Pie Under The Open Sky

Tired: firing up the grill and having a few friends over for a boring, predictable cookout with hotdogs and hamburgers.

Wired: firing up the Pizzeria Pronto outdoor pizza oven to have a pizza cookout in the backyard!

(Although, to be clear, this thing is not wired. It’s portable and cooks with propane.)

Or, hell, why not both? Seriously, imagine if you went to someone’s house in the summer to have a deck dinner and they were like, “We’ve got chicken, burgers, brats, or white pizza with guanciale and ricotta?” You’d be like, “Wait, what? Did I take a wrong turn and pull into some weird midwestern buffet where they have sushi next to Swedish meatballs and popcorn chicken?!?”

Here’s the thing: pizza is always good. You can use some ancient dough recipe found chalked onto the wall of the first pizzeria in Naples. You can grind your own sausage with your proprietary fat to meat ratio and herb blend. You can grow your own heirloom tomatoes and stew them into a delicious fresh sauce, then top it with a blend of local cheeses. Or you can buy some dough at Trader Joe’s, crack open a jar of sauce, layer on some bagged mozz, and shingle the top with Hormel pepperonis. And you know what? Both of those pizzas are gonna hit the spot.

Me, personally, I split the difference, using a hand-me-down bread machine to make a simple dough the night before. It’s, like, four ingredients, and it stretches easily (assuming you give it time to come to room temperature), rises nicely, and tastes great.

Point is: high-brow, low-brow, middle-brow, it’s all possible. And, also, once the components are ready, it bakes quickly.

Especially in this thing. You’re looking at a cook time of about 5 minutes for up to 14” pizzas. That’s because it can get hot. Like, real hot. Which does mean you might end up with a bit of char on the crust. But trust us, it’s still great. (Some might even argue the char is part of the reason it’s great.)

The only problem? Practicality. Like, seriously, 300 bucks for a thing that only makes pizzas? Can you really justify that? Maybe. Maybe not. Which is why it’s a good thing we’re selling it (with a peel and a brush) for 140.

So, c’mon! Get one! It’ll be fun!