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  2008 season, Rosendale Allotments
including Betty and Bobby Robin + Robin chicks in Plot 35 shed and The Great Snow of April ’08. Robin sequence is also online by itself on flickr here | |
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 Joshua at 2
Joshua’s 2nd birthday outing to London Zoo with Rachel and Mel and her daughter Gracie and me. | |
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 1st annual Brockwell Bake, August 31st 2008
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 RAA BBQ and wine pressing 2008
Nice weather at last onn 14/9/08 for the annual allotment BBQ and Marco’s wine making | |
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 51 today 20 July 2008
well actually on 18 July | |
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 pizza day, May 5th 2008
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 Rosendale Allotment sheds
An occasional series of shed portraits | |
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 Tivissa Spring 2008
The annual calçotada and other matters, above the village of Tivissa, Catalonia | |
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 the bandstand oven, Izaut-de-l’Hôtel, Midi-Pyrenees, France
First noticed this extraordinary oven with water mill outside the small Midi-Pyrenees village of Izaut-de-l’Hôtel in the summer of 2006. A passing neighbour on that occasion told us the story of the baker who played his guitar on top of his oven. Me and James returned in October 2007 with camera - we were lucky that the last baker/miller’s wife (aged 87) returned to the mill with a neighbour whilst we were there and showed us her mill - left just as it was the last time it was used in the ’60s.
Surely the only bandstand come bread oven in the world?
wikipedia entry for the village here wikimapia entry here | |
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 oven and mill, Latoue, Midi-Pyrenees, France
some pics to show the original working parts of my friend Ursula’s mill and bakery (now her home) in the village of Latoue near St Gaudens. We believe the mill/bakery supplied bread to about five local villages so quite big by local standards. Its not certain but I think the oven was of the ’gueulard’ design. | |
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 Pro wood-fired oven, London
Pics from the wood fired B & B oven on the Old Kent Road with bakers Dave and Vincent Talleu (his website with more bread pics here).
BAKERY ACTION ANIMATION HERE | |
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holey oven
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 Vince’s sourdough in France, October 2007
Second international outing for Vince’s new sourdough from Born & Bread - to the mill at Latoue, Midi-Pyrenees, Haute Garonne, France here here - sourdough very well received | |
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 Latoue, October 2007
Yet another great visit to the home of Ursula in the village of Latoue, near St Gaudens, Midi-Pyrenees. Chance with new camera to record the marvels of décor and art at the ex-mill/bakery + all the friends present, Ursula and Patrick at Latoue, Di and Hector from Andalusia, Gary and Adrian from Catalonia and James from Mumbai.
SPECIAL ANIMATION sequence of Gary and Ursula head to head here | |
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 pane y pasta, Emilia Romagna! Sept. 2007
baking in an oven by a farmhouse in the hills above San Martino in Gattara, a small village on the border between the Italian regions of Ravenna and Tuscany. And also good times with friends new and old + pasta making + visits to Bologna & Firenze (Florence) | |
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 Marco wine making 15th Sept. 2007
last nice weekend weather of 2007 and time for my neighbour Marco to make the 2007 vintage. Some nice bread also made this day here | |
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 Autumn, Winter 2007 on Plot 35
A few pics with new camera including the new weather vane on top of Plot 35 | |
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 andy@50 - Dungeness - 21/07/07
My 50th birthday outing to Dungeness beach arriving form Hythe on the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Light Railway | |
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 pizza day 25/08/2007
lovely day for another pizza party on Plot 35
some great Quicktime panoramas by Elkin here
at the table
Edward at the oven | |
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 May '07
Official start of new season of outdoor baking at beginning of May 2007. Aiming to produce two loads of bread every Saturday for supply to friends and neighbours. The way things are going probably I have got rid of all spare loaves before I leave allotments to allotment friends and neighbours. After baking May 5th we had a pizza party on May 6th especially for friends with kids. Bit of a grey overcast day but nice anyway. Oven heated up fast after having been baking the day before and got it up to 616ºC, the highest so far I think before starting pizzas. 13 pizzas baked without refiring, just one door closing to even out temperature. Elkin did some jerk chicken late on which took just 17 minutes to complete. | |
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 oven inauguration - 10th September 2006
Sunday 10th September 2006 was the day chosen for official inaugural oven pizza party. The weather was amazing for the time of year, approximately 27 Centigrade and sunny. Good to see most of the people who helped build the oven and neighbouring plot holders. Though as usual I grossly over provisioned the catering I think we produced about 30 rather delicious pizzas without too much sweat, thanks especially to Gill, Steve and Elkin who made up the pizzas. Also thanks to Steve and Elkin for the pics | |
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 The new very old Artofex mixer
Now that I had an oven that could bake more than one loaf at a time I found I needed a bigger mixer than my so called ’Heavy Duty’ Kitchenaide. Remembering the Artofex ’triple action twin reciprocal plunging arms’ mixer (originally a French make) Richard had shown me at Baker and Spice I started a search for one. Luckily I came up with an expired ebay auction, where no bids had been made, whose seller turned out to be just 8 miles away in Mitcham - I know of other people who are scouring across all continents to find the same machine . Here you can see other bakers describe this as the Stradivarius of dough mixers, its certainly the mixer that most closely mimics hand kneading to make a beautiful silky, ’artisanal’ style dough. My machine was originally supplied to the ’Laboratory of the Government Chemist’ in 1974 and appears to be in perfect working order - due to the amazing quality of its materials and engineering. Just its quiet deep hum when running makes the Kitchenaide sound like a tin and plastic toy in comparison.
Videos - "a dough mix" video of mixig of a 3 kilo dough batch, 65% hydration white sourdough from poolish. Two 12 minute mixes with 15 minutes rest between.
"lifting arms"
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 Tivissa oven, Catalonia
These are pics mostly of the oven on my friends Gary and Adrian’s terraced mountain property in Catalonia here. The original building on the land, termed a ’caseta’ was simply a one room hut with simple fireplace to keep tools in and for man and donkey to shelter while up from the village below. By chance G and A choose to buy a property which also had on it along from the caseta hidden beneath brambles an oven built into the side of a terrace. We have pretty much restored this oven (rebuilt the collapsed dome on the terrace floor above the oven door) though its never been successfully used for baking again yet due to lack of an oven door - hopefully this will be rectified before long.
The logical explanation for the presence of such a comparatively large oven here is that it was used during the later days of the Spanish Civil War when we believe the inhabitants of Tivissa have fled up the hill to get away from the intense battles and bombing of the ’Battle of the Ebro’ in 1938. The culture I currently use for my sourdough baking is captured on the windowsill of Gary and Adrian’s caseta and thus it is fair to conclude that it is derived from the baking of the Spanish Civil War and that this in turn was brought up the hill from Tivissa bakeries. | |
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 miscellaneous baking
occasional pics of stuff from oven | |
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 pre-oven
first step in preparing the oven site was to add additional roof in front of my Plot shed, partly to catch more rain for irrigation, partly to create sheltered work area in front of the oven.
My French friend Bertrand Vialle was staying at the time and was essential extra hands in getting the new roof up. Thanks Bertrand. | |
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 build party 1 - 2nd July 2006
The first build party which managed to construct the form for the inside of the oven - thanks especially to Nic Shaw. Note especially the cling film wrap - a technological innovation in addition to the instructions in "Build your own earth oven" book.
Also especial thanks to my allotment neighbour Marco for letting us use his wonderful grapevine covered terrace for lunch on a very hot day. | |
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 build party 2 - 9th July 2006
really nice day with my friends Adrian and Gary visiting from Spain and also in attendance Olivier, Freya, Elkin (BQ chef supreme) and Hung Ye. | |
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 The A Team on main layer - 19th August 2006
The A team of oven builders, the heavy league, Nic and Elkin at work on the construction of the main layer of the oven (approx 9" thick) | |
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 build party 3 - 22nd August 2006
really productive day when we got the remainder of the main layer completed. Be and Nikki arrived with some friends whose names I can’t remember (sorry) - also sterling work from Ray and as ever Elkin | |
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 chimney + first food - 26th August 2006
yet again Elkin helped out producing a very fine batch of cob to make arch to hold chimney - and then we grilled some chicken and build some freshly dug potatoes for the first meal out of the new oven! | |
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 One Tree Hill - Green Man Fair - 28th August
Very Nice to be invited by Merlyn Peter to man his oven on his plot on the One Tree Hill allotments in Honor Oak for his open day Green Man Fair. A very wild and savage allotment compared to Rosendale allotments. Merlyn’s oven is as you can see very anthropomorphic, puffs away, also quite heavy around bottom so good to absorb heat, if you fire over a long preiod. Very nice to be able to get some gneric oven use lessons learnt prior to actually firing up my oven - two loads bread baked and mini pizzas made by kids. Thanks Merlyn. | |
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 first bread - 30th August 2006
At last the long planned day, the first bread baking in the oven - both my own and some from fellow RA plot holder, Keith. Elkin and family also in attendance. | |
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 oven tech spec and such like
the original plan + pics of my infa red + probe read out temperature gauge + some loaves | |
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 bakery oven, Chelva, Valencia, Spain
some pics of the wood fired oven opposite the front door of my friends Mick, Clara and Benjy in the beautiful hilltop village of Chelva in west of Valencia province Spain.
What was notable about this oven was principally its sheer size - which I think affected the way the baker was using it. The pic of the inside of the oven shows some small baguettes being baked so you can tell a bit that it must be at least 6 meters deep and maybe 4 meters across. This meant that the fire could be kept inside the oven at the front right (it can be just seen in this pic to right) whilst the bread was baked at back left. Also notable that the oven roof was vary much dome style. Probably originally the oven was used much more intensively (maybe without fire remaining inside) as the village has reduced from 7,000 inhabitants to 1,500. | |
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