Party with a goat

So, how much fun would this be?!?!

Michael Pollan (love him!) writes about a 36 hour dinner party based on an outdoor oven, a goat, olive oil, mushrooms, wine (lots), and friends, held in a suburban backyard.

I'm so in love with this idea...

For the party, they built and used a cob oven. Cob ovens have always intrigued me, but they do take a fair amount of space, which is the one thing we don't have one tiny bit extra of here at our place. I've had this link pertaining to cob buildings and ovens bookmarked for a while now, thinking to myself "someday, someday."

I'd like to try my hand at baking my weekly loaves at the super high temps and controlled humidity it's possible to create with one of these big dome cookers. How cool to be able to cook an army's ration of meat at once, with friends gathered round, and to enjoy the radiant heat from the mound?

I see a cob oven as one of the follies that would be possible at the horrid house on the great land we looked at a few weeks ago. Although the price they're asking for that shamble would preclude me ever being able to afford even the tiniest and dampest of matchsticks to light the fire in the oven. It would be the most expensive mud oven ever built. And yet, I dream...

I do.

In the meantime, I'm contemplating how to pull this off on a smaller scale. Any thoughts?

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/10/magazine/10dinner-t.html?_r=3&pagewanted=all
http://small-scale.net/yearofmud/2009/09/12/build-your-own-20-outdoor-cob-oven-for-great-bread-and-pizza/