Over the past few weeks Iv had my head in the oven a couple of times....well, actually it got so bad I spent quite a few hours completely inside the oven. Yes, it was hot, yes it was a dark lonely place that I found myself in but at the end of the day I knew it was my own choice. I just knew I had to do it!
The oven I sought sanctuary in was a very, very old bread oven. It hadn't been lit probably since the fifties and definitely not in my lifetime. It is built into the side of the house, stylishly round and measuring in at 2 metres in diameter. It is a huge space!
I absolutely love the history to it.
As it had laid redundant for so long, some of the bricks had 'spalled' and needed re-pointing and all of the fire-brick base had crumbled into fragments and needed removing.
We bought a pallet load of new, cut, fire-brick, some heat resistant cement and a fresh load of sand for a base and then it needed someone to get in and do it....
...I looked around and there was no-one here!
...wearing nowt but a pair of shorts and an FFP3 face mask I set to work, during which time I overcame arachnophobia and became totally resistant to malaria from all the winged and hairy-legged creatures that had made this their home over the past few years and obviously hadn't received the eviction notices....and some were bloody angry and enormous!...and incredibly fast!
But I had nerves of steel....I was made of stronger stuff....I convinced myself this during the darker hours, when the sweat and toil was fatiguing my withering body....
But finally, as I emerged, triumphant and looking rather like a Vietnamese POW, the new 'forno' was complete. All the bricks had been individually laid and re-laid until everything was perfectly level and now all that was needed was to see if it all still worked as it should....anyone got a match?
A few trial fires 🔥 and everything seems to be perfect. The fire soon gets the oven hot and the smoke thankfully goes out and up the chimney. The floor of the oven gained a great cooking temperature too.
Time to make a purchase.
Now there are times in your life when you realise that you are only going to do something once and today I had this realisation as I strolled into town to the 'Ferramenta' and quite boldly, in my best Italian, asked for and purchased, a 6' foot long, wooden handled pizza shovel....
I doubt if I will ever do this again!
So...it may historically have been an old bread oven that locals would meet at to bake batches of loaves but for the immediate future and in the summer of 2017 I am going to attempt to make pizza!🍕🇮🇹
Wish me 'Buon Appetito'
A double whammy here, the great track 'Burn Baby Burn' by an old favourite band of mine 'Ash' from their early, 2001 album, 'Free All Angels'...see what I did there?, it's not just thrown together, this blog!...could have had a Biffy Clyro track too if anyone noticed?
Sent wi' th'ipad
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