Pizza party
Aug. 20th, 2008 10:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snousleThe Tuscan oven is nearly complete.
Complete enough for our first pizza party!
I am amazed and delighted that this came together so nicely. We totally do not deserve this. Matt, the guy who built it, has been obsessed with oven design for some time, and this was his is first chance to actually build one for real. John went to graduate school with Matt's parents, so they are practically part of the family. We just gave him the space and the materials, and voila! Really, I never dreamed I would have such a thing as this in my life.
Here's Matt prepping the first pizza. He maintains his own sourdough culture, and had prepared this dough about five days in advance. He's also really picky about ingredients - traditional fresh mozzarella, specific kinds of canned tomatotes, fresh basil. Cheese is so expensive nowadays - fortunately a little goes a long way.
Yeah, I think it's hot enough! This was the reading on the interior ceiling:
VERY FIRST PIZZA:
As it happens, our neighbors Ron and Dana had their son, daughter in law, and two kids drop by right around dinnertime, with nothing much in the house for dinner. So Bill went over and asked if they wanted some pizza... talk about saving the day. Dana works the graveyard shift at the grocery store, and was in no mood to cook. And we happened to have seven more pizzas to go, so...
Ron's son has two children of his own, and he's looking pretty shell shocked, no?
Anyway, leaving the Bay Area reminds me that not everyone in the world has had the experience of excellent pizza. Dana in particular went a little crazy over it, and for good reason! Gods, was it delicious.
The whole thing did a lot to lift my spirits. I'm glad Matt got a sense of the power of his culinary talents - cooking for jaded Bay Area palates is one thing, but out here it's really something special.
He's off to Ecuador next week for some sort of agricultural homestay. Now that he's gone, I can't wait to play with this thing myself!
Complete enough for our first pizza party!
I am amazed and delighted that this came together so nicely. We totally do not deserve this. Matt, the guy who built it, has been obsessed with oven design for some time, and this was his is first chance to actually build one for real. John went to graduate school with Matt's parents, so they are practically part of the family. We just gave him the space and the materials, and voila! Really, I never dreamed I would have such a thing as this in my life.
Here's Matt prepping the first pizza. He maintains his own sourdough culture, and had prepared this dough about five days in advance. He's also really picky about ingredients - traditional fresh mozzarella, specific kinds of canned tomatotes, fresh basil. Cheese is so expensive nowadays - fortunately a little goes a long way.
Yeah, I think it's hot enough! This was the reading on the interior ceiling:
VERY FIRST PIZZA:
As it happens, our neighbors Ron and Dana had their son, daughter in law, and two kids drop by right around dinnertime, with nothing much in the house for dinner. So Bill went over and asked if they wanted some pizza... talk about saving the day. Dana works the graveyard shift at the grocery store, and was in no mood to cook. And we happened to have seven more pizzas to go, so...
Ron's son has two children of his own, and he's looking pretty shell shocked, no?
Anyway, leaving the Bay Area reminds me that not everyone in the world has had the experience of excellent pizza. Dana in particular went a little crazy over it, and for good reason! Gods, was it delicious.
The whole thing did a lot to lift my spirits. I'm glad Matt got a sense of the power of his culinary talents - cooking for jaded Bay Area palates is one thing, but out here it's really something special.
He's off to Ecuador next week for some sort of agricultural homestay. Now that he's gone, I can't wait to play with this thing myself!
