Building sometimes gives me more this feeling of growing a soul then actually assembling materials…and i can say it reflects perfectly at this oven:)
First of all was the meeting with Alexa and Ed! Suddenly i’ve got an e-mail from someone really enthusiastic person looking for someone who could build a pizza oven in Den Haag…. She inviteded me for a quick meeting at their kitchen table where we made THE PLAN!!!(but of course this is not the way it goes)….during buying the materials we changed the plan so much that suddenly the spirit of the oven was choosing for us…no drawings or schemes needed! Following our feeling we came out with something much better !
A better location, a great base and wonderful stones! For almost every decision we were choosing according to our feeling, and after some days and night of work Oliii was born! The name came after the oven was finished…looking at a distance we realized it looks like and elephant…big foots, rough skin and a friendly look:)….two minutes later Ed told me that Oliii was the name of the beach where he asked Alexa for being his wife! WOWWWWW
Sometimes we need a plan, but we never shouldn’t forget our feeling! That is the special mixture for building a soul:)
Thanks Alexa and Ed…you guys are great! And thanks Maarten and Esther for that great help…Now is time for some pizzas:) YEAH!
…the spring has arrived and the building season is started…and here is one of my first ovens from 2013!
When Paul and Marjolein got married their friends gave them a great gift: an outside oven! The only problem was that they didn’t have a clue how to begin building their own gift…there is where i came in! After discussing briefly the project we decided to start the construction…we choose to make the super oven on top of a 4 arch concrete tiles, with a extra layer of wine bottles in the button, an extended brick arch door( one and a half brick) and the triple layer for the oven. Bricks, clay/stro and clay composed the 17 cm wall…allowing Marjolein cooking her future bread:)
Soon enough i told them building such an oven it will costs at least 3 days of work…and they told me they wanted to do it in 2! Ahhhhhhh….and guess what…we almost did it! ( technically we did it…just miss the last layer of clay that takes 30 min!)…i was so surprise that we did it in such a record time! But if you check the pictures closely you will discover why…
…the crew was fantastic! Great friends…amazing neighbours and really enthusiastic hosts! You guys rock:)
Thanks Paul and Marjolein for the adventure…and see you guys soon for starting this oven up…and don’t forget: The best is still to come:) Hummm
Yeah people…the superoven is on!!! After a long winter resting under his shelter finally he got his first taste of fire and smoke! Built last year september this oven is no normal oven…a mix between our brick dome technic and Jan’s clay-isolation expertise we built this beauty! Last wednesday we fire it up for some pizza cooking with all teachers from the Basis school Startpunt in Den Haag! And guess what…it was great! Really steady fire, good under cooking and no cracks at all! YEAH! Next time we will go for the bread cooking:)
For the third year in a row we participate for the education program from the Aloysius College in Den Haag! After having a great PeoplePlanetPicnikParty and building an Egyptian oven, this year the challenge was cooking at the Bio market in the city centre! Searching and researching the ingredients and finally making their own lunch was a great adventure for the kids…Asking where cheese came from and discovering if the olive oil really come from Italy was one of many other stories they found out! Yeah for the Kids…and Yeah for the Biological Market! Every wednesday in front of the Dutch congress!
The biggest paradox of pizza ovens are the relation between clay and water…They help as much as they destroy each other ….while building a pizza oven water helps bringing the clay at his best performance…once the oven is finished, water destroys slowly his best friend clay. Lot’s of solutions were already thought for this problem. The best current solution is building a roof on top of the oven!
But as you guys know me, i don’t get enough with this one.
In Brasil i’ve heard that people were mixing milk on the top layer from the oven for more resistance…after some research and phone calls i discovered that Calcic should be a good ingredient to the clay mix…so with almost no thinking i just made this mix (40 kg sand – 10 kg clay – 10 kg calcic – 2 kg sugar) and applied on top of the Kortenbos oven…and it looks good!!! Fingers cross for the results!
Probably this is still not the ultimate solution for the paradox… but surely we are on step closer to upgrade our ovens! Thanks Diederick for believing on it! YEAH!
Our pizzaBAKfiets end up at the conference about City and Space in Ede! Invited by conteXt-adviseurs, an office specialized on developing the urban space through cartography, we promoted the idea of bringing the city council experts in direct contact with the inhabitants! And what better instrument than our pizza project! …It keeps bringing people together! Even the one in a suit with the other with his boots!YEAH!!!
We run out of flyers!(of maybe i place then otherwhere )…but this gave us a chance to make a new one! With the input from Maarten de Haas and Esther Kool we manage this new design inspired of course in our own website!Yeah!!!! Cheers people!
In order to improve my dutch i’ve got a really small book full with images from the bookcase…Suddenly i saw this page, and immediately got the exact words which describe the dynamic of our pizza parties:
…”Gather all your friends around you and make sure your hospitality surprises them in such a way that makes them forget who is the guest and who is the host.Thomas Bailey Aldrich“…
Wow…that’s what the pizza parties do! Through friendship, kindness and desorganization we assemble all people together for the activity of cooking…There is no punishment for the barbecue cook, no excluded people at the end of the table and for sure no stressed host… It’s the place were the guest engages being host and the host can finally enjoy being guest! Yeah!!!
Crazy thing about cooking pizzas is that at some moments you can’t eat pizzas anymore…you start dreaming about sushi or couscous…pizzas are definitely out of the menu!
BUT…when the days start getting longer and the sun start to shine that pizza feeling gets back. And this time was astonishing early! Last sunday i was invited for a dinner with my uncle and his family…soon enough i realized that we were eating pizzas, and that i was the chef cook…So in a matter of minutes i was back rolling pizzas and cutting vegetables…mounting pizzas and experimenting other flavors! YEAH…after my winter break i got out of the cave! Hello world, here we come!
Dear friends…yesterday i ate the worst pizza ever!It was terrible! After a long working sunday i decided to order something quick and tasty for dinner…i went to a “take away” across the street and order a pizza…at their door was hanging a sign – “Just-eat.nl”…when i saw the guy cooking pizzas i’ve got this feeling that actually he was not cooking, but assembling ingredients…with no attention, no feeling and no passion.
He built my pizza like a factory makes baby food. Quite late to abort my order since i’ve already paid my only hope was in the quality of the ingredients…but even them didn’t want to be eaten!
