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Michael Pollan’s ‘Cob Oven and a 36 Hour Dinner Party’

By Cob Oven

Here’s something interesting from the New York Times. Michael Pollan has written up an essay about a 36 hour dinner party, based around the use of a cob oven, no less. Pollan notes that the party’s inspiration was ” the communal ovens still found burning in some towns around the Mediterranean, centers of social gravity where, each morning, people bring their proofed, or risen, loaves to be baked. (Each loaf bears a signature slash so you can be sure the one you get back is your own.) But after the bread is out of the oven, people show up with a variety of other dishes to wring every last B.T.U. from the day’s fire: pizzas while the oven is still blazing and then, as the day goes on, gentle braises or even pots of yogurt to capture the last heat and flavors of the dying embers.”

I love stuff like this. I love food, people getting together to cook, using wood heat, quality ingredients, mmm, yea. Interesting. And of course, it’s especially cool that this group used an outdoor cob oven for their cooking!

Don’t forget to check out my how to build your own outdoor cob oven for pizza and bread.

New Mud Room Exterior Mosaics and Seating

By Clay Plaster, Artwork

mosaic

A couple of weeks ago, we got around to re-plastering the north side of the house (most of the plaster on the lower half of the wall was completely weathered away), the east, and the finished mud room. April slaved away on this mosaic above the bench and around the window that day, and I think the final product is really swell. The stones are from a Tennessee river bed and the white pieces are broken tile.

The grape vine (to the left in the photo) exploded with all of the rain this year, and it frames this mini seating area and has climbed well up onto the roof. The bench itself is cantilevered in the wall — two roundwood branches (one osage orange, one black locust), and the boards are hand-planed and oiled black walnut. It’s cozy!