Starving off the Land

Until this past Thursday, we hadn’t made pizza in a very long time. Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you just how long, but because I’ve been documenting our food life in excruciating detail for two years now, I can tell you precisely how long: eleven months and nine days. It was eleven [...]

Building wood-fired ovens seems to be all the rage. Locally, I’ve read first-hand accounts in The Boston Globe and Edible South Shore. You can get detailed instructions from Mother Earth News or Sunset Magazine. Kiko Denzer’s book, Build Your Own Earth Oven, is in its gazillionth printing and still selling briskly. And small wonder. The [...]

Before we started building our wood-fired pizza oven, my only experience with concrete came from leaving the cake-batter bowl on the counter overnight. In general, though, I’m pretty careful about soaking used dishes. “Put that in the sink,” I’ll say to Kevin. “If you let it dry it’ll turn to concrete.” And I suppose cake [...]