I went to meet Stu last week, and had a great time!  Stu Silverstein is the gentleman who will be teaching our class on earthen and brick wood fired oven building!  As I arrived, he had a fire already going in his large permanent earthen oven sitting in his back yard.  After introductions, we went inside to find a dough rising on the kitchen counter.  He chopped off a small piece and flattened it out and we went outside to bake.  Within a few moments, the bread was in the oven browning, and after a quick turn and maybe five or six minutes later, this lovely crusty yet soft bread was done.  We went inside to eat…I had brought a cream of mushroom soup with me, and they went perfectly together!  As I made the drive back down to the midcoast area from Augusta, I had the smell of another loaf of bread Stu had givien me wafting through the car, and I was filled with sweet visions of our own home baked bread, and pizzas coming from our soon to be oven at the inn!!!  Mmmm….

Lara here.  I spent the winter season in Switzerland, working in my uncle’s kitchen, and now my father/chef has started to ask me for my input for the menu….I was very excited at the prospect, but realized that I may not be able to rise to the occasion just yet.  While I was in Switzerland, I learned a lot of techniques, but it isn’t my style of cooking.  What I like to cook is inspired by what is in the garden!  I love fresh seasonal vegetables.  As a nutritionist I feel the best way to eat is as if there were no refrigerator, which means seasonal and fresh, or what we have had the foresight to preserve, and those practical veggies that keep well in a root celar!  Here in midcoast Maine, seasonal vegetables right now are sparse…we have a ton of greens of course, and some leftover potatoes, turnips, cabbage and carrots.  I haven’t been here a full year, so I dont yet have a lot of preserved foods, like I hopefully will next year…I did have the motivation to make some Japanese sauerkraut last year..mmmm!  While we did get garlic in the ground last year, not very much else got planted, so I’m a little bit lost for what to cook….if I was well prepared, I’d have planted nettles to make nettle and sausage (from my brother’s home raised pigs) filled silk handkerchiefs with some homemade pesto from basil we grew, and canned last summer….ahhh…I know what I’ll be doing this summer

But alas patience is a virtue, so in the mean time we look to what we have, plant like fiends, so we will have lots to work with this summer, and wait…..

Maybe a good time to make some bread dough, so I’m ready for our upcoming class…..

Upcoming Classes:



 

BUILD A WOOD FIRED OVEN. June 9th & 10th

If you’ve ever wanted to have a pizza oven in your backyard, then join us and learn how to build various types of wood-fired pizza/bread ovens. No experience required.
Participants will work with clay and brick and construct low-cost ovens that will make the very best pizzas and breads. Discussions include techniques for making pizzas, flat breads, sourdou

gh and no-knead breads. Unique sourdough starter shared with all in class.

Stu Silverstein, instructor, is an artist who bakes a lot of bread, builds earth ovens and writes about the process. He co-owns Railroad Square Cinema, Maine’s premier art house and for many years owned a brick oven cafe. Stu has also co-produced and directed the award-winning film Dead River Rough Cut, that happens to be the most requested movie at the Maine State Prison, no joke. Just recently he finished his latest book, Bread Earth and Fire. Way before that, after deciding against a career with the FBI, he finally got serious about his life and spent a lot of time driving VW buses across the country searching for great bread, but he never found any, and that’s why he learned to bake. Stu maintains the lively blog:  www.iBreadhunter.blogspot.com 

Food and lodging included
www.squiretarboxinn.com/specials

 

Make your own Earthen Oven

 

Come alone or with a group of friends and spend 2 nights in one of our large rooms at our Maine Inn from April 20th to mid June (excl. Memorial weekend) and enjoy a little of Switzerland. Mario will give a cooking  lesson (incl. in the price of the room) on some of the well known Swiss specialities.

Come away for a weekend and enjoy a cooking lesson given by Mario. Get to sample your own work along with a glass of wine. Or just come for the day and give yourself a lesson, or better still come with a group of friends and have a blast.