Five years ago, Melina Kelson and Pete Podolsky dug up the sod around their small, suburban Skokie, Illinois, home and transformed it into organic, edible landscaping. Since  then, they have watched their garden (featured in Chicago Magazine) become a place where the community unites.

 Friends of all ages pitch in to help turn the soil, pull weeds, plant and harvest the bounty. Since then, friends and neighborhood “farm hands” are invited back for canning parties and to share and celebrate the harvest each year. Strangers and neighbors ask questions about planting gardens of their own. They share ideas and frequently taste (and bring home) delicious, wholesome varieties of produce and plants they may not have known about before. Neighborhood school kids tour the garden and local scout groups help harvest food to donate to area food banks. 

Pete, a talented chef with experience in some of Chicago's best restaurant kitchens, and Melina, a chef instructor at Kendall College and one of only a handful of Certified Master Bakers in the United States, have worked together on the garden and in their catering business, The Edible Complex. They believe that their garden is their personal entry to  a greater mission: teaching and inspiring the community and others like it with lovingly prepared items that are sustainably grown and minimally processed. Speaking to groups at public libraries and the Chicago Botanic Gardens has helped spread the word. Now the work will go a giant step forward, with the building of a wood-fired brick oven and hosting community workshops. 

 Melina has built two wood-fired ovens: one at The Experimental Station, which is an inner-city community oven, and a second oven at Kendall College that she uses when teaching her culinary students the centuries-old traditions of baking Artisan Breads. 

Melina and Pete, with the help of fellow bakers, a prominent oven builder and hopefully a few volunteers from the community, are planning to build a wood-fired oven in a corner of their backyard  garden. The new oven will produce artisan breads dotted with herbs from the garden, savory tarts made with fruits and vegetables just picked within inches of the oven’s walls, and the wonderful variety of crusty pleasures that nature can provide with three simple ingredients — wheat flour, water, and natural fermentation from the airborne yeasts that cling to the foods we eat. Out of this miraculously simple formula comes an innumerable variety of breads, products that vary by how they’re shaped, left to ferment as they develop their flavors and textures, the ways they’re reshaped, and further enhanced by special ingredients (eggs, herbs, cheeses — you name it!). 

 The oven will be the hub of learning, the place around which conversations will flow, ideas will grow and friendships will build. Those who want to learn the techniques of mixing, kneading, shaping, and baking will have the rare opportunity to learn how people around the world have, through the centuries, imagined and baked and created pizza to sourdough to cream puffs. Community members will take that knowledge, apply their own creativity, under Melina's guide, and come away with their own creations and stories to share with others. Those who simply want to learn - if not do any hands-on baking, still will come away with a deeper understanding of what they eat, how and why it affects them as it does, and a rich appreciation of quality and knowledgeable eating - something they, too, can share with others.

We are fundraising here on Kickstarter and would love your support!

Your support will fund clean running water, electricity, a professional mason to help construct the oven with care, and a shelter to protect the oven from the elements. Should we exceed our goal, additional funding would be used to procure fundamental equipment.

Thank you for being a part of our community!