Hi all,

been travelling a bit of late and with new camera have had chance to
take pics of various ovens etc that I hope may be of interest to some

http://www.myplot.org/oven/index.php

most bizarre and I would guess unique I think is the bandstand oven I
spotted last summer in the French Midi-Pyrenees and was able to return
to this month and also meet the baker/miller's wife (he died a long
time ago). Whilst bread was baking the baker would mount his oven with
his guitar to give a concert for his customers. The mill room we were
shown this visit was very much left with various tools scattered
around I imagine where they fell the last day they milled some time in
the 1960s. This is the top current gallery at http://www.myplot.org/oven/index.php.
(http://www.myplot.org/oven/gallery.php?project=23)

Rather more obscured from view by domestic conversion is the oven and
millstones at the place where I was staying last week which is the
current second gallery "oven and mill, Latoue, Midi-Pyrenees, France"
http://www.myplot.org/oven/gallery.php?project=24

I did some baking whilst at Latoue (in domestic wood-fired oven) but
apart from problems getting to right temperature in a new (to me) oven
found that the flours available at the local 'bio' shop were both low
quality (re gluten content) and stale and in supermarkets are either
flour mixes with all sorts of additives and/or bio (organic) flours
similarly unsuitable gluten-wise for breadmaking (by the standards of
French bio flours I am used to obtaining in UK from bakers here).

third gallery currently are some pics from Born and Bread where
'viince' currently works - check out also the little animation of
baking here on the link "BAKERY ACTION ANIMATION HERE"

Fifth gallery "pane y pasta, Emilia Romagna! Sept. 2007" includes pics
of a bake at a farmhouse oven in the hills between Tuscany and Ravenna
regions of Italy last month http://www.myplot.org/oven/gallery.php?project=19

yours
Andy Forbes