The Wood-Fired Blog
April 2013 | No. 49; 10th Anniversary & Braised Chicken
Apr 13, 2013Welcome to our Wood-Fired Newsletter April 2013. This year, Forno Bravo celebrates its 10th anniversary. In a decade, we have helped over 10,000 families and restaurants install and come to enjoy authentic Italian wood-fired cooking. (We aren’t up to 10,000 oven sales yet, but we are well over 10,000 ovens when you include customers who built the Pompeii Oven.) See the article to the right for a little history on... Read More
NY Times — eCommerce Sites Cut out the Middleman
Apr 01, 2013There is an interesting phenomenon highlighted in the NY Times today — a growing number of eCommerce sites actually make their own products, rather than acting as intermediaries between the manufacturer and the end customer (think Amazon). Their lead example is a start-up, Warby Parker, an eyeglasses web site. I say this is interesting, because it is a trend that Forno Bravo have been involved in for years. We are... Read More
Stale Bread, Panzanella, Dutch Tomatoes and the EU
Mar 31, 2013I was writing about food waste and bread storage the other day and mentioned that many traditional recipes call for stale bread — including Panzanella. Like many wonderful Italian dishes, it relies on a short list of high-quality ingredients. In this case, tomatoes, bread, extra virgin olive oil, balsamic vinegar and salt. If each ingredient is great, then the dish is great; it’s only as good as the weakest links,... Read More
Massive, Open, Online Course (MOOC) — on Food, Physics and Engineering
Mar 29, 2013There is a huge change coming to education. Massive, Open, Online Courses have the potential to fundamentally change the way everyone learns new things — from high school and college kids, all the way up to older types. The industry is exploding, with new online institutions and classes emerging every day. Among the more interesting ideas is that massive class sizes and online teaching and testing infrastructures will give educators... Read More
Bread Storage
Mar 27, 2013We bake and eat a lot of (good, healthy) bread. But there are only three of us when our older daughter is away at college, so we don’t make it through the 2lb loaves that I typically bake in a day or two — so bread storage really matters. Do it wrong, and you end up throwing away of lot of stale bread that could be avoided. Here is a... Read More
The New Fornobravo.com Navigation Comes to the FB Store and FB Forum
Mar 27, 2013A quick update on Fornobravo.com We have rolled out the new navigation, header and footer to the FB Store and the FB Forum. I really like the way it looks and it makes it much easier to find interesting stuff on www.fornobravo.com. If you find anything that doesn’t work for you, be sure to let us know. More application updates are on their way. Read More
Baguettes Follow Pizza
Mar 25, 2013This is becoming a good habit. Baguettes follow pizza, and this time it was particularly fun because I got to see how the Central Milling flour works in bread. You know what happens — you make 9 pizza balls, and you only make six pizzas. So you roll your extra dough into a ball, and refrigerator it overnight, and then bring it out in the morning to take off the... Read More
Pizza with Central Milling Tipo 00 – Very Nice
Mar 24, 2013Our older daughter is home for spring break, which is a real pleasure. She’s relaxing (and not in Florida), and it’s great having everyone together. Which is as good a reason as there is for a pizza party. Central Milling Tipo 00 (rather than our usual Molino Caputo Pizzeria flour) and really enjoyed the different. The Central Milling flour is very fine and it’s a pleasure to work with, and... Read More
Steel Cut Oats and the Wholewheat Brick
Mar 17, 2013I have talked about this before — but there is a certain amount of pressure on you if you do a lot of bread baking for your family. The family relies on you, and kids vote with the feet (or mouths in this case), and if your bread isn’t good, they won’t eat it; and your wife tries to be nice at eat the mistakes, but at some point you... Read More
