The following is a NY Daily News article:
A man has an unorthodox style of preparing for Passover – a backyard bakery.
Zecheriah Brauner, 89, fires up a huge outdoor oven once a year to make matzo for the Jewish holiday, which starts this Monday.
�My father used to make matzo in our home,� Brauner said, recalling his childhood in rural Hungary. �So let me do what my father used to do.�
A retired baker, Brauner began the tradition of cooking the thin, crispy wafers in his backyard 20 years ago, and it now feeds more than 150 relatives and neighbors.
�It looks like any other driveway the rest of the year,� said Sandy Brauner, 21, one of Zecheriah�s 102 grandchildren. �It takes a lot of work.�
Kosher rules forbid sunlight from shining on the dough, so Sandy rigs a high canopy and wooden walls that block out rays.
Then they build the stations for mixing flour and water, flattening the dough, and rolling it into discs.
A wood- and coal-burning oven sits in a shed and bakes the matzos in under a minute.
Over the afternoon, it churns out hundreds of them for family and friends who flock to the house and serve them at Seder – the feast on the first two nights of Passover.
�Every half step is written out on how to make it,� said Alexander Rapaport, 33, another grandson of Brauner.
Luckily, help is nearby. The family calls 54th St. �Brauner�s block,� because relatives live in eight other houses on the street.
�It gives you a different emotional feeling to eat matzo that you made yourself,� said Yosef Rapaport, 56, Brauner�s son-in-law.
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