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Woodfired Minestrone Soup

“Sinpannay; conpannay.” A man holding a white pad stood by our weatherbeaten outdoor table, gesturing from me to the Salad Queen. His face was turning red. We were so frazzed by our drive that we just didn’t get it. “Sinpannay. Conpannay.” He gestured back and forth, threw up his arms and stalked off. His thin […]

Woodfired Roast Chicken

My college buddy and I huddled in darkness beside an old wooden fence, shivering and cursing the farmer who had put us up to this. A sliver of moon shone thin light upon a stone farmhouse where the farmer and his wife sat, no doubt in the glow of a roaring fire. The same trickle […]

Moderating Heat in a Woodfired Oven

Most woodfired oven owners only use the oven once a week or so to bake pizza or bread at fairly high temperatures. There’s another level of cooking available, at lower and constant temperatures, which requires pulsing the oven with small fires. This is useful knowing about both to protect the oven from unnecessary cracking from […]

Tanzanian Safari Bread

The smoke of a thousand distant fires greets us at Kilimanjaro Airport. A tangled sleep punctuated by weird animal calls in the night is broken by the scampering of monkeys on the roof above our heads. The families gather for breakfast: eggs done several ways, bacon, cereal, fresh fruit, coffee. Any fears my kids had […]

Prosciutto, Mushroom and Truffle Cheese Pizza

In a shop just off a sunny piazza in Colle Val D’Elsa some years ago, I watched the proprietor take down a bottle. He shook it just a little and held it up. Shriveled black balls the size of fat acorns, backlit by the sun, moved in golden liquid at the bottom. ‘Truffles,’ he said […]

In the Winter Oven: Fire-roasted Potatoes and Parsnips

It’s dark by 5 p.m., and wintry but not too cold, an evening that could be medieval as easily as it is modern. Just the kind of night that’s perfect for a bright fire and a big pan of oven-roasted root veggies. All that’s needed to complete the scene are potatoes, parsnips, onions, a few […]

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Etiam pulvinar consectetur dolor sed malesuada. Ut convallis euismod dolor nec pretium. Nunc ut tristique massa.

Nam sodales mi vitae dolor ullamcorper et vulputate enim accumsan. Morbi orci magna, tincidunt vitae molestie nec, molestie at mi. Nulla nulla lorem, suscipit in posuere in, interdum non magna.