Show search options
You are on the [OvenDiary] page of folder [Dufferin Grove Park]
For the cover page of this folder go to the Dufferin Grove Park bake oven diary
Most of the "diary" is here in our Cooking with Fire booklet. More recent entries:
January-August 2024
After the fire-damaged oven roof was rebuilt without a conversation, we asked for a site meeting between oven baker/builders and Parks management to share our concerns. This took place mid January.
Park staff assured us that the materials used were safe and appropriate and that the roof did not need to be redone. With their approval, recreation workers lit the oven to test it out in February
Unfortunately, after an hour and a half of fire inside the oven - there was a lot of smoke coming out of various parts of the roof. Alarmed, we informed park staff that what we had warned them about was basically happening.
The city said they would reach out to their insurance adjusters, who sent out a crew from their restoration team to assess. Community members and bakers were invited this time - we met in March. In May, the park supervisor said that internal city conversations were ongoing but mentioned the possibility of a smaller pre-fab replacement oven.
By June the city officially agreed with our initial assessment that the north end bake oven would need to undergo complete reconstruction - or be removed completely.
In our view, if there are no clear programming directives to use the oven as we described - why bother replacing it with a large oven or at all?
In July we heard that oven replacement plans were indeed being considered by Capital Projects Design & Delivery - but with no timeline in sight.
There are very few who remember how to build brick by brick these bake ovens, our friend Nigel has offered to do this for the city. Other earthen builder friends have suggested replacing the hearth and making a roof with natural materials. Another baker friend who has used the pre-fab oven at Regent park has important concerns to share about its usage. If the city insists on having an oven in the park again, shouldn’t the community be involved in this rebuilding?
We hope to have some answers for our next newsletter.
Dec.8, 2023, from Jutta Mason
flames out the middle
after the fire was out
This morning the bigger oven roof began burning, and fire fighters came to put it out. Nicole from the farmers' market called me right after breakfast to say that Cynthia called her to say that Ravi had been walking the dog and called her to say there was lots of smoke coming from the big bake oven roof. So Nicole, who had my phone number, called me.
Those were some good calls -- the neighbourhood "eyes-on-the-park" works!
Thanks to that phone chain I got there even before the firefighters, and then as they came walking up the hill some flames started coming out of a part of the roof.
Sept.27, 2022
For two and a half years the oven was padlocked, along with most other ovens citywide. Dufferin Grove had a "ghost oven." Then in mid-September, there was a turnaround, and the smaller Dufferin Grove oven came back into community use. Read more
August 8, 2020
Aug.5 inspection
The covid shutdowns mean there's been no baking since the middle of March. The chimney has needed repairing for at least five years but the city made no response to requests. So it seems time to just do it. On Aug.5, Dale Howey (from Montgomery Inn and Regent Park ovens) came and counted bricks. He priced them and today came and chipped away the damaged bricks. He took one brick with him to match colours, and will come back to be the lead fixer next Thursday or Friday.
removing the bricks
broken bricks removed
Jan.18, 2020
A catch-up: part of the area where the ovens are, and both of the kitchens used by bakers, will be under construction starting in spring. Meantime, there are only two staff who know how to bake bread in the ovens, and some others who know how to make pizza or bake/roast food for the suppers. They are all rec staff, but are mostly classified as "arts and crafts" staff.
On Thursday, the support staff for the bakers cancelled their shifts, so the rink's skate sharpening staff had to stop sharpening and take over the bread baking, otherwise all the dough (made by a different staff person) would have had to be thrown out. Baking at a hot oven is hard work and most of the rec workers choose not to take those shifts.
When the rink house is under construction and there are no kitchens, there's some idea that the bread dough might be prepared at the playground cob cafe, and then taken across the park for baking. Unrealistic. More likely the whole operation will be stopped.
Jan.15, 2020, text and photos from Fairmount baker Lottie White
Heidrun unloading bread
how hot? (little oven, with part of hearth shelf missing)
ON Wednesday Jan.15, Fairmount park neighbours Lottie White and Joseph Romaine came to Dufferin grove to watch park baker Heidrun light the two ovens and bake off the market sourdough.
They came because they want to learn to operate the recently acquired Fairmount bake oven, which was moved from Christie Pits by truck and crane and dropped in the east part of the park in front of Joseph Romain's house last November. The new Fairmount oven is actually the first Christie Pits oven, built by CELOS and rec staff in October 2000, with leftover materials from its twin, the smaller Dufferin Grove bake oven, built in May of 2000.
From Lottie: "A big thank you to Heidrun at Dufferin Grove for sharing her bake oven and bread baking expertise with Joseph and me yesterday. A day-long process that went by in a flash and was capped with a slice of heavenly potato and rosemary sourdough."
well-established fire
fire is getting going in the big oven
down to coals, raked forward before being taken out
Nov.6, 2018: Shauna Kearns, a guest baker
Len Senator owns the one-of-a-kind The Depanneur. On the first Tuesday of the month he offers "Table Talk," a meal and a talk/conversation. This time, Shauna Kearns came up from Pittsburgh, where she's starting to work with bricklayers at the Trade Institute of Pittsburgh (TIP) to help people coming out of prison to build bake ovens for sale. Shauna said she first met the people at TIP when she wanted to build a bigger bake oven in Braddock PA, to replace a smaller oven that was crumbling. TIP shows the building of the foundation here. What happened next is sketched on the Braddock Community Oven website. Hearing Shauna's lively telling of the story at the Depanneur table talk fleshed out the story wonderfully.
On the morning of her Table Talk, Shauna came to bake her bread (prepared at her parents' home in Toronto), and Len came to roast the vegetables for the dinner he was making for the talk.
Len with trays of roasted tomatoes and mushroom for the dinner
Park staff Heidrun showed Shauna how this oven works
eight loaves (dough made at home) go into the oven
loaves coming out
bread packed into Len's bike trailer, vegetables trays in arms
off to the Depanneur
The tables were full, the food was super-tasty, the story was engrossing, and so was the conversation before and after -- strangers didn't act like strangers anymore. As Shauna said, bread ovens can be powerful.
Content last modified on August 11, 2024, at 09:15 PM EST