Cob Oven Story

Update: July 15

So yesterday (Bastille Day!), I fired up the oven again for the pop-up farmstand, but also because I didn’t want to admit defeat. I really stoked up the fire and burned it for four hours before daring to put anything in. When I did (rhubarb tartlettes), they were charred within two minutes. It was really effing hot in there. I tossed some figs and goat cheese, and then squash blossoms stuffed with goat feta, then some gifted plums from the cutest student visitors ever. Perfect. After the farmstand, wrapped up (thanks to everyone who came, sorry it was so disorganized), I made a nest of greens and cracked a duck egg into it (yum!). Then I made pizza and it came out great. Then a mulberry strawberry pie (holy f!), then overnight an olla filed with black beans and dried chilis. This morning the olla was still hotter than hell and the beans were perfectly cooked. What I’m saying is: i love the oven.

Ok, my mom keeps asking to see it. So here we go…

I’m really tired, so I’m just going to show some pictures and tell you how we made this oven.

First, I scrounged a bunch of urbanite (rip-rap, busted pieces of concrete) and piled them into a pile. Then threw some gravel in between the cracks. This was all free and took about a day.

Then Sadie and Emma came over and we made the oven. S and E have made ovens before and are really hilarious and fun people.First we made a cob layer over the urbanite to even it out. Cob is made by digging up some clay soil, adding sand, then water and mixing it with our feet on a tarp. After we slapped the cob on, we poured some beach sand on top of that. Remember that during this entire process we always felt a little insane.

Then the void was built out of sand plus water.We were using that Kiko Cob Oven Book.Sadie also watched some youtube videos.

Oh wait, I forgot, before that, we laid down the firebricks. Kissing the bricks. We did the layout about five times before it worked. And you’re probably wondering: how is it that void is so damn circular….

Sadie’s some kind of math whiz, and she made one of those compass things out of chalk. Note that the fire bricks are nicely laid out and smooth.

Then the void was mounded, wrapped in wet newspaper.

Things got messy and I stopped taking photos, but basically, we mixed mud/cob and formed it around the void. Like three inches think. Then we stopped and were tired. It’s actually a lot of work. A few days later, we met up again and added another furry layer of mud mixed with straw. We punched door out of the now hardened dome and all the sand poured out. We shoveled the rest out with our hands. Who needs some sand? I have three buckets of it. Just let me know.

Then the oven dried for 10 days. The big day was upon us on Monday. S and E came over and we started burning wood in the oven. Scraps from Wooden Window (clean, i swear). We burned for two hours. That’s supposed to be enough. It was really hot in the belly of the beast, and the whole oven got warm. We were so excited for this pizza.

Note that that pizza “peel” was made while we burned shit, out of an old table, cut with a sawzall. Very rustic.

This is when I had to admit that the door was going to be a major stumbling block. That is, there wasn’t a very good one, so the heat escaped too quickly. And I had to perform a pizza partial abortion (squeamish, don’t look).

Of course we were delirious with hunger by this point, soaked in smoke, and so we ate the raw pizza abortion. Not bad.

We learned a couple things;

1. need a door

2. need to burn with the fire for longer before scrapping out the coals

3. need a table and workspace. as usual, it was like a terrible novella camp set-up out there in the garden…

4. pizza is advanced topics, especially when thrown right onto the bricks. emma’s rhubarb crisp turned out great.

Okay, going to sleep. But remember: we will be burning that bitch again and hopefully pulling out some goodness. I have plans to make little rhubarb tartlettes and maybe figs seared with goat feta and gt honey….Come by tomorrow (wednesday) 5pm-7pm for the farmstand and cob oven crisis 2. I’ll be selling t-shirts, honey, preserved lemons, salad mix, and turnip greens.