From a Bed of Ashes

We cook and supplement the heat in our home using wood. (Priscilla calls me her personal pyromaniac. But she is never cold.)  Dear friend Lary Bloom wrote about my technique for building a fire, Lessons From the Founding Fireplaces, which you might enjoy. I also contributed to this detailed discussion of building a cooking and heating fire called  Fireplace Cooking. It appears on the terrific web site Spitjack created by Bruce Frankel, friend and great chef. We use many pieces of equipment from his company including this Italian electric fireplace rotisserie.

Our outdoor wood oven for baking bread and pizza doubles as a grill. It is from LA Oven Works. (At this link you can read a couple recipes I provided Anna Carpenter and her husband Peter with for their site.)  I use a Tuscan-style grill positioned over the glowing embers to grill steaks, fish, poultry or vegetables.