Possibly the world’s first mobile dragon oven fires up to inspire the local food movement among Angelenos.
The Dragon Oven “Sparky” is the creation of artist Ray Cirino and business partner Camille Cimino who both wanted to create a piece of art that was fully functional and supported the city’s food and sustainability efforts.
Although southern California leads in growing produce, too many people forgo fresh food altogether or rely on imported produce from large agrobuisness farms. Neither of which supports healthy lives or a healthy planet.
That’s where Sparky and her team come in by showing that using a low fuel oven to cook local food, such as vegetables grown from your front yard garden, can feed a neighborhood.
Cirino ingeniously built a rocket stove beneath the oven allowing it to heat up with only a few dry twigs or reclaimed wood- a carbon neutral process.
Sparky is perhaps the world’s first mobile, eco-friendly dragon oven, made from recycled and reclaimed materials, from the bamboo ribbing of her wings to the ornate oven door from the 1800’s.
The Dragon Oven is set on a small trailer easily pulled by a truck and readily parked to start cooking, anywhere from a block party, a fundrasiser, or community event. She has been about town and iz occasionally seen on the otherwise dreary LA freeways. In August it was one of the features of Los Angeles’ new Permaculture Club, at Fais Do Do, where she cooked locally made organic pizza long into the night.
If you want to rent Sparky for an event, contact Ray Cirino at www.dragonoven.com. He is also able to build other mobile art ovens, but being an artist, he won’t make the same creature twice. Sparkey, will remain an original, yet with hope the idea can be replicated by other activists throughout the country. After all, who doesn’t love a friendly dragon? -J. VERNET