A Construction Project for All Your Italian Needs

I'll admit that I didn't expect the Sunset Italian Cook Book (ed. Jerry Anne DiVecchio, 1972, though mine is the 7th printing, 1975) to be all that authentically Italian. Considering that I have zero Italian heritage so far as I know, I'm not much of a judge. The book starts off by noting that serving multiple starchy dishes together (like, say, garlic bread with spaghetti) is considered to be an Americanization by actual Italians, though, so I'm giving it the benefit of the doubt.

Well, the part that really sold me on its authenticity was its guess about just how far readers would be willing to go to get authentic European-style breads. Since people now at home with time on their hands anyway might be ready for a major diy project, here is a '70s idea to fill a weekend or two with hard physical labor just so it will be easy to accidentally incinerate the homemade bread and have a good blowout fight about whose fundamental inability to follow simple directions has now ruined the last of the dwindling grocery supply.

All it takes is at least a dozen concrete blocks, a 28-gallon drum, a 1-pound size can, 129 or so bricks, concrete wire, chicken wire, cement (some blended with mud), a door, exterior latex paint, a hoe, plenty of wood for fuel, a fireproof container, and an oven thermometer that goes up to 700º. 

And of course, you have to remember to start heating the oven hours before you will actually need it.

But hey, it's a far out thing to have in the back yard!

At least the Adobe Oven Bread recipe will make a couple of loaves of bread, so you won't have to fire it up every day.

If your plans for the coming weekend aren't quite this ambitious, the book also offers a way to use up what's left of the long-lasting vegetables with any dried/ candied fruits you might have leftover from Easter (or Christmas!) with a less-popular cut of meat.

Or if you would prefer to spend your extra hours on a smokehouse or a serious grill, I've got you covered on those fronts too. I'm going to limit my diy efforts to making my own sub buns using a bread machine for the dough and an electric oven to bake. (Man, I feel way less accomplished about that achievement now that I've written this post....)