A custom-built masonry pizza oven. / Houzz.com photo.
WHAT’S MORE AMERICAN than . . . pizza? Combine our national affinity for this Neapolitan staple with our penchant for cooking outdoors, and the obvious result is a backyard pizza oven. True, you can order a whole lot of Domino’s for the cost of one of these babies, but that’s not the point, is it?
Also true: Stoking a fire this hot and even is kinda like driving a Lamborghini to the corner store–a whole lot of power spent for a minor event. Not that we’re calling pizza minor! It’s just that in the old, old days, householders in Italian villages would traipse over to the village oven to bake their pies, crostatas and casseroles, meaning that all that energy output was shared.
Steven Randel, a California residential architect, doesn’t have to go back in history to appreciate the Call of the Pizza. Pizza ovens have been popping up in residential backyard kitchens for at least a decade now, and he outlines some important things to consider in this article for Houzz.com. Houzz also shows a good array of portable ovens ready for purchase, should the urge overwhelm you. Need proof of the pizza oven’s popularity? Costco.com sells them!
–Nancy McKeon