When I put out a call for people to be featured in the My Pizza Oven series, I never thought I'd get a response from someone who lived a mile away from me in Brooklyn. I mean, it's New York City--not that many people have their own yards here, and of those who do, how many are crazy* enough to put in a backyard pizza oven? Nice to see an oven grow here. --The Mgmt. Mark Wilkie's oven--just finished over the weekend. [Photographs: Mark Wilkie] You put a pizza oven in the garden of your Brooklyn home. First question, then:... More

Last week I blogged up Steve O.'s backyard pizza oven in Wisconsin, asking at the end of that post for photos and stories from any other home-based pizza-makers. Not more than nine hours later, Nick Gladdis's email came in: Adam,I'll bite. Here are some shots of an oven my wife, Robin, and I built, completely, over the course of eight months in 2008. And for the weenies who say they can't, I'm 65 years old. Best thing we ever did, and it complements our olive farm (10 acres with six planted in just less than 1,900 trees). All this... More

Earlier this week, the blog Eat Me Daily turned me on to VIDEO PIZZA, a hypnotizing one-hour video of a spinning pepperoni pizza. I initially didn't believe it was real, but it did have a webpage and a link to buy the DVD, so I bit. Yesterday the mailman dropped off my fresh, hot copy. That answered that: It's real. But I had so many more questions. I contacted Robbie Augspurger of the conceptual art trio Wolf Choir, which produced VIDEO PIZZA. Robbie was kind enough to answer.... What inspired VIDEO PIZZA? Some friends and I were watching Video... More

First some backstory here, in case you don't follow the ins and outs of the NYC food media scene. A few months ago, it appeared that New York Daily News food critic Danyelle "Restaurant Girl" Freeman had started tweeting. Then it came out that someone was faking it. Then the faker revealed himself to be Adam Robb of The Life Vicarious. (That's a sample of his handiwork above.) Lawyers were eventually called in, but through it all, Robb has continued his parody tweets (now with disclaimer!) along with a blog written by Fake Restaurant Girl called The Gourmet Glossary.... More

Renown baking instructor, pizza authority, and author (The Bread Baker's Apprentice, American Pie) Peter Reinhart appeared on Wisconsin Public Radio's Here on Earth late last month with awesome pizza dudes Chris Bianco (Pizzeria Bianco) and Brian Spangler (Apizza Scholls). You can listen here. [via pizzamaking.com] Peter Reinhart, et al., on WPR [mp3]... More

Keith Wagstaff of the Feedbag blog has an interview with Mathieu Palombino, the Belgian-born chef-owner of Motorino in Williamsburg. We wrote about the pizza at Motorino on Tuesday, and the Feedbag's piece is a nice complement to the tasting intel. Snip: What does it take to make good pizza? Pizza is always good, even when it’s bad. Its never something you will spit out of your mouth, even if it’s not done properly. What makes a pizza good is the quality of the ingredients. It’s a very simple thing. It’s just a piece of dough with just a few... More

Last week on Slice, I showed you some photos of a home-built backyard pizza oven in Kansas City with a promise that I'd try to chat with the builder. Here's the result, a quick interview with its builder-owner. Name: Dan Curry Age: 31 Location: Kansas City Occupation: Lawyer I've been told you used eight different kinds of brick and took seven months to build this oven. True? Just two kinds of bricks, fire bricks, and a few regular bricks. I did use five different kinds of concrete.... More