The Wood-Fired Blog
Seasoned. Or Aged.
May 02, 2012Writing about seasoned wood got me thinking about the Italian and English words for aging, or seasoning. Italian uses stagionato for cheeses—seasoned. A quattro stagioni pizza is a four season pizza, with olives, artichokes, mushrooms and ham. This list of toppings comes from our friend in Florence, Kyle Phillips, the Italian food editor for About.com. Photo from The Italian Dish Blog. On the other hand, in English, we use aged... Read More
Proper Seasoning. Seasoned Wood That Is.
May 02, 2012I don’t think you can overstate just how important dry wood is to an enjoyable session of wood-fired cooking. Damp wood is hard (dare I say impossible) to light, it smokes when it burns (that’s because the fire needs to bake all the moisture out of the wood before it actually combusts) and it takes much longer to fire your oven for cooking. It can take all of the fun... Read More
The Napoli — Pizza Napoletana Made Simple
May 01, 2012I’ve thinking about simplicity recently. When done right, a simple product can make your life easier, maybe a little better; it can solve problems; and it can free you up to think about what you want to do—not the device you use to do it. A simple product can be relaxing to look at and a joy to use. A simple product makes innovative design, craftsmanship and sophisticated technology feel... Read More
Pizza and Food Trucks
Apr 27, 2012There was a nice article on a Food Truck with a Forno Bravo oven the other day, it is got me thinking about Food Trucks, pizza, France, rolling pins and the feudal system. Pizza Amore Food trucks are hot. The best foot truck companies have loyal customers who track their movements on Twitter and follow them where ever they go. There are food truck maps on the Web that will... Read More
Pain Pascale
Apr 24, 2012We are lucky to live within a few miles of the Trader Joe’s in Pacific Grove, CA. I really don’t know what we would do without it, as I often (and only somewhat jokingly) think our local Supermarket (Save Mart) is out to kill its patrons with artificial additives, preservatives and partially hydrogenated oils. Our favorite markets in Florence were the Co-op on Viale Europa, which is a wonderful big... Read More
A Red Andiamo70 in Action
Apr 24, 2012Check out a fun customer posting on his new, red Andiamo70 in www.pizzamaking.com. If you haven’t read it before, pizzamaking.com is an enthusiast web site dedicated to high-end pizza making. We do not read the site, because I think that pizza lovers should be able to enjoy their hobby without any input (or selling) from equipment manufacturers, but I got this link from a friend. I think this is interesting... Read More
Olive oil and bread at the San Francisco Ferry Building
Apr 22, 2012We went to the San Francisco Farmers’ Market at the Ferry Building this weekend, and had a good time. It was a balmy, sunny day with the temperature hitting 79ºF (hot weather seems to be following me), and it was nice walking down around the city—we also have fun taking BART across town at one point. The market at the Ferry Building is an interesting cross between a traditional farmers’... Read More
How Do You Price a Pizza Oven?
Apr 13, 2012As a manufacturer and retailer, how do we price your products? It’s an interesting question and there are a number of different issues that come into play. As I wrote earlier, I believe that a higher degree of business transparency is an appropriate strategy in the Internet age, and it occurred to me that sharing our pricing strategy would make sense—both for us and for our customers. If you have... Read More
New Third Generation FB Castable
Apr 12, 2012This is the original version of the article I wrote on the new third-generation FB Castable. A shorter version of this appeared in the March 2012 Wood-Fired Newsletter. James We have developed a great deal of expertise at Forno Bravo over the years with refractory materials and insulators, and we have worked hard to continually improve. We are proud to introduce the third generation of FB Castable, the material we... Read More
