Oven

In the patio garden, strawberry plants in flower spill over round galvanized tubs. Favas and sugar snap peas climb a trellis, and thyme and sage scent the air. Old-fashioned lawn chairs covered in a sunny summer print are set out under a tree. At an outdoor table, three women share a couple of hand-stretched pizzas from the wood-burning oven and debate what to get for dessert -- blackberry biscuit or chocolate pot de creme. Some rural idyll? Not exactly. But that's what's so great about this new restaurant.

In the patio garden, strawberry plants in flower spill over round galvanized tubs. Favas and sugar snap peas climb a trellis, and thyme and sage scent the air. Old-fashioned lawn chairs covered in a sunny summer print are set out under a tree. At an outdoor table, three women share a couple of hand-stretched pizzas from the wood-burning oven and debate what to get for dessert -- blackberry biscuit or chocolate pot de creme. Some rural idyll? Not exactly. But that's what's so great about this new restaurant.

Pizza joints, many boasting wood-burning ovens, are popping up all over the Southland like chanterelles after a rainstorm. But they're not the only restaurants working with oak or almond wood. Some chefs at other restaurants are lucky enough to have wood-fired ovens in their kitchens. They're tricky to use, but once mastered can be a formidable tool. Cooking with fire is ancient, and I'm convinced we're hard-wired to find any dish cooked in a wood-burning oven just that much more delicious.

Pizza joints, many boasting wood-burning ovens, are popping up all over the Southland like chanterelles after a rainstorm. But they're not the only restaurants working with oak or almond wood. Some chefs at other restaurants are lucky enough to have wood-fired ovens in their kitchens. They're tricky to use, but once mastered can be a formidable tool. Cooking with fire is ancient, and I'm convinced we're hard-wired to find any dish cooked in a wood-burning oven just that much more delicious.

Fireworks hidden in a Kansas City, Mo., man's oven turned out to be a recipe for disaster when the man tried to heat up some food but instead blew his kitchen to bits. The blast occurred on the Fourth of July at the home of a 28-year-old man who spent the night before celebrating with a group of friends, Kansas City Assistant Fire Marshal Jim Duddy said.

As Mark Stambler struggles to open a flour-dusted folding table in his Los Feliz home kitchen, it's pretty clear those charming but space-hungry mint green country cupboards were not the brainchild of this efficiency-driven bread baker. "My wife did all of this," he says, waving his arms around his head. Stambler is more of a no-nonsense, get-straight-to-kneading sort of guy. When not working as a fundraising consultant for local arts organizations, he is the devout caretaker of 50 to 60 whole-wheat sourdough loaves that wind up each weekend at the Cheese Store of Silver Lake, Cookbook market in Echo Park and Silver Lake Farms CSA. For Stambler, those yeasty loaves make up for all the unexpected workweek glitches and the 1950s kitchen knickknacks.

Strangers chatting in the fast-moving line outside Asal Bakery & Kabob are all jonesing for a taste of the same thing: warm sangak , a floppy chewy yard-long sesame-encrusted flatbread pulled from the fiery depths of a floor-to-ceiling oven whose constant muted roar dominates the Woodland Hills Persian cafe and bakery. Whether soaked with kebab juices at dinner or slathered with cultured cream and honey for breakfast, the lightly singed sourdough breads, slightly puffy with steam, serve as the heart of every meal here ( sangak is to Iranians what baguettes are to the French)

The revolution has not yet come to Milad Zari's bakery. Cairo is raging in protest. Tanks rumble past buildings aflame. But down an alley, just beyond the city of the dead, where the poor live scattered amid forgotten graves, Zari bakes bread. He works from 6 a.m. until 8 p.m., earning less than $90 a month to pay the rent and raise six children. It has been this way for 20 years, his hands, quick as sparrows, feeding flat dough into an oven. "How can I go into the street and protest?"

If you like a pizzaiolo who is downright maniacally obsessive, Bez Compani — owner and pizza-maker at Mother Dough Pizza — is the man for you. This is a guy who went to India for four months and worked in six restaurants looking for a master to teach him the art of the perfect dosa . He went to Armenia to tap into mystical lavash-making methods. And he learned his pizza-making arts in the pizzerias of Naples. Two months ago he opened Mother Dough in Los Feliz Village on Hollywood Boulevard.

Paul Gauweiler stands over his baumkuchen oven and ladles scoopfuls of cake batter over a 3-foot-long spindle rotating in front of a wall of flames. He takes a seat on a lidded bucket, scooting across the floor in front of the oven, tweaking a few of its 25 knobs to adjust the flames. As each layer bakes to a perfectly even golden brown, he pours on more batter until he has a long cylinder of a cake that when sliced reveals concentric circles, like the growth rings of a tree. It's an esoteric cake baked in an idiosyncratic oven, one of just a few of its kind in the U.S. That Gauweiler and this baumkuchen oven have been brought together at his Huntington Beach bakery, Cake Box Pastries, is due to a remarkable series of coincidences.

It's a rare quiet night, and I'm ecstatic that I've found a "Law & Order" marathon on TV. All I need is something to eat that's good enough and not bad enough (translation: tastes good but not high-calorie). Potato chips should do the trick. Freshly made, oil-free chips, cooked in the microwave. That's right. Thinly sliced potatoes (or other produce) can be laid out on a silicon tray and microwaved. The results taste fresher than bagged fat-free chips, and the produce can be seasoned any way you like.

  Oven-steamed salmon with dill mayonnaise Total time: 40 minutes Servings: 6 to 8 Our recipes, your kitchen: If you try this or any other recipe from the L.A. Times Test Kitchen, we would like to know about it so we can showcase it on our food blog and occasionally in print. Upload pictures of the finished dish here. 1 (1½- to 2-pound) salmon filet, in 1 piece Salt Oil 1 cup mayonnaise 1 teaspoon minced shallots 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard 1/2 cup minced fresh dill 1 1/2 teaspoons lemon juice 1. Heat the oven to 250 degrees.

Life at Kabab Grill revolves not, as its name suggests, around a grill for its kebabs but around an imposing stone oven. The 4-by-6-foot custom-made behemoth dominates the open kitchen at this otherwise modest 2-month-old cafe in Palms. "Last week we roasted a whole stuffed lamb in it for someone's party," owner Firas Tar, who comes from Syria, tells a customer, clearly proud of his oven's prowess. But whole roast lamb isn't on the daily menu at Kabab Grill. The oven's cardinal purpose is to bake safeeha , a thin Syrian-style flatbread loaded with savory toppings.

As Mark Stambler struggles to open a flour-dusted folding table in his Los Feliz home kitchen, it's pretty clear those charming but space-hungry mint green country cupboards were not the brainchild of this efficiency-driven bread baker. "My wife did all of this," he says, waving his arms around his head. Stambler is more of a no-nonsense, get-straight-to-kneading sort of guy. When not working as a fundraising consultant for local arts organizations, he is the devout caretaker of 50 to 60 whole-wheat sourdough loaves that wind up each weekend at the Cheese Store of Silver Lake, Cookbook market in Echo Park and Silver Lake Farms CSA. For Stambler, those yeasty loaves make up for all the unexpected workweek glitches and the 1950s kitchen knickknacks.

  Dear SOS: We recently dined at Tyler Florence's new Rotisserie & Wine in Napa. The cornbread was crisp on the outside and almost custard-like in the middle. It's not like any of his cornbread recipes online. Can you get it for me? Jim Brott Huntington Beach Dear Jim: Delicately crisp on the outside but light and oh-so-fluffy on the inside, these aren't your standard cornbread rolls. Rotisserie & Wine's cornsticks use a dough similar to choux paste, giving them a soufflé-like rise as they bake, richly golden and only lightly sweet.

If you like a pizzaiolo who is downright maniacally obsessive, Bez Compani — owner and pizza-maker at Mother Dough Pizza — is the man for you. This is a guy who went to India for four months and worked in six restaurants looking for a master to teach him the art of the perfect dosa . He went to Armenia to tap into mystical lavash-making methods. And he learned his pizza-making arts in the pizzerias of Naples. Two months ago he opened Mother Dough in Los Feliz Village on Hollywood Boulevard.

Life at Kabab Grill revolves not, as its name suggests, around a grill for its kebabs but around an imposing stone oven. The 4-by-6-foot custom-made behemoth dominates the open kitchen at this otherwise modest 2-month-old cafe in Palms. "Last week we roasted a whole stuffed lamb in it for someone's party," owner Firas Tar, who comes from Syria, tells a customer, clearly proud of his oven's prowess. But whole roast lamb isn't on the daily menu at Kabab Grill. The oven's cardinal purpose is to bake safeeha , a thin Syrian-style flatbread loaded with savory toppings.

  Dear SOS: We recently dined at Tyler Florence's new Rotisserie & Wine in Napa. The cornbread was crisp on the outside and almost custard-like in the middle. It's not like any of his cornbread recipes online. Can you get it for me? Jim Brott Huntington Beach Dear Jim: Delicately crisp on the outside but light and oh-so-fluffy on the inside, these aren't your standard cornbread rolls. Rotisserie & Wine's cornsticks use a dough similar to choux paste, giving them a soufflé-like rise as they bake, richly golden and only lightly sweet.

Victor Martinez, who won the 1996 National Book Award for young people's literature for his semi-autobiographical novel about growing up Mexican American in California's Central Valley, has died. He was 56. Martinez died Feb. 18 at his San Francisco apartment of lung cancer, said his sister, Martha Manzano. The cancer was related to juvenile papillomavirus, which first struck him as an adolescent. Doctors linked the virus to growing up around pesticides, his sister said. The fourth of 12 children of migrant farm laborers, Martinez was born Feb. 21, 1954, in Fresno.

Politicians, it seems, have killed the traditional Easy-Bake Oven. Collateral damage in the war on energy waste is none other than the classic children's toy Easy-Bake Oven, introduced in 1963 and an inductee in the National Toy Hall of Fame. Millions of young chefs have used the toy to bake tasty treats. It was made possible by the oven's heating element, a common 100-watt incandescent light bulb. But starting next year, manufacture of such bulbs will be outlawed. It's the start of a 2007 federal law being phased in that requires light bulbs to be more energy efficient.