Pizza Oven Project

Chicago style pie (fake pizza) in Frenont

2012-01-11T12:49:00.001-08:00

If if like deep dish - come and try it :-)

How to salt grill tai for Japanese new year without pizza oven?

2012-01-01T19:57:00.001-08:00

1. Rub salt
2. Let it be for 30 minutes
3. Wash it off
4. Put in salt, rub salt in flippers
5. Cross cut side
6. Broil for like 10-15 minutes till ready
7. Make sure you do not over cool!
8. Eat meat - remove salty skin
9. Use bones for soup stock next morning!

Pink Salmon on cedar plank

2011-09-08T10:58:00.001-07:00

Simple and yammy thing to do on grill while pizza oven is heating up...

Pizza to the Moon!!!

2011-09-01T10:36:00.001-07:00

From Slashdot:

"It may be more PR stunt than a viable expansion plan, but the Japanese arm of Domino's Pizza is making plans for a lunar store. Construction firm Maeda Corp has drawn-up the plans for the dome shaped restaurant and figures it will take 70 tons of materials and pizza-making equipment. Even with the cost cutting measure or using mineral deposits on the moon to make the concrete, Domino's estimates the costs at Y1.67 trillion ($21.7 billion). In 2001 rival chain Pizza Hut made a delivery to the International Space Station, but Domino's hopes to become the preferred pizza of space with the moon store plan."

Yes!!!!

How to make hachapuri - Gergian pizza/calzone

2011-05-21T19:26:00.001-07:00

How to calculate a volume of your pizza ?!

2011-05-20T11:36:00.001-07:00

Books about pizza oven: with warranty ! :)

2011-04-28T16:08:00.001-07:00

Here is a book about building your own pizza oven.

It gives your a warranty :)

Click Here!

How to cook a pouched egg in microwave (without, hopefully, blowing it)

2011-04-28T09:03:00.001-07:00

Pouched eggs are yammy, but a bit tricky to make. Egg and microwave oven does not mix : this is a well known. But there are a trick from molecular gastronomy: just add water and PUNCH HOLE IN EGG YOLK (this is very important, otherwise egg will still EXPLODE!). It did not blow for me with just 2 holes made with skewer and took 1 min 30 seconds to cook.

It may still be DANGEROUS! I personally do not trust microwave oven.

This is a finished product. It tasted good with pesto sauce!

Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking. Yeah, right, but does it include PIZZA?!

2011-04-26T13:50:00.000-07:00

Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking [Hardcover] is HUGE

I would like to get it.

Post in Wired looked amazing.

But there are some foods, that are classical. Example: pizza. I am not sure it can be done better with modernist tools. :) Pizza oven is high tech enough and when you switch from wood to gas, you loose. You gain in speed and convinces, but taste is not as good.

What do you think?

How to make a REAL Humus salad/spread ... but not that quick

2011-04-23T15:50:00.000-07:00

OK, so if you have time and want to be genune, you need to start in advance.

Get a dry hummus beans. You can find these beans (as any other beans) for really cheap.

Wash and soak for several hours.

Cook with a lot of water till you can eat/ smash.

Be careful: when you boil beans they can foam up.

Once it done and all is cooled down to nice warm, you just do as described in my previous post about fake humus, but use a real beans.

http://pizzaovenproject.blogspot.com/2011/04/how-to-make-fake-humus-really-quick.html

You can use some of that humus water if your humus is too dry (scoop some when you add beans to blender: of course, only this one will do!

:))

If your humus is too dry , just scoop some more water and add to blender.

This one can be really tasty and so much cheaper than humus you can find in store :)

Dress as you like and enjoy with warm pitta bread!

Bon Appetite!

How to make a fake Humus really quick!

2011-04-23T15:43:00.000-07:00

OK, so when humus from store just does not cut (too much of this sour chemicals they dump in it or what not) a quick humus come to the rescue.

All you need is stock up on a Garbanzo Beans from Costco and have it in your pantry :)

Prepared humus is not suppose to store long, even in refrigerator and if it does survive, there is indication that it is not alive (and dangerous!) or plane not very tasty.

Here are a secret Ingredients:

1) Canned Garbanzo Beans (Humus beans!)

2) Lemon juice (fresh or from bottle)

3) Olive oil (use organic virgin first cold press if you can)

4) Garlic

5) Sea salt

6) ... and hard to get Tahini paste (stock up on this one too!)

You open the can, discard juice and use your power blender. Making humus is hard and my life was too, till I got this wonderful machine. I can not recommend it HIGH ENOUGH. It is THAT good!

Now, for one can of beans you need about two table spoons of tahini or more if you like, it may be salted so you do not need to add much salt. Add garlic (if you like) and other ingredients per you taste: experiment till you find proportions you love best: after all this is just a salad. Just try not to put too much salt, garlic or lemon juice :)

The end result should look like this: dress it with olive oil, paprika, petrozilia or pine nuts or even some humus beans and lemon juice: what every you like and scoop it with a fresh pitta bread!

It can be dome really quick in 10-15 minutes for a dinner.

Enjoy, bon appetite!

How to cook pizza rolls (joke)

2011-04-20T10:33:00.001-07:00

Have no idea what it is, but it is funny :-)

Pizza oven first run 2011 video

2011-04-17T11:48:00.001-07:00

First pizza of 2011 season

2011-04-16T19:58:00.001-07:00

Yeah!

Oven was so wet but with 5 rounds of dry wood we managed to bake a test run!

Creame cheese Rugalah with rubbery Jam are done!

2011-04-10T17:42:00.001-07:00

Rugalah pizza

2011-04-10T17:00:00.001-07:00

This is how you turn pizza to rugalah :-)

Rugalah with yeast dough

2011-04-10T16:59:00.001-07:00

This is a more traditional version: you make a yeast dough : flour, yeast, eggs, milk , sugar and do as below :-)

How to make Rugalah?

2011-04-10T16:56:00.001-07:00

Rugalah is traditional Jewish curason-like pastry made from cookie dough: flour, butter and in our case : cream cheese! After you made a butter dough, you need to chill it in refrigerator and roll pizza out of balls.

You cover pizza with chocolate spread or just jam as bellow and cut it with pizza cutter :-)

You roll pizza slices starting from fat end :-) and end up with some thing that looks like bellow.

Now bake till ready: 375F for 15-20 minutes.

Enjoy!

Weather is getting better, pizza party is soon!

2011-04-08T11:27:00.000-07:00

Spring is rolling up, get ready!

Backyard cleaning is in process, I need dry wood and hopefully, we will have a wonderful party soon.

As usual, do reservations if you want to come (16 April or 24 April - when weather will allow it) :)

Dutch oven bread

2011-03-28T13:37:00.001-07:00

It is super easy: mix yeast, some salt and flour with warm water. Make it like a heavy pancake butter. Cover with wet towel and let it work for 12-24 hours. Heat oven to 500F and put your Dutch oven in. Season it with oil. Form a bread while you do it: use some non stick surface or extra flour. Put some oil. Let it rise a bit: do not work the dough: it should be a very wet kind. Flip it in to oven, close lid. After 15 minutes open lid and reduce temperature to 350F. Bake for 20 more minutes or till ready. Enjoy :-)

Taratoria Piano in Nara

2011-03-27T14:54:00.000-07:00

Located in the center, in arcade near Lake exit. Try it. Pizaola trained in Italy and he use all the right ingredients, he also nice, smily dude. Place looks cool, and oven shaped like a piano ;-). But he seems to put too much cheese last time we been there and his pie still lack some thing (soul? If it exist, or may be salt? - go figure) how sad it is, it was still less than our expectations even so we love eat there and kids love pizza, I wish pizaola master the last step and bake his technically excellent pizza with more soul. I will be happy to have him on our next pizza party: our technique is not as polished, but I think we manage to do it on a good sunny day :-) anyway, real pizzerias are rare in Japan, so please try and be your own judge. May be it will go better with wine and music they have some times ;-)

Best pizza in Japan

2011-03-27T14:45:00.000-07:00

You will be surprised, but the best I eat so far was from Hakone backery: train station cafe. The do not even advertise as pizzeria, but they have brick oven (gas) and made a delicious pizza. Tomatto souse is fantastic and there are Italian behind, but pie was made by Japanese dude. If you happened to travel to or from Hakone(not anytime soon so) try it!

Picking fresh mushrooms for pizza

2011-03-27T14:41:00.001-07:00

Good shrooms make a hell od a difference. These from Microsoft campus, I would not use, despite a very cool look :-)

My coffee cup v2.0

2011-03-27T14:36:00.000-07:00

This is my year 2011 take on espresso cup design. It is similar to V1.0 I made a while ago (cups were productized by Japanese artisan Muzutane-san). The difference is 3D. No secret is that 2011 is a year of 3D, so I made coffee beans 3D, not just painted, but made from clay. It is much cooler this way.

Healthy Mexican food?!

2011-03-27T14:33:00.001-07:00

You betcha! Beans is what you have to eat between pizza party weekends. This is a secret from 4 hours body book :-)

Is pizza a healthy food?

2011-03-27T14:30:00.000-07:00

Of course, per this illustration anyway :-)

This is 11 days old pizza

2010-12-08T13:20:00.001-08:00

That guys in company keep on munching. From refrigerator to microwave :-)

Pizza oven is under snow again

2010-11-22T11:24:00.000-08:00

Not sure if I will be crazy enough to bake pizza for this Thanksgiving under below freezing conditions. This can be done, I did it, but I am not looking forward to do it again ;-)

Pizza in the oven

2010-08-16T08:45:00.001-07:00

Nothing special: just nice warm weather and good hot oven: finally my wood is dry, but not for long as summer is almost over.

Baking pitta bread in pizza oven

2010-08-15T19:32:00.000-07:00

It happens naturally if you just make a pie without nothing. This is also a base for desert Nuttela pizza. You can put some olive oil if you like, but pitta is not suppose to have it. I think dough for pitta is a bit different, but it should be close to our simple pizza dough, so it some what close and it develops nice pocket all by itself :-) you may flip it to have both sides nicely done.

Rivers of olive oil baked

2010-08-15T19:28:00.001-07:00

This is how it looks out of oven :-)
You can still see a nice color of good olive oil.

Apples and gorgonzola pizza

2010-08-15T19:26:00.000-07:00

Usually we use green sour apples for this one, but a sweet verity worked very nice for a hot summer day :-) fragrant and spicy, do not forget olive oil and some fresh mozzarella of course.

Rivers of virgin olive oil

2010-08-15T19:24:00.001-07:00

We had a nice end of summer pizza party. As usual, I did not skimp on a good olive oil :-) this is my signature of Russian DOC puzzaola :-)

We eat pizza in Tuta Bella again!

2010-05-24T17:31:00.001-07:00

And meanwhile in Italy!!!

Pizza oven from midle ages

2010-05-17T12:54:00.001-07:00

I saw this buity on Cultural Demonstration of midle age culture. They
baked some kind of flat bread, but I am certain this oven can bake
pizza, just like on I build in Japan.

This oven have steel roof and sides: nice touch for durability: it
wraped in firebricks and has some ceramic on top to keep bricks in
place.

As you see, no chimney as well, smoke goes out from the mouth.

Nice!

Pizza outdoor: good run

2010-05-10T16:36:00.000-07:00

Weather was great this week end: so great indeed I could dress and
bake pizza outdoor and we enjoyed it outdoor as well during our lazzy
low key pizza party. Dough was exelent: very stretchy. I had no real
muzarela this time, but made some cool pizzas with eggplants and fish,
as well as kids and girgonzola varaeties. I need to get a lot of dry
wood for summer: my winter stock still a bit wet, but most
importantly, exausted.

Zeeks pizza

2010-05-10T16:31:00.000-07:00

This name does not sound good to me and pizza was so so, but better
than cafeteria. Garlic bread was not so bad
so: I would it if I am hungry

Pizza of the day

2010-02-20T21:52:00.001-08:00

Oven was wet and cold, but we managed to turn about 10 pizzas today.
Here is some of examples:

First fire of 2010

2010-02-20T14:35:00.001-08:00

Pizzeria is open for 2010 beta testers!

Starting making pizza in 2010!

2010-02-20T13:29:00.001-08:00

Today is sunny, not too hot, but we will make pizza. We use a real
Italian flour, see below, to keep it DOC. Btw, this bag of flour is my
birthday present from Pizza Doctor Maestro Mario!

Pizza party at Mario's FIFO bistro

2010-01-26T21:48:00.000-08:00

Today Mario dropped his no-pizza ban. He started to consume it again and we had a pizza party after a long dry spell. While I do not feel like making pizza outside in my backyard, Mario build a very cosy bistro. FIFO bistro, because unlike backyard settings it has a limit on number of guests.

So, it was nice, but short, as it was in mid-week and I had to run back home with kids. No drunk dance on the table and staff.

Mario was teaching, but he managed to make a lot of pizzas himself. This is his latest invention: half pizza half calzone: Pizalsone. :-)

While I do not eat meat, I think it looks very sexy: I could not resist but "lift" Pizalsone lips while taking a picture so you can see a beautiful pink inside :-) (my gustro-sexual sense of humor again)

Bravo maestro. Mario! Great Success!

Alexander Valley Cabarnet Savingnin 2006 Kirkland : from Costco review

2010-01-23T17:53:00.001-08:00

It is no secret that Costco's Kirkland brand is a quality one. While
Pasific Norwest is washed in quality local, Californian and import
wine, picking one is a chalange. I love local Red Diamond, it is very
fruity one, but in a good way. I picked Kirkland out of curiosity. A
few days ago I opened it up. I am not a wine snob by any mean, I just
like wine that taste good to me: that means red, rich wine, bitter not
too sweet or sour and with aroma of oak. I like simple flavour and can
enjoy some fruity notes. I like it balanced and nice after taste. Just
like beer I like my wine smooth and some times enjoy chilly red wine,
while it may not be an ortodox thing, but my wine should taste good
cold. Naturaly, not every wine will match with me and I can reject
even aclimed vintadge in favor of cheap local one.

OK, so Kirkland Cabarnet is a wine I like. It can be enjoed over week,
and tolerated my refrigerator well with rubber vacume stope without
loosing flavour.

It is not fruity, but had nice oak aroma: no wonder, they call it
master cask series X, 20 month in American oak.

It should tolerate up to 2012 acirding to the label.

Bottom line: I realy enjoy this wine with rustic baget and Italian
olive oil: simple life plesures :-)

Highly recomended.

Cold weather, sun and pizza oven closed for winter

2009-12-27T11:13:00.001-08:00

It is cold outside and pizza season is over. But eventually, weather looks nice: sun is out now. Clear sky make air even colder over here: cloudy days are usually warmer. My pizza oven is under cover and we did not bake pizza for a while. It is a bit cold outside for parties and I do not have pizza bistro like Don Mario. Here is how my oven looks now:

This is what happens over time: I was making pizza under snow and in Japanese winter, but now I am slacking, even so I could probably bake a pie :-)

Microsoft Pizza

2009-10-26T11:52:00.000-07:00

Programers love pizza and coke. One may wonder what kind of pizza is served in Microsoft cafeteria?

Well, it is a standard, fat dripping pizza Americana. You can pick one with "pepperoni" if you want to consume even more junk.

It is not even a remote relative to Italian DOC pizza, but it taste good for all junk food eaters.

Tip: you can wipe extra fat from top with napkin and take Diet Coke to feel better inside: American diet. :-)
Do not forget to take two slices while you at it so!

Bon Apetito!

What is Baumkuchen and how to make one at home

2009-10-09T10:54:00.000-07:00

Take a look what Japanese made out of German desert: Baumkuchen from Villon
Is not this just amazing?

No wonder Japanese like layers: they have a very yammy scrambled egg, that is baked just like that, but flat.

This is an idea that Baumkuchen use to make it at home. Not every body have a "vertical Shvarma" device needed for a round cake.

Here is a link on how people do it. Try :-) Here is link

And if you want to go all NINE YARDS, you can probably get the machine :-) ( here is a link from this post comments )

THE MACHINE

Pizza party for two

2009-09-20T13:14:00.000-07:00

Weather was kind of NW typical weekend weather: sun & rain.

Maestro Mario moved his party to Sunday and we was not planing to have a grande party: I made rice and miso soup, but, sun shine for a moment convinced me that we can rock and roll. So I asked my dear to make a dough.

Granted, when I started to bake pizza, rain started to drizzle. Luckily, it was not a strong rain, so I could bake a lot of pizza for just a few guest: Mario managed to come over.

I think pizza turned out OK.

I even made on SUPER HOT PIZZA for Maya.

Here is a recipe for Super Hot Chines Pizza by me :-)

1) Roll out a pizza base
2) Put Thailand hot paste instead of tomato souse
3) Dress it with Mexican fire baked papers.
4) Add some smoked Tempei - yam yam
5) Sparkel with Blue Cheese
6) Some olive oil on top.
7) Bake to perfection
8) Presto ! ( I wrapped it in foil for Maya)

And finally, as usual, last pizza is Nutela pizza. I made a square one :-) for a change. Everybody like it.
( Just bake a crust without anything and dress it with Nutela). Mario some times bake it with Nutela on, but I do not like it,
it burnes Nutela. Also, you can put some olive oil on crust, but I think, the best is just bake pie without anything: like a Pita bread and put Nutela on top. Eat hot!.

Build pizza oven a Lifehacker way!

2009-08-14T10:07:00.000-07:00

Here is how

This looks very cool and while does not look like a "correct oven", they claim

"despite concern that it might not hold up to repeated use, the basic clay bricks and Portland cement held up perfectly. The original oven was built almost 20 years ago, and is still in service."

WOW ! This is amazing.

I never used a regular bricks for my oven internals. Even my Japanese "temporary" oven has firebricks inside.

I also always use some kind of insulation. Temporary oven has a light bricks around and they helped to keep heat inside.

My backyard oven has a TONS of insulation. First it has a Italian "fire mold" inside. There are A LOT of fiber and reflective insulation around it. Finally, it has a regular red bricks around. This mainly protect oven from elements and for decorations ( I did a sloppy job in a harry and it looks a bit rustic compare to the on on link)

But make no mistake: I put FUNCTION over look ( even so I LOVE a good look very much).

One more advice: make sure you have ENOUGH room inside your oven. You need room for wood and you need room for pizza and you need some space. While oven may look balky outside, make sure it is big inside.

My backyard oven is probably the smallest oven you should build. Smaller than that is very hard for regular use. You can find a dimensions on my blog below.

Friday Night pizza party

2009-08-08T11:20:00.001-07:00

I run one to try it out. Here is report.

1) I was able to make a dough all by myself - just like in old times and timing was good.
2) party was some how less fun for a number of reasons: it is harder to unwind when you run a big party all by yourself. Need to attend to kids and adults alike and run oven and pizza is a lot of work and no time to rest my ass, that got a bit tired in the evening ;-)
3) pizza was good and fire at night was romantic and overall it was good party

Why the front of my oven is black?

2009-07-17T10:18:00.000-07:00

Right now my chimney looks different. It was redesigned. I use a barbeque starter from Home Deport. Stole the idea from master Mario. :-) I cover it with a ceramic tile, as I do not have roof, when not in use. I try not to forget to remove it before starting fire or I will get smoke in the face.

We have a lot of rain here and some times I even bake pizza when weather is far from perfect. Summers are good so.

As for black part: all wood burning ovens I saw have this. I believe it mostly happens when I start the fire: first there is no air flow yet trough the chimney and second I put wood very close to the mouth ( and under the chimney). So, when a with a still wet wood and no established fire and flow there are a lot of "fat" smoke. That make this black thing.

After fire is established and I move it to the back of the oven, there is virtually no smoke and you can even see "afterburner" fire going from the chimney if you load too much wood at once. :-) Dig in my blog, I should have some SPECTACULAR picture of "firing" chimney at night: it looks very surrealistic :-)

Talking about oven: this one use "Italian heart", special mold and it come with some steel chimney. So what you see outside is just mainly a decorations, that play a very small role in performance. They only thing about chimeny, is not make it too long or it will draw hot air and insulation of the oven is also a very important thing. If oven is not hot enough it will not bake a proper pizza and in cold weather it is very hard to keep a small oven hot.

So how big or tall the chimney is and if it "covered" with roof all have to be tried and tested, to get results you like. The key point is not have a chimney that sucks all hot air out and does not allow any smoke from front ( that may be very important for indoor - smoke can be nasty and very dangerous and if you ask me, I do not even fire my fireplace anymore; even the best design let smoke into the house if you use wood (gas do not have that problem). What you want to check if how good oven work when fire is established ( 30min-60min) and if temperature not dropping rapidly when oven is "ready".

If you see that fire is not burning right you need a bigger and taller chimney. If oven loosing heat and pizza can not be properly baked in 90 sec without burning ( fire should be calmer when you bake, just to maintain the heat) you need to reduce the flow.

Note, that door or "mouth" is used for air / heat control a lot. When you start the fire, it is wide open, hence this black on front. When fire is going up, you half close it, but you should still let air in, or oven will chock. :)

What I like to do for my oven: I have unusually big front table ( that I like a lot ) I put a door parallel to the mouth but about 5 inches from it. That reflects heat back to the oven, but air can still get from sides. With other models you may half close or put door at an angle to achieve same results.

Hope this helps :-)

Chinese brown sugar Orange Bols ice cream with Belgian chocolad and rum candyed zest

2009-07-12T22:53:00.000-07:00

I was fantasizing about some cool taste to make ice cream for the party. After crazy Fireworks ice cream I made on 4 of July I was ready to a chalange.

I started with standard half-and-half milk and egg yolks custurd but used Blue Agave Syrup instead of sugar. In separate utensils I mixed Chinese brown sugar, that have to be dissolved from bricks and some Orange Bols liqueur with some Dark Rum and orange skin shavings and almost caramelized it on fire adding some pectin to the mix as well. I mixed it with custard and let orange skin shavings dry. Icecream maker did the job and I loaded chopped shavings and shredef chocolate to finish.

Result tastes nice, like Italian gelato, but with reach flavor twist and orange aroma. Chocolate and orange skins caramels adds some chewy surprise to otherwise very smooth texture.

I think it was (we finished it already - that say for itself) a nice and intriguing ice cream, definitely not boring and not one you can find on shelf in store :-)

HotTop Roaster ROCKS!

2009-07-11T17:16:00.000-07:00

Well, how I start? I was roasting coffee for a few years. I got spoiled by fresh roast. Home roasting technology is a bit tricky so. You can get a nice grinder and nice espresso machine, but getting a nice home roaster is a challenge. I started with FreshRoast 8 that is essentially a specialized hot air popper :-) It has a strong points so: very simple and produce a nice and vibrant hot air roast. It is very cheap as well, so no brainer. It has a weak points and there are many. First it is not consistent. Second it depends on weather so much I stop roasting when whether is too cold: smoke banned it from indoors. Last issue is plastic body: it started to crumble after a few years: this is actually a very minor issue: I would readily buy a new one, as it did it job well for a few years and need zero parts or maintenance: like there is no filter to change. But I wanted some thing better. I did research again and while there are a new contenders like Behmor 1600, it looks like HotTop is the only roaster that will fit the bill for me: it is most expensive from the home line too. I prefer to buy pro-sumer equipment for a number of reasons and HotTop is very close to this category, but it can only do 1/2 lb - perfect size for me so. (FreshRoast was a bit too small). Anyway... HotTop is pricy and they have two models, with more expensive is not 100% superior to least expensive one. The only difference is in controller and while basic model allows you to change curve on the fly and save, top model allows to make a graphic profile and run it. It seems that you can not be as flexible as you are with basic, but basic only have 3 profiles to save vs 10 and no graphic UI. Anyway, I made my mind on basic model for more control that come with it and while controller can be swapped I knew I will not do it and will stick with just one I buy. All this considerations and thoughts about 1Lb capable Behmore (that may be problematic for small beans and hard to roast dark without making fire) made me forget about plan to upgrade and I also run out of green coffee and as much shame as it is to admit, switched to my lazy winter mode and Costco roasted beans.

But lo and behold! The Super Maya, the only person on my pizza parties who ever questioned my coffee and spend a few hours trying to teach my grinder and machine to "make it better" came to rescue and I was saved from my junk consumers coffee slumber. I think my coffee was kind of OK and to liking of my pizza party guests. It had enough kick for me, to wake me up. I know it is not a compliment, because most people like their coffee just like Mr. Wolf from Pulp Fiction: "more cream, more sugar". But I do love a reach taste of fresh roast, that no store coffee can match :-)

So, I was lucky to be shaken up and I also got a great deal from Maya's friend, that is a separate story altogether! Despite my original plan to get HotTop with a "smart controller" and do "curves" and "profiles", price was to hard to resist and I knew I am lazy and if coffee is fresh and nice I would enjoy it. I been told that this "manual" model does a nice and consistent roast and this is all I need, actually. Great beans from SweetMarias and 1/2 lb roaster is perfect combination for a great espresso. I would tell you more: I am lazy with beans too: I do get samplers and "workshops" once in a while, but I mostly buy two of my favorite espresso mixes: I know how they taste and I like it :-)

Anyway, if I knew how cool HotTop was I would get it much much earlier, before my FreshRoast 8 started to disintegrate.

Here is a video of first roast

Compare to hot air, it is very slow. It feels solid : made from steel and it hot. Like REALY hot. Like a hot iron. I been told, but I had to try it with my finger soaked in salvia. wow! Yeah! :-)

Seeing it working was impressive. I do not have any feel for it yet, but what it did on full automatic roasting, was great!

Now, here is a first shot coming down: NICE!!!

Btw, Maya would comment that there is no "oil", but I tasted beans and it was just right. Crispy and reach after taste. I think what make it roaster unique is it drop feature. It is super cool that it drops beans and cool it down outside.

Now, Maya was a bit snobbish about coffee, so I suspected it was not without a reason. When I saw her friend I understood why. While I am proud of my Expobar, this dude beat me to dust. He is a really SERIOSE about his coffee as he pointed out. Now I know where Maya picked this up :-) He got a HUGE two head PRO machine that seems too much for a house. Not only temperature and pressure can be adjusted and monitored by controller, but it can be done independently for each head. WOW!

This is impressive. His machine is definitely bigger. Now ... the only way to get even is to invite him to pizza party and show my oven. It is probably bigger than his machine, but mind you... just a little bigger. His machine is HUGE :)

A lot of thanks to Maya and Pier for waking me up and providing me with this great roaster we all going to enjoy.

Now, I just need Maya to teach me coffee art: I got a pitcher just for that :-)

Enjoy your coffee.

No, I did not beat the Master

2009-06-21T21:22:00.000-07:00

I wad reviving my old photos and I saw Mario pulling this trick: this
is a one HUGE hole! My pizza defloration attempts you saw is all but a
kids play:-( I have go back and practise, practise, practise !!!

Great pizza party today!

2009-06-13T22:54:00.000-07:00

Today we had B-D related pizza party event for friends. Only few came, but it was fun and weather kicked ass.
Thanks to Peter: Austrian Bruno, we managed to finish a 5 Liter beer keg I bough for event: I could not finish it without you Peter :-)

Here is some pizza p0rn :-)

Dough was a bit strange today; we started it around 8 am and pizza baked from about 3 PM, so it was not starching good and was backing up both on table and in oven: probably too much gluten and tired east. It was OK, but we should make dough right before baking: summer time is hot and few hours should be good enough.

Maya made some coffee art :-)

Baking pizza in my wood burning oven

2009-06-03T08:58:00.000-07:00

This is a nice dry wood from Chery tree: it burns hot and nice.

Pizza with love

2009-06-03T08:57:00.001-07:00

I made a quick pizza dinner and this is on the pizzas:-)

Stocked up on some wood

2009-05-30T18:54:00.000-07:00

Some pizza we had tody

2009-05-23T23:20:00.000-07:00

OK, OK, OK. No picture, never happened.

So I snapped just to prove we had a PIZZA party indeed today :-)

Enjoy! This one is a Classic DOC pizza of course ( and I tried not to put too much olive oil this time )

Here is a pizza made by my guest. It is sun dry tomatoes, some blue cheese and mozarela bufala. A nice combination.

It was very very yammy pizzas today !

How I toss, spin and EVENTUALLY punktured pizza pie

2009-05-23T23:13:00.000-07:00

Yes, today I had a lot of dough and just one visiting family for my pizza party. Weather was absolutely fantastic and we had grilled salmon and other foods and eventually pizza. Business as usual. But ... dough was EXCEPTIONALLY good, thanks to my dear and I had some extra balls, so, why not to play some games? So I did. I liked it and after I had enough fun I baked it and called it a desert ( I put Nutella over after baking).

See for yourself

I made this clip for Mario :-)

Here is some pix of this unusual pizza :-)

Before baking:

After baking ( but before dressing with Nutela spread)

Tell me, what do you think it looks like? ;-)

How a REAL PRO toss pizza

2009-05-23T23:12:00.001-07:00

See kids how it is done by REAL PRO!

Where to get bricks for pizza oven

2009-05-08T10:34:00.000-07:00

I forgot to mention that I got my bricks in

Mutual Materials

You can find location close to you house using their web site. They may-have different things in different locations and open hours may not be the same.

MM have pavers, blocks, red bricks , fire bricks and both regular mortar and refractory one you may need for fire bricks ( yes, regular mortar will not hold and crumble in fire).

Please pay attention that refractory mortar mix may be water solvable or water proof: check this if you do not have rain protection and say want to build a chimney.

These are locations close to Redmond.

Note, you may be able to get red bricks in Home Deport, but make sure you get a build quality. If you oven is small you may not be needing codes (do check with your local authorities), but you should make sure you build oven strong enough: you do not want it collapse or melt away, so check what "type" of blocks or bricks you buy : is it outdoor or not? Is it UNDER or OVER ground ? Is it strong (wall bricks) or just crumbling pawers?

If you buy in "professional place" like Mutual Materials, they can tell you that: they may be not so friendly with non-contractor (hobbyist like you or me), but they know their shit, unlike friendly but "without much clue" Home Deport employes (as a rule).

One more VERY important thing: BRICKS and CEMENT MIX (and all freaking build materials in general) are HEAVY AS HELL.

So,

1) You need all help you can get.

2) You need protection : gloves, boots, glasses and may be a belt.

3) You will need to get TRACK: you should not try move more than about 50 bricks or couple bags of mortar in your regular car.

4) Take your time, do not rush and prepare your work place first. Rain protect it BEFORE you buy. Do not take more bricks or bags than you can safely lift!

5) Have fun and enjoy! Bricks are fun: it is like LEGO for grown up! :-)

Making pizza snake

2009-04-28T10:46:00.000-07:00

Mario is a great inventor of all times. When he is not hungry any more for DOC pizza his mind goes wild and his restless hands produce all kind of pizza art. Here is a picture of his latest invention: "staffed snake pizza". It is more like of "long callsone" I think.

While posing, Mario managed to DROP the staffed snake on the ground making it look like a real one: dusty! Great job, Maestro Mario!!! You rocks!

Pizza tossing art unlocks secrets of tiny motors

2009-04-28T10:39:00.000-07:00

Yes, this is very cool. Read about it here.

You can also watch Mario doing it during our last party: He is a pro!

Here is a secret of pizza tossing:

"In brief, if you toss a pizza dough one toss at a time -- that is, if you toss then catch -- your hands should move in a helical fashion, like they are moving along a spiral, a curved line laid along a cylinder," Associate Professor Friend said.

"If you are tossing the pizza continuously, not stopping to catch it and stop every time, then your hands should move in circles."

Pizza and bread in Mario's place

2009-04-15T21:41:00.000-07:00

if not Facebook on iPhone I may not eat a nice pizza that week end. :-)

Thanks to Mario post: "Walk-in's welcome" I did just that.

We had a great time, joking about "big jags" of his new girl friend and other boy staff.

We manage to make some pizza, but I some how lost the touch for a HUGE pill Mario have.

I got used to my mini-pill ( and can operate it even when drunk ), but I lost a confidence with huge and heavy one
Mario have, so I had to cheat some times and help pizza on with my hands. Shame :-)

Still, oven was hot and nice and dough was Mario made ( he lost Natasha's hands in this department and he have to
re-learn the trade) ;-) Anyhow, dough was nice.

Here are some pizza pictures ( deformed by my pill cheating )

Mario was brave and he fired both of his ovens. Second one was priming for bread! Nice! I had to go, so I could not see bread baking, but here is a pictures of it before. Note: oven should be much colder compare to pizza and all coils removed ( no red or fire - it will burn bread).

Yeah... that was nice, small party:-)

Thank you Don Mario!

Viva la Pizza!

Pizza X Prize fund is about to send DOC pizza to space

2009-04-01T13:34:00.000-07:00

"This is a small pizza for one oven, but a huge step for a humanity."
(Mario, co-founder)

"Yo!Beam me up, Scotty!""
(Vadim, founder)

PizzaXPrize fund is here to send pizza to space!

Here is a mission statement:

"Our mission is to deliver a real Italian D.O.C. pizza to space. We aim for the low Earth orbit first and will deliver pizza to ISS. Our next step will be the Moon. We will go on and will deliver a fresh, hot, pizza pie to other Premium Solar System destinations and beyond, as technology advances. Beam me up, Scotty!"

How to make home Sauerkraut ( pickled cabbage )

2009-03-27T19:54:00.000-07:00

In Russia we call it 'kislaia kapusta' that translates to soure or
pickled cabbage. It is great to reduce hangover after pizza party and
helps to restore and mantain a good germs or microflora in your
belly: preparing it for next pizza party.

It is super easy to make and the only bummer is that it takes a few
days, while disapears very fast: so start a new batch when you unload
first to the refrigirator.

I started to make pikles again after huge inspiration I got from
pickling bible: Wild Fermentation - absolutely FANTASTIC book ( just get it if you like pickles ! )

Here is how I make it:

1. Wash and cut a nice juice cabbage
2. Shred some carrot
3. Sprinkle with salt( one without iod is best for pickles)
4. Use you hands to squise and mix it all in a bowl.
5. Staff it in some glass container
6. Put some plate on top and weight it so it will squise juice
7. Press on weight once in a while to add presure: juice should apper
and cover top
8. Cover it with some light towel.
9. In a few days it is ready: transfer it to some glass container and
put to frizer and enjoy: use you taste to find out when it is soure
enough.

Tips:
1) you can put some cabbage from previose batch on top: to introduce
the calture and make fermentation faster
2) add garlic one paprika if you like kimchi
3) other Vegies and even apple can be added
4) if cabbage will not produce juice after a day it is not good, but
try to add water with salt
5) use as much salt as you like but not much

Enjoy!!!

German spring pizza

2009-03-22T13:06:00.000-07:00

This pizza was done per Rita request. It has a tomato souse base, red
and yellow bell papers, anchovi and green scalions. I dressed it with
some Mozarela Bufala and Italian olive oil. It looks very happy and
springy: this is Eqiniox pizza party, ya! Chears!

Japanese pizza commercial

2009-03-19T12:19:00.002-07:00

I would say it is very ... dramatic :-) commercial and I think we should record one of our own :)

We like to party, party

2009-03-11T18:25:00.000-07:00

Moto Moto in the house. Last Satarday we had a party. It was a fight
with weather, all without Mario, that slucked in warmer place. I
managed to bake about 10 diferent pizzas: guests were happy with
results.

Snow: no pizza today

2009-02-26T10:09:00.000-08:00

Yeah it is wet snow: we can probably snowboard over oven, but I doubt
fire will catch up in such conditions;-)

Pizza from Antarctica

2009-02-08T13:59:00.000-08:00

It was wet and cold despite a good weather. Mario worked extra shifts
with shovel moving coals in and out. We managed to bake 10 pizzas ,
but it was a slow start: we had feed from grill and salad bar first.
Overall, party itself was crowded and a lot of fun. I even got drunk
despite that I was not intended to and started to play air guitar and
swing my hair in my kilt with Korn music in background. I was already
warmed up after karuoki session with 'O Sole Mia' that Mario and
others orcestrated very well. Great Success!

Pizza Party

2009-02-03T15:49:00.001-08:00

This Saturday, 7 of February, we will have a party. Hopefully a pizza party. We need sun and nice weather as we have it today.

Weather forecast is still ON ( but surrounded with two days of rain!)

Party starts at noon ( 12:00 ) - it is still dark early.

As usual, rules are simple: no street shoes in the house. :-) ( Japanese rule)

I will provide core ingredients and then some, but if you want to bring some thing special for you pizza or to make party "merry" you are welcome.

If you love my oven "Perestroika" you know what to bring to make it happy : round of seasoned wood ( easy to get in this cold season in almost any food store) it is balky item and I am glad when I can get it with guests ( oven is hungry for wood, especially when it is cold outside)

All friends are welcome!

If you can, please shoot me e-mail ( RSVP) so we know how much dough to make.

Come and let's have fun!

Pizza delivery business : difficulties of competition

2009-01-21T16:07:00.000-08:00

Pizzeria Piano in Nara ( Japan ) - revisited

2009-01-21T11:27:00.000-08:00

If you remember I spotted this place two years ago, but we did not eat there.
Here is a link ( in Japanese) to Piano

The place is very interesting and they use a correct Italian ingredients, as I saw, but pizza is lucking...

They have a very strange "split" between menu on first and second level it and menu itself is small. They also run out of ice cream flavors: like duh... It is Japan and super easy to get/make ( it takes me 30 minute to make a fresh ice cream from scratch).

Anyway, pizza looks more like it should be, but it does not seems/taste right. They also put too much cheese I think and some how crust turns out too soft. Oven also burns pie kind of uniformly ... but ... it does not look ... happy ?

Bottom line ?

This place and pizza luck "love" or "soul", may be, despite all efforts. I guess they picked up some of Italian "technology" but failed to contract any of Italian "spirit" :(

Cool song and video about Pizza Party by Wired Al Yankovic

2009-01-12T17:41:00.001-08:00

Smoked staff

2009-01-10T18:39:00.001-08:00

Before I went to Japan I borrowed a cool vacume packing gadget from my
friend. I used it on my smoked fish and cheese so I can take it with
me on the plane to Japan.I got carried on and packed local gifts as
well. This gadgets sucks! I mean air as it suppose to:-) and seal
these spesial type of bags it work with. I have to report that all
people who got my smoked gifts, both localy and in Japan were
pleased ... And most importantly:-) still alive ! Good job, vacume
packer!

This is Cnappe!

2009-01-10T16:19:00.001-08:00

I made it to put next to my bread sushi so people make no mistake :-)

Bread Box Sushi

2009-01-10T16:18:00.001-08:00

My last Japanese invention, inspired by Hako sushi in Kyoto: rice
replaced with bread soaked in sushi vinegar mix and same procces as
sushi is used: wasaby stick fish to base. You can deep it in soy
souce , but gently, bread get saturated easly as it much more spongy.
Japanese relatives liked the idea, after I spent some time explaning
that it is NOT a cnappe!

Japanese pizaola in training

2009-01-10T00:23:00.001-08:00

I tried to pass my pizza love and skilz over to some of the guests as
I alwas do on my pizza parties :-)

Thanks to my pizza sensei Mario for teaching me this art: I am still
on a long jurney to perfection ( kazen) but he blessed me with his
Italian pizza wisdoms!

It is fun!

Oven waits for next pizza

2009-01-10T00:19:00.001-08:00

As I said I close the door when pizza is ready. Pay attantion on the
tool I made from some very old metal disk( probably come from Samurai
costume). I can nor close door in my big oven: it is air tight and
will chock, but this one is just fine: also door is not vertical, but
closed in tilt: that aloe air in. Chimney is not working as good: too
many hols without concreat , but oven works great and it price and
build time is simply unmatched: this is probably one of the quickest
and less expensive ways to enjoy a real Italian pizza pie in your back
yard: catch you do need at least 23 or so fire bricks: the floor is 6
bricks size: probably as small as it can be. I would make it bigger of
cource, if I only had more bricks or time to order ;-)

Japanese DOC pizza

2009-01-10T00:12:00.000-08:00

It is super small so hard to make a perfect shape . No right tools :
improvised, but I use Italian tomatos and Mozarela freska, as well
Italian super virgin first cold press oil. Flour is Japanese :-( not
bad so and yeast is from France! My wife made the dough using super
secret recepy from Esposito familia:-) she did a realy nice job as
usual, despite luck of dough mixer here : she worked hard with her
hands. As you can see pizza turned out nice: dough was easy to stratch
and it buble in oven: so temperature is about right. I also managed
not to burn it to much: tricky in super small chamber with improvised
tools.

I made a lot of mini pizzas: guests liked it and we had a nice
Japanese pizza party with good Italian chianti.

Yammy!

Another shot

2009-01-10T00:05:00.003-08:00

Of oven baking pizza.

Mini mini Japanese pizza

2009-01-10T00:05:00.001-08:00

I used spesial breathing design so oven can operate with door closed:
that alow me to bring bricks to white - right temperature( after they
black and warm up they became white again). I open door to cock pizza
and close it again to keep this super small oven hot for next. I add
wood and clean bricks as needed .

Baby is born!

2009-01-10T00:00:00.001-08:00

It is my oven #3! I named it 'sun-sun' or you can call it 'sun-suma'
to be even more polite:-) now let's make some pizza !

Oven is ready!

2009-01-09T23:58:00.001-08:00

It is done and fire started!

My Japanese pizza oven #3

2009-01-09T23:57:00.001-08:00

I started to build it and made it tall and tried to make internal
chamber as big as I can with few bricks I have: no more firebricks in
store and not enough time to order.

Here was my first oven

2009-01-09T23:55:00.001-08:00

It is down and in bricks form again: my LEGO pizza oven: I am going to
build a better one just behind the corner.

My first pizza oven in Japan

2009-01-09T23:51:00.000-08:00

After two years I am back to Kyoto and my oven survived :-) A few
internal blocks were removed for other projects but it looked OK from
outside. I have to move it to a new location so...

Oven under snow

2008-12-18T08:28:00.000-08:00

This is that time of year ... Again:-)

No pizza party today !

Cold weather pizza

2008-11-28T12:41:00.000-08:00

As you can see, pie turns almost all right, but it was not bubling,
like in better weather: I was not able to crank my oven up.

Starting wood burning oven in cold and wet weather

2008-11-25T22:35:00.000-08:00

Yes, season is over, but when there is no rain over week end , public
demand pizza.

To start the fire more efforts is needed: use driest wood you got to
start and split it thin. I even use light fluid when wood is realy wet.

To keep fire, paradoxsicaly you need to open more than in warm
weather: even so heat will escape, but wet wood needs more air to
realease smoke. If you close the door even half way , oven may chock.

Take more time and work hard: it is still posiable !

I did it last week end: next post will show some pizza and smoked fish
I made!

Pizza enthusiasts on YouTube

2008-11-13T23:18:00.002-08:00

Ever wondered how much people share your love for real pizza?

Watch the latest videos on YouTube.com

ooppps.... Have to fix the search query :)

Japanese squids guts pizza

2008-10-26T09:47:00.000-07:00

This pizza has Mayonese base and preserved squids guts from Uwajimaya.
Some onions and shoped scalions. It taste a bit like pizza with
anchovy : nice Japanese invention.

Pizza oven X-files

2008-09-29T16:58:00.000-07:00

The truth is out there ...

More staff pizza

2008-09-28T18:33:00.000-07:00

This pizza comes with more staff: more things to entertain your taste
buds. Enjoy!

A Truly Japanese tasting pizza by chef Miuki-san

2008-09-01T13:44:00.000-07:00

Japanese people like international food a lot, but they are famous for national customizations. Japanese rendition of Italian food is kind of OK (safe to eat when you are in Japan), but Japanese pizza is not what you may think ( will break when you lift a slice). I can not duplicate Japanese crust (or do not want to) - it made from frozen pastry disks stacked one on top of another, but visiting Japanese chef : Miuki-san ( you may see her on Iron chef competitions on TV) agreed to use DOC crust to create a Italian-Japanese hybrid of pizza :-)

What makes pizza taste "Japanese" is of course "special ingredients" :-) : you need to use potatoes, corn and mayonnaise as well as teriyaki sauce :-) All that combined has a lots of calories, but tastes just right to the average Japanese person. :-)

Watch this video if you dare to duplicate our culinary experiment :

Japanese Salad pizza

2008-08-29T07:22:00.000-07:00

This is not a vegetarian pizza , but you can make it so: just bake pie
with souce only and then dress it up. Do not forget to top with good
olive oil ( trufel infused been used here) and sprinkle with aged
Parmesan . Bon Apetito!

Here is a video if you want to try

My tomatoes are red

2008-08-17T16:03:00.001-07:00

Finaly, my green tomatos rippened and are ready to go! We eat a few and it is so sweet and fresh: much better than ones we get in store! Next year I should plant more and try to make a pizza souce from fresh tomatoes!

Working on the new fire proof chimney

2008-07-28T17:19:00.000-07:00

I liked my red brick design a lot, but fire bricks may be a better
idea for a long term. Here is a new design I am testing with oven. I
think it is not open enough. I may need add extra holes.

My oven stamps

2008-07-25T12:40:00.000-07:00

Now I stamp my gift pizzas : ones I wrap for guests in aluminium foil
and paper;-) such pizzas are still OK to eat next day or can be
frozen. It is nothing like fresh hot pie, but a nice kind of bread
anyway. Thank to my dear wife I have a personal cool stamps and red
ink pad;-) Cool!

Pizza hot from oven

2008-06-30T15:36:00.000-07:00

90 or so seconds latter : yammy hot DOC pizza! Cut!!!!!