Wildwood Ovens’ Chef/Owner Michael Gerard’s great passion for food and cooking began when he was very young. As the eighth child in a family of 11, he was often in the kitchen with his mother or organic gardening and farming with his father—devoting his life to the pursuit of entertaining family and friends. Fascinated with the “authenticity of food”—herbs, spices, fruits, vegetables, meats, fish, poultry and seafood from various regions—he shares this knowledge while introducing people to wood fired cooking.

Today, his vision has become reality with a multi-faceted endeavor and labor of love. Wildwood Ovens has provided numerous customers with this exciting culinary activity. Cooking with a Wood Fired Oven and Brazilian BBQ has been a part of Gerard’s life for years. Now he shares this opportunity with customers and interested “foodies” as he educates and encourages people to join in the wood fired oven cooking movement.

Born and raised in Los Angeles, his family moved to Eagle Rock in 1964. Eagle Rock was known for its regional farms – persimmon, pecan and walnut orchards were abundant— and Gerard describes his childhood as living on an URBAN FARM. While his friends were surfing—he would spend weekends working in the garden. His time was spent transplanting baby beets, radishes and turnips or inspecting the kale and mustard greens – smashing afids with his fingers. The family had a chicken coop and in the morning he would go to the coop and collect eggs for breakfast. At 9 he was helping his father with butchering, plucking and dressing chickens. The family also farmed their own honey and Gerard would help with the beekeeping.

He recalls his early interest in cooking as a result of helping his mother in the kitchen. Everything was home-made from their garden and farm. He wanted to be the first to taste the Roast Beef when it came out of the oven and realized if he helped out he would get first dibs on all of the delicious food when the dinner bell rang.

When Gerard was in his 20’s and most people were heading to the disco… he became an avid scuba diver and began entertaining friends at home. His passion was in experimenting with fresh scallops, lobster and other seafood (he caught while diving) – in addition to roasting whole chickens and prime rib. His dedication to ingredients continued to flourish as he immersed himself in cookbooks and sampled ingredients, herbs and spices from around the globe.

Gerard has intimately studied Thai, Chinese, Italian and Mexican cooking and his food and ingredient knowledge continue to grow. Motivated greatly by his travels he went to Brazil where he discovered Brazilian BBQ, “Churrasqueira.” He was hooked.

Gerard installed an outdoor kitchen in his home due to his love of cooking and being outside. He thought it was “Hip” to include a sink, ceramic counters and refrigerator in the wonderful outdoor space. Of course, the kitchen included a wood fired pizza oven and Brazilian BBQ. He continued to entertain friends and wow colleagues and customers! Gerard saw an open market for a wood fired oven made in the USA.

ADVANCED CASTINGS (An engineered materials castings company) would be the manufacturer of Gerard’s Wildwood Ovens and with research, knowledge and experience he developed a line of refractory concrete wood fired ovens. Wildwood Wood Fired Ovens began marketing and distributing ovens. Gerard’s concept and big picture would include more than just selling an oven. His unique customer service and educating techniques would set the company apart from other manufacturers and distributors. His skills as a seasoned chef would remain in the forefront and maintain the added value he had envisioned.

He continued to look inward to further develop the company’s full service customer service. Today, Wildwood ovens are sold throughout the US and Canada and the company is expanding the cooking and demonstration classes to introduce people to the culinary techniques of cooking in a wood fired oven. His dedication to educating interested parties results in added confidence when customers are using their new ovens and entertaining at home. Gerard continues to provide this valuable experience and techniques that might otherwise take years to acquire.

After years of wood fired oven cooking, and cooking all of his life it’s a special treat to arrive in the Wildwood Test Kitchen for a class or demonstration by Chef Gerard.

“This is the best pizza I’ve ever tasted!” said Tom Puglise, who became a part of the Wildwood Family after a visit to the Test Kitchen. He now owns Wildwood’s Milano oven. Chef Gerard has also been dubbed an “Honorary Brazilian,” by his friends in South America who have sampled his cooking.