We had been kicking around the idea but after experiencing it for ourselves, we decided right then that we wanted to create something like that here, in Western Pennsylvania. We didn't have a farm then. But we had a plan.
Since that trip, Nate has worked to perfect his sourdough bread and pizza dough recipe while researching and learning all he could about wood-fired ovens. He spent a lot of last season building it and the oven grew along with the baby in my belly.
After many, many hours of work, sweat, and love, the day has finally arrived where Nate is baking bread and pizza in his handcrafted oven.
Oh my, is that bread and pizza yummy!
In the very near future we'll be hosting weekly pizza nights here at the farm. Our goal is to eventually grow most of the ingredients for the pizza. We hope to be able to offer fresh bread for sale to our CSA members this season and someday have the oven available for folks to use to bake their own bread. Nate would like to have wood-fired bread baking workshops here as well so people can learn about this lost art. More details to come on all of that very soon.
The oven, while the exterior isn't quite finished, is a thing of beauty. Nate did a great job documenting the project in photos, which can be found here.
This oven really is his best work yet.
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