Building it and baking in it Foreword by Maggie Beer

Since 1992 Russell Jeavons has owned and cooked at a unique restaurant in an old cottage in one of South Australia's prized wine districts. It is famous for the fact that it only opens on one night of the week, on a Friday night but is famous most of all for its fresh, simple food cooked entirely in Russell's wood-fired brick ovens. His pizzas are renowned and their toppings drip with fine regional ingredients which are combined on classic, thin, wood-oven cooked bases.

The first part of his unique book is a step-by-step guide that takes you through the stages of building an oven, from choosing the site to firing up for your first bake. Part 2 explains how to cook in the oven with invaluable tips for brick oven cooks and includes recipes for sour dough bread, pizza, dukkah, traditional English roasts and some of Russell's famous desserts. Not every household can accommodate a brick oven in their garden but its something many keen home cooks aspire to. Buy this book and dream or buy this book and build one. 'Russell Jeavons' passionate and clever step-by-step guide to building and using a brick oven is an essential for every imaginative outdoor cook. At The River Café, the wood oven is without doubt the most exciting cooking tool in the restaurant - one that inspires all the chefs, and builds a rhythm into the daily cooking.

With the help of Russell's book, you can build a wood-fired oven in your own back garden, without huge expense, giving you an exciting new way to cook outdoors. The domed oven's versatility lends itself to every kind of baking and roasting, from pizzas cooked quickly in a very hot oven to almond meringues baked slowly at a low temperature.

Reviews

This is a book that will change the way you experience preparing and enjoying great food.' Rose Gray -The River Café