pizza marko

A great autumn weekend of wood-fired pizza...

This autumn has been marked with nearly weekly firings of the wood oven, but I have been somewhat remiss at taking photos and telling the tale on the blog. I shall endeavor to do a better job.

On Friday I received my copy of the Mozza cookbook, and was interested in seeing their take on pizza, especially the crust, as bread makers typically make excellent contributions to crust study. I was a little disappointed that the Mozza dough recipe is altered because most people aren't able to operate at the high temperatures of a wood oven, but I suspect the major change may have been the type of flour used. So this weekend I decided to add some of the elements of the Mozza crust recipe to my current recipe to see the result. I was very happy with the flavor.

The Mozza recipe uses a few ingredients to add some elements of flavor, a very small amount of rye flour and wheat germ for texture, as well as a bit of barley malt. I did enjoy the flavor additions a great deal, although found that the dough was better on Saturday (the day I made it) rather than Sunday (after spending the night in the fridge). This runs counter to my usual findings, which are that the extra night in the fridge extends flavor, although this may be due to the fact that I did let it do a good bit of its fermentation at room temperature on Saturday rather than putting Sunday's dough directly into the fridge.

Here are this weekend's results, all good:

Saturday (and yes, we do seem to be in a rut of the egg pizza and my Quattro. Sorry, we need to have another big gathering soon)...

I was watching the Alabama vs. Ole Miss game on Saturday, so we usually start with Focaccia at the start of the game, saving the pizza for halftime. Here are a couple of the pre-game focaccia.

Adele and Emilie had gone to the mall, so I ended up making (during halftime) an egg pizza for Didi and a Quattro for myself:

My Quattro:

I kept the fire going, and when Adele got home I made her an egg pizza and made Emilie a plain cheese. The results:

And on Sunday, another focaccia (before and after the oven), egg and quattro.

All in all a great weekend. The crust was light and airy, with just the right combination of tenderness and snap, and had a nice extra flavor from the barley and additions. I think I have found a source (finally) for fresh yeast, so I'm hoping to try some additional tinkering next weekend. 

Additional yumminess this weekend...

So we had a little wood-fired pizza night on Sunday. Adele's beau Matt came over, as well as Emilie's friend Amy. William's friend Ian was also over, but only sampled the garlic bread, I believe. At any rate, we fired up the oven and made some pizza.

First off I made a few foccaccias... just to get things moving. These are always spectacular.

And Matt requested a pizza with meat. So I fashioned it with several cheeses, and Didi placed a few meats upon it. Pancetta, Pepperoni... etc. He seemed to like it...

And of course the ever-popular egg pizza:

And lastly my quattro...

It may not have been the biggest pizza night we've had, but it certainly yielded a nice dinner. Enjoy!

Grilled Pizza Experiment... in the style of Al Forno...

Our daughter Adele has had the pleasure of going to Al Forno in Providence, RI, a couple of times. Al Forno pioneered the grilled pizza, and she has always raved about the pizzas, which are served as appetizers and made on a charcoal grill. I decided to have a go at replication.

There are several recipes for dough in the style of Al Forno available - most of them share what I already knew to be the case - the dough is made from all-purpose flour and is heavy in olive oil, which tenderizes the dough. They also tend to have a good bit of sugar in them, so I backed off the sugar just a bit. Basically the recipe I used was all purpose flour, salt, sugar, yeast, olive oil and water. During the rise I coated the dough balls in olive oil, a tablespoon per ball. Each dough ball was 6.5 ounces, about standard, sometimes I use 6 for a super thin crust, sometimes 7 for a more regular Neapolitan pie.

I only have a gas grill, and after my experiment I really recommend they be cooked on a charcoal grill. If I do them again I'll see if I can arrange to do so with charcoal. I think it would impart more of a flavor - not that these pies weren't yummy - they were great - but would have been even better over charcoal.

After arranging about an 8-10-inch pie from one of the dough balls, one places the crust on the hot grill, letting it begin to blister. After doing so, move it to a cool part of the grill, flipping it over. Place the toppings on the pie, then move it back to the hot grill and let the other side of the crust blister and char a bit. Color is flavor.

Here is my 4 cheese (fresh mozzarella, fontina, parm, gorganzola) grilled pizza on the grill, just being moved to the hot grill after topping.

And the finished product:

Adele wanted a particular pie that she had at Al Forno. Two cheeses, corn, tomato:

Adele reported that the pizza came very close to the Al Forno pie. I think perhaps charcoal might make that difference. Perhaps we shall see someday. I know that the 4 cheese pie was quite tasty.

A great evening with Tara and Nick...

Sunday evening July 17 we had a very nice pizza night with Tara (from Eleven at Hyde Park) and Nick, who is also at Hyde Park in Worthington. They're leaving us for Florida, and we thought it would be nice to send them off with a pleasant evening.

Now I must admit that I've been a bit remiss in updating the blog. We have had additional pizza nights since March, but somehow I got too involved in the pizza making and didn't take photos, so I haven't made blog entries. I'll try and do better for the second half of the summer.

Setup was for many of our nights, and we didn't have a good number on the total guests, so I made a few more dough balls than necessary. As it worked out this made it possible to do a number of pies and sample.

As with many of our best nights, the party stayed in the kitchen, around the big island. Here's Nick and Tara... may they do well on their travels to Florida...

We started with Focaccia, as usual, and I didn't photograph it, then moved on to some garlic bread for the kids, and on to the first pizza of the evening, the Margherita, using bufala mozzarella. Simple, classic, tasty.

And of course, one of the favorites, these days... the egg and pancetta pizza...

 
Anyone for a carmelized onion pizza? With fresh mozzarella, fontina, parm, gorganzola and carmelized sweet onion?

We also made a few more... a potato, mushroom, Mediterranean... as you can see from the variety...

And one lonesome little piece of the Mediterranean left...

Two nights of wood-fired bliss...

Ah... moving into March. Managed two nights of wood-fired pizza this weekend, even though I froze doing the second night (and the wind was blowing hard, right into the oven - challenging).

So here's my report. Saturday Steve Miller's wife Leslie was out of town, so I invited Steve to come back for some more pizza, and he did! Then Janet Buffer-Pealer, who I met through previous pizza guest Karen Rinehart, and who I have been inviting to come around and see us, also accepted. Lastly Didi's friend from college Georgia came over from Pittsburgh (finally!) along with her children Caroline, Phoebe and Lilly. A party!

Outside it was around 50 degrees, which is a great temp to be out working the oven. I didn't take too many photos, since I was really busy, but did take a few. Earlier in the day I made another 'hunk-o-bread' to make up some garlic bread, which, frankly we really didn't need. But we sent it off with the kids and it disappeared. Here's the bread:

Last week I did a little bit about this prep, and it was very yummy. It is sitting on the parchment it was cooked upon (in a conventional oven). I'm going to divide it into smaller loaves next time.

After making a focaccia (or two, if I remember correctly) we started in on the pizzas. I only took photos of a couple:

The Margherita... with bufala mozz.

The potato...

The funghi (mushroom)...

The Rapini and Italian Sausage, the sausage Georgia graciously brought to us from the Pittsburgh strip...

A very nice evening, great seeing Steve, meeting Janet, and having Georgia and family over... very nice...

So on Sunday I tried an experiment (that I actually tried with great success on Saturday)... Pizza with an egg. On Saturday I had this little crust from leftover dough and we had talked about a "breakfast pizza" and I had done some reading about a pizza with an egg, so I thought this was the time to try it. I didn't take any photos of it on Saturday (drat!) but cut it into 4 pieces. It was a small crust with parmigiano-reggiano, pancetta, and egg, salt and pepper. They vanished. Poof. So Didi and Adele requested I make one on Sunday.

The result:

Since the crust was normal size I used two eggs. This one is going on the menu. 

I made a cheese-only Bambino for Emilie:

For William, who loves breadsticks, I took a dough ball and just brushed it with olive oil and herbs and stuck it in the oven for him. The result:

And, since I haven't shown it in a while, my Quattro...

On Sunday, though, the temp was about 28 degrees with a strong wind blowing right into the oven. Not only was it uncomfortable to work, but the cold air took some of the cook off the upper surface, and it was more difficult to work the pies properly. I found myself tucking them to the side to protect them from the wind. Not the best conditions. Hopefully as the weather warms I shall not be faced with those conditions for a while.

But... even with the cold weather Sunday, it was great to fire the oven twice and have a good night with friends... plus develop the egg pizza. Nice weekend. Thank you to our guests. Have a great week!

Garlic Bread, focaccia and pizza...

I've had enough of the cold... so even though it was 33 degrees (F) Saturday evening, to hell with it, I fired the oven. I wanted to work on some things, and have some good pizza.

The first thing I wanted to tweak was the garlic bread. Usually we make this for our son William, who loves it, and we use a ciabatta that we buy from the bakery at Market District. But I wondered how much better we could make it if I baked the bread fresh earlier in the day?

So Friday afternoon I put on some music and mixed up some dough, a simple Italian bread/ciabatta dough, made with flour, salt, yeast and ice cold water, then placed in the refrigerator immediately. I took it out Saturday morning and let it rise for a few hours, to warm up and let the little yeasties wake up and do their magic. 

I didn't really worry about shaping loaves. I just wanted a hunk of bread I could slice into two slabs for garlic bread. Next time I'll work on shaping them into better loaves. Here's a couple of shots of the bread (we've already sliced some off and consumed it along with olive oil and herbs. That is very tasty also.)

I sliced it lengthwise so as to have two slabs. Didi prepares a mix of butter, olive oil, garlic and herbs and generously slathers the two slabs. Here are a couple of shots before it goes to the oven.

I take it over to the wood-fired oven, where it takes just a few seconds to brown up a bit, melt the butter and crisp up the bread. I do them one at a time to control the cook. And the result:

This stuff is scary good. The fresh bread made this - by far - better than any we've made before. The flavor was terrific.

Next up I wanted to play around with a mix on the flour. In the wood oven I have been using straight Caputo Tipo "00" Pizzeria flour, but in doing some reading this past week I discovered that many Naples pizzerias use the Caputo "00" flour mixed with a high protein American flour at a 75/25 ratio. So I thought I'd give this a shot. I already had the high protein flour because I use it for pizza dough I mix for use in the conventional oven. I used it in both the pizza dough and the foccacia, and I liked it better. Gave the dough just a bit more "snap," which I like. Still has the tenderness of the Caputo, but with a little added snap. Nice.

Here's the focaccia. I only made one since we had pizzas coming and made the garlic bread. Still it was a lot of food.

Ummmm... those things are awesome.

After a pause for a bit the first pizza up is the one that has become Didi's favorite: The Funghi (mushroom). 

You can tell I've been working on this one. Everything is perfect, including the cook. Love it when they come together like this. 

And then there was my pizza. And it was excellent...

Makes me wish I had made dough to fire the oven tonight, but I didn't. It's much warmer today, too. Oh, well. Soon enough it will be time to start firing the oven two or three nights a week. 

I've had some recipe requests for conventional oven dough, so I think I'll make some for tonight in the regular oven and pass along some conventional oven tips. I've been planning to do that for a while, and this might be a good night to do so. Enjoy!

Taste test! And National Margarita Day! (and flatbread, I almost forgot!)

Ok, so our fantastic and talented friend in the UK, Patrick Loomer, informed us, in a rather unapologetically buzzed sort of way, that today is "National Margarita Day." Now why this day would be proclaimed near the end of freaking freezing February, I have no idea, but I have no reason to doubt Patrick. So our minds today turned to cocktails. 

For some time I have been off of my usual, and I will admit, boring Grey-Goose-On-The-Rocks drink. For a while I was doing a very nice Pittsburgh (yes, Pittsburgh) potato vodka called Boyd and Blair (which is quite tasty). BUT... after being turned onto some of the premium tonics available I have been indulging (too much) in the practice of the old Gin and Tonics. Didi and I have quite a story about G&T's that I will save for another time, but it is fair to say we were both quite a fan of the combo many-a-year-ago. Only with the "premium tonics" was the beauty of the Gin and Tonic rediscovered. And it is nice.

There are two (that we know of) premium tonics... Q-Tonic and Fever Tree. I had discovered Q-Tonic through some online chats and had ordered some from Kegworks. Now they have it at both Whole Foods and Giant Eagle. At the time I didn't know I could get it anywhere else. I got some for the holidays, mixed it up with some Bombay Sapphire and a slice of lime and LOVED IT. Oh, yeah. This was a gin and tonic.

Then in our search for a new local we started going to Third and Hollywood in Grandview. They have a "Hollywood G&T" that I became fond of... basically about 4 ounces of Bombay Gin with a bottle of Fever Tree you could splash about on top. Well, ok.

So we really liked these premium tonics. But the real question was, are they really better? So we set up a blind taste test, with the help of our daughter Adele. (No, she's not yet of drinking age, but her first job is, basically, in a liquor store.) 

Here are the two premium tonics in question:

Our first test was just the tonic, on ice. We tested three, Q-Tonic, Fever Tree and Schweppes (I suppose that would be the "control.")

We had three glasses with ice, and Adele set them up so we didn't know what was in what glass. Didi and I couldn't agree on which was the Schweppes, but it did not enter into our favorite. We had the most trouble deciding whether the Q-Tonic or the Fever Tree was less sweet. I have more experience with them both, but still confused the Fever Tree with the Schweppes. In essence, it was very hard to tell them apart, except that overall the Schwepps fared the worst. Given the rather large price difference, that's a good thing.

The second test was with gin, since this is usually the way we taste the tonic. I confused the Fever Tree and the Q-Tonic, but could spot the Schweppes right away. Didi confused the Fever Tree and the Schweppes, but nailed the Q-Tonic. Overall the winner was Q-Tonic. 

The Q-Tonic seems to be a bit more complex in the flavor, and mixes very well with the gin. Much more subtle, in my opinion, than the Fever Tree or the Schweppes. As for me, I'll stick with the Q-Tonic. A very interesting experiment, though, and I suggest you do the same to find out what you really like, divorced from labels. Here is the lineup of the three mixed with gin. A is Fever Tree, B is Q-Tonic and C is Schweppes.

Boy, you can spot them right off, can't you?

So... now on to National Margarita Day. I've grown rather famous (or infamous) for placing guests under the table with my Margaritas. Hey, they have a tendency for stealth. What can I say? I like for my guests to have a good time. Frequently our pizza guests in the summer are met with a frosty Margarita to start things off for the evening. If they request a second, well, the night shall get interesting.

But if you've been reading this blog at all you know I'm a purist. My go-to guy for cocktail basics is Dale Degroff and his two wonderful books, The Craft of the Cocktail and The Essential Cocktail. By the way, these two books are totally worthwhile, just for the stories. 

So, here is the essential and unchanging (and most fabulous) recipe for a Margarita, and much like my pizza recipes, very simple: 1.5 ounces of Tequila (100% Agave, Blanco, from Mexico, aged less than 6 months), 1 ounce of Cointreau (the best of the bunch), and 3/4 ounce of fresh squeezed lime juice. And get some limes and squeeze them. It's not that big a deal and makes a huge difference.

I like to put it all in a shaker (usually times 3 or 4) with ice and shake it super cold. Then pour over ice and enjoy. 

Make sure it is a Blanco, 100% agave tequila, Hecho en Mexico (product of Mexico). I picked this one, because honestly, how can you go wrong with a tequila named "HORNITOS." Squeeze the limes. Use Cointreau. And you will have a spectacular Margarita.

Neither Didi nor I like the salt (which is odd, since we usually love salt), but if you like it, rim the glass with a lime and dip it in salt.

These are tonight's drinks for the two of us. She talked me into making another batch. Which put me over my calories for the day. Dammit. Oh, well. All in the name of research.

These beauties may greet you at the door at some future pizza night. Come on over!

Oh, and one last thing to add. If forgot about this. On nights when I'm not firing the outside oven but am playing with some cocktails I sometimes make a simple flatbread out of the focaccia dough. Here are some shots of tonight's flatbread:

Before the oven (above). The dough is very thin, no yeast. I measure everything on this pie and it comes out to 562 calories total.

I cook it in a conventional oven on a stone that has been preheated for an hour.

I top it with Provolone, fontina, parmigiano-reggiano, gorganzola, oregano, and brush the outer rim with a little olive oil. Just another tasty treat!

Saturday night pizza...

We were able to fire up the oven again this past Saturday (February 19). We didn't quite have as many guests as we were expecting, but I was able to do around 13 pies, along with focaccia and garlic bread. We had a number of children present, so almost half of the pies were the Bambino, with and without tomato sauce.

Prepping for a night such as this requires some organization, the right tools, all learned through several years of experience. Here is my prep just before starting:

The individual containers are dough balls. I started using these for ease of storage in the fridge. My dough process is two-day... I will mix the dough, let it ferment overnight in the fridge, then take it out around 8-9 hours before I'm set to make the pies. Timing is everything in bread, getting the dough to the optimal point of flavor. You can see that the dough balls have risen, they've been out of the fridge at this point for around 8 hours. The closest container (larger plastic container) contains the focaccia dough. It doesn't rise, since it doesn't have yeast, and I have just mixed it a few minutes before. 

The two dredges contain Caputo "00" flour for use as bench flour when I'm shaping the dough, and brown rice flour, which I sprinkle very lightly on the peel so the dough releases and doesn't stick. I use rice flour because it is very fine, doesn't burn the way cornmeal does, and doesn't add a bitter flavor such as unhydrated wheat flour.

The individual bowls contain various ingredients I have prepared earlier in the day, such as roasted tomatoes, roasted peppers, basil, arugula. One bowl contains parmigiano-reggiano, which I don't grate until just before starting to make the pizza. Just-grated parm has more flavor than pre-grated. Several other small bowls contain tarragon, parsley, rosemary, which I chop up a couple of hours earlier in the day. Everything is fresh.

The squeeze bottle contains the "good" olive oil... Columela. The paper towel just to the right of center contains buffalo mozzarella, which I cut into slices and dry out. If one doesn't do this, the margherita pizza becomes soggy. The bufala cheese is very delicate and full of moisture. Taking away the extra moisture improves the melt on the pizza dramatically. 

The french rolling pin is only used for the focaccia. I never roll the dough for the pizzas. They are shaped by hand. 

The night began with firing up the oven at around 5pm. I had 18 total dough balls made, so 5 of them went to waste, but I'd rather have too many than too few! As everyone began arriving at around 6:30 I started off with a focaccia. As I've described, a very simple and incredibly delicious pie with unleavened dough (made of flour, salt and water). When using the wood oven I use Caputo "00" flour. Combined with the high heat the result is tender with just a bit of snap, and is very simply topped with olive oil, mascarpone, pepper, salt and herbs.

These go fast. I made two of them. I think I had one piece.

After the focaccia I put the garlic bread in the oven. I didn't take any photos. I will take a set of before and after shots next time to demonstrate. The garlic bread vanished fairly quickly as well.

Then... on to the pizzas... I didn't take shots of the Bambino pizzas, or of my final pizza (I was tired and hungry by that time). But I did get some shots of three I was working on in particular. 

The Funghi (mushroom) pizza has become Didi's favorite. I must say that this one really does seem to come out nice. My mission is to get all of them set as well as this one seems to be.

Made another Golden Potato, using the techniques from the previous week. This pie is becoming a consistent winner, with a unique taste combination.

I really like the cook I'm getting on the Golden Potato now, the Fontina just slightly browned in spots, the potato edges a little crispy, the dough perfectly browned. I put a stronger dose of smoked sea salt on this one. 

Moving along... we did a sausage and rapini pizza, with some really good sausage that we got from the strip in Pittsburgh. Unfortunately it had been frozen for a while and didn't have the same flavor as when it was fresh. Of course! Always use fresh ingredients. We won't make that mistake again.

I think I was also overly concerned about burning the rapini. I may place it on the pie later in the cook, so that I am able to let the crust brown more properly. I shielded the rapini with the peel a bit in the oven, and you can see that the inside of the crust is less brown than the outer portion. I don't like that. Need some work on this one. 

We also made a Sweet Onion, Margherita, and Mediterranean. I was set up to also do the Prosciutto and Arugula and Salami and Peppers, but everyone was full by the time we got to them. Next time we just need more people! Speaking of next time... we might need to fire it up either Friday or Saturday night. Weather shows rain or snow, but around 40 degrees, so we could make it work.  

A break in the weather means wood-fired pizza! Spring can't be far off!

Lately I've been a little blue about not being able to fire up the oven... but January was pretty cold and snowy, so it just never made sense. Using the oven when it is much below freezing is fine, but standing out there, even in the heat from the front of the oven (the outside of the rest of the oven remains cool due to insulation) makes for an unpleasant evening.

But last night (February 12th) temps were running at about 34 degrees, which made the evening a pleasure (especially since my body has acclimated to highs in the teens and twenties). So we fired up the oven and had our friends Steve and Leslie over for a nice evening.

We started the cooking with a loaf of garlic bread, with lots of butter and olive oil and garlic. Normally we will use a ciabatta from the bakery over at Market District, but they didn't have any so we used a rather large baguette. Worked ok, but was a little more bready than the ciabatta. When the weather warms and I can fire it weekly I'm going to play with making more fresh bread myself in the oven.

The key to browning up the garlic bread in the wood oven is speed. Just as soon as the bread goes into the oven the browning begins and the butter starts bubbling. One quick spin around to brown the other side and it is piping hot and done. 

Next came focaccia as I have previously described on this blog. I only made one of these, though, in anticipation of a great deal of upcoming food. Always tasty from the wood oven, and so simple. Flour, water, salt, olive oil, salt, pepper, herbs. 

Steve and Leslie (and myself) enjoy red wine, so our selections last night were from Orin Swift. We started with a bottle of Abstract and then a bottle of The Prisoner. Didi enjoys white wine and was drinking a Joel Gott Savignon Blanc.

Since I hadn't been able to do many pizzas in the wood oven lately, I wanted to make this evening count, so I planned 7 pies, wanting to tweak several of the recipes.

We started with the Golden Potato.

I have altered this recipe just a bit, moving from tallegio cheese to fontina. I like this flavor combination a little bit better, plus it means one fewer cheese to keep on hand.

Last time I made this pie I did nothing to the potatoes other than slice them very thin. I was going to repeat this procedure, but ended up cutting the potatoes (Yukon Gold) a little bit thicker. At the last minute I chickened out and put them in the oven to toast them just a bit to remove some of their moisture. I was afraid they wouldn't fully cook on the pie, and we wouldn't want to have pieces of underdone potato now, would we?

So now the Golden Potato officially is: Thinly-sliced Yukon Gold potatoes (which I now place under the cheese, rather than on top), fontina cheese, fresh rosemary, white truffle olive oil. I also added a few pinches of smoked sea salt on top for a little added punch. I'm very happy with how this pie has evolved, and think this method is THE method for the Golden Potato. I'm counting this one done, and look forward to serving many more in the future. 

Coming up next is a traditional Margherita, and for my version I keep it just as close to the classic DOC Margherita as I can get it. My dough follows the DOC guidelines except that I use a kitchenaid mixer, which I'm not sure would be approved. However, I use mozzarella di bufala, which I can get at Market District and sometimes at Whole Foods, along with my tomato sauce that I make from crushed san marzano tomatoes, sweet basil, herbs, garlic and crushed fennel. 

The basil leaves go on at the last minute, else they would completely char in the oven. At the end it also gets a sprinkling of olive oil.

The second "locked in" recipe of the night.

Moving right along... next up was another tweaked recipe, for our Funghi or mushroom pizza. For this pie I use Sottocenere truffle cheese, an Italian cheese with flecks of black truffle throughout, along with mushrooms, parsley and tarragon, sprinkled with white truffle oil.

This is a recipe that has been altered a bit, but I've made this version now for the last couple of times. I consider this to be another "locked in" recipe.

If anything is left on this one, it would be playing around with the mix of mushrooms and their source.

Next up is a classic Mediterranean pizza, involving the largest number of toppings of any of our offerings. This pizza starts with a little olive oil, fresh mozzarella, fontina, roasted san marzano tomato, black olives, pancetta, crumbled feta and some basil.

This one is always a pleaser, and a great combination. We already have favorite sources for nearly all of the ingredients, especially the tomato and the olives. 

 
On to a relatively new offering, which I'm still working with. A labor-intensive preparation, this pizza starts with a pesto base, has fresh mozzarella, parmigiano-reggiano, genoa salami and roasted peppers. Roasting the peppers takes a little time, as does the pesto (at least when we're growing basil, which is not right now).

This is a very colorful and robust pie... 

And other than my pizza (which has been described before) there was one more pie... this one the Sweet Onion... with carmelized onions (expertly handled by Didi and Adele), provolone, fontina, parmigiano-reggiano, gorganzola and oregano.

I am hearing weather rumblings that we may actually see the 50's this week... with a possibility of 54 on Friday. If so we'll most assuredly be firing the oven again this weekend... and will report. Thanks Steve and Leslie for a great evening. May everyone have a great week!

Well, I wish I had something to report...

However, the weather has been very cold and is about to get worse. We are planning a pizza night for February 12th, weather be damned, and I have started some work on some material concerning pizza making in conventional ovens and grill. 

So... something new hopefully coming soon, even in the dark cold days of February.