Attention to Detail

interior of St.Charles elongated dome oven

interior of the Cathedral in Chartres

Emily, the amazing pastry chef at Cinque Terre

Detail often sets one creation apart from the rest.  Recently, I bought a mounted Argentinian Winged Stick Insect.  It is 8 inches long and stunning in its adapted beauty.

stone roof and bell in France

Noticing details that are appropriate to any creation has become one of the pleasures of my work. 

rough schist stone and smooth ocean key stone: Ventura oven

The house I designed and built

Jerusalem stone incorporated in the Ventura brick oven

Here are some examples from recent brick ovens I've built and from elsewhere.

Rebar 'trees' supporting bouganvillia at Getty Center, LA

Indoor Brick Oven

Judging by the number of views of my indoor brick oven detail posts, more and more people are considering the advantages of some connection between the brick oven and the kitchen.

Now in the last week of construction (awaiting the multiple layers of granite facing) the oven shown will be the feature of a very large loft room in a small Maine city.

This project has been the result of cooperation between many different contractors, all do some part of a larger build. 

Many thanks to Jeff of Great Falls Construction.

Smoking Food in a Brick Oven

I've seen the smokers, big metal tanks or giant eggs.

The brick oven's versatility extends to smoking food.

After returning from the California project, I fired up my portable oven on a balmy (40 degree) winter evening in New Hampshire to roast and smoke a chunk of lamb.  Friends arrived with a surprise pot of uncooked mussels and par-roasted vegetables.





The method of roasting and smoking in a brick oven is simple.
The oven is 'spiked' (see previous post).  This brings the apparent surface temperature of the interior brick to about 700 degrees.  The door is shut for an hour.   The oven brick, having absorbed the heat, is now an even 450 degrees.

I place an applewood log in the oven, push it against the coals towards the back of the oven, and slide the pan with the lamb roast (or other roast, ribs, turkey, pork, ostrich, etc) in front of the log and shut the door.

On this night, we let the roast cook for 40 minutes and then added the mussels and vegetables alongside the roast.

Whenever the door was opened it was apparent that the applewood log was smoldering, filling the oven chamber with delicious smoke.

The food came out with a rich smoke flavor.

The whole process required about five pieces of hardwood and the one chunk of applewood.  Stoking time up front was about 15 minutes divided into five-minute visits every half-hour (very little labor).

Other methods of smoking food include setting a grill up on bricks in the mouth and adding green twigs of rosemary or apple on the coals.  Slow roasting a day or more after firing the oven allows for an even greater range of cooking.

Enjoyment time was the whole evening.

Postscript:  a week later we made soup with the leftover lamb and the smoke flavor infused the broth.

Brick Ovens and Wine Caves

As I was finishing the Ventura brick oven and wine cave project (minus the soon-arriving oak door and cooling unit), I realized I was working both ends of the structure and food spectrum.

The brick oven (too obviously) is built to hold heat; the wine cave is intended to hold cool.

The brick oven produces baked, roasted, broiled foods; the wine cave contains bottles of fermented grape juice (basically).

Both have similar physical features:  Brick, arches, masonry, etc.

At opposite ends of the small hillside property, they make good companions.

California Brick Oven

The Ventura project offered the opportunity for some unique details.

Among them are:

1. Stone roof
2. Front face arch cut from a single piece of large paving stone plus an ocean-smoothed keystone
3. Jerusalem stone side accents
4. Generous limestone shelf extending beyond the side of the oven structure
5. A stone chimney

As each project is approached with the view to customizing the details to the location and taste of the owner and providing a local and cultural context to the aesthetic design, it is unlikely that an oven identical to this will be built in the future.  That would be virtually impossible even if the spirit of this oven was requested.

Back in New England now with some interesting detailing to add to future projects, I've just started a fire in my own brick oven for roasting a leg of lamb this evening.

Brick Oven Insulation: How Much?

If there is one problem that can be avoided easily in the construction of a brick oven, it is heat retention.

Part of this depends on MASS: the masonry that will hold whatever BTU gets thrown at it.

The other (the easy one) is insulation.

Two words: Over-insulate... okay that's almost one word.

My brick oven and the ones I build or consult on are super-insulated because there's nothing I like (aside from fresh bread, fresh pizza, fall apples, a climb up a mountain in 60 degree sunshine...) better than knowing and hearing that an oven I built stayed hot for days.

The current oven in Ventura, CA has 6" of insulation placed as shown.  4" of Foamglas solid insulation is under the floor and insulating refractory concrete is pour around the base and chimney.  The goal is for very little heat to escape. 
Doing all this before you close up the structure saves the disappointment of having an oven that won't get or stay hot.

More recently I have come to understand the value of ceramic fiber insulation (brand-named Fiberfax).  Layers of one or two inch sheets laid over the dome and placed around the chimney assure me and the owners that there is a fireproof envelope around that hot dome of bricks.

Caution: The stuff is flaky and requires a mask and gloves for safety.

Viva Italia in Ojai

I rarely but purposely review a restaurant that stands out even among really good restaurants.
Osteria Monte Grappa in Ojai, California achieves the distinction of making one feel and taste Italy.
If the waiters spoke Italian or accented English, I would have been totally convinced.

That minor deficit aside, the owners travel to local farms daily to harvest vegetables, and to local butchers for their meats.  Both dishes we had included great sides of polenta and steamed chard and golden carrots.
The atmosphere in Osteria Monte Grappa reproduces the Italian tendency to welcome couples and families.  The warmth among the staff is familial and the food is both honest and extraordinarily tasty.

There are surprises.  Two we experienced were an eggplant dish with smoked mozzarella and a desert called Panettone that brought me back to Tuscany in a mouthful.