It takes a village to build a hearth oven. In this case the village consists of the HOBBITs—the hearth oven bread baking initiative team. The folks who participated in the hearth oven construction course were (seated in front) Instructor Derek Lucchese, Gerry D’Amour. (L-R, back) Eric Frost, Heidi Boehlke, Trevor Huggins, Jan Horak, Matt Kartes, Art Dykstra, Jeanne Larson, Bill Huggins.
A lot has been happening at the Birch Grove Community Center in recent months—and some of the work has been done by HOBBITs. No, not the fictional characters of J.R.R. Tolkien novels, but some hard working community members who have dubbed themselves the Hearth Oven Bread Baking Initiative Team—HOBBITs.
The folks who built the brick hearth oven were supervised by Derek Lucchese of North House Folk School. There were nine people in the class, but there was a wider community involvement in the creation of the oven.
Support for the construction of the oven and the upcoming bread baking classes was from grants, financial donations and in-kind donations from the Lloyd K. Johnson Foundation, Cook County Community Fund, the Town of Tofte, Lutsen Resort and Bluefin Bay, Doug Nordahl and many other individuals.
The first community bake will be Sept. 29 at the Birch Grove 1% Grand Opening Celebration. The HOBBITs will be cooking pizza at the event from 2 – 5 p.m.
As a reward for their hard work, the HOBBITs were on hand for the placement of a time capsule. All of the builders contributed something.
After the kick-off bread baking, the HOBBITs will help develop policies for future use of the oven. Birch Grove Community Center Director Patty Nordahl said, “We hope to have lots of classes pertaining to the use of the oven!”
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