
“Pizza Class” Cedar Park, 2023
In today’s photo, Mariko is nearing the end of her pizza class, so I am hovering in the kitchen ready to dig in!
daily slice-of-life photo blog of a Gen-X dad

Mariko taught a pizza dough class this afternoon and made two pizzas. The toppings were the same, but the sauces were different. She used a basic tomato sauce for one, and a pesto sauce for the other. Both were great, but I prefer the pesto sauce. I ate so many slices! Since I went running earlier in the day, my appetite was crazy. Exercise + pizza = happiness.

Our kids hate mushrooms so we don’t put it on pizza very often. But since they are both away at school, Mariko and I took the opportunity to enjoy a delicious mushroom pizza and it was awesome! I do believe that one day our kids will come around on mushrooms. I guess it’s and acquired taste for many. 🍄🍕❤️

Our newest cooking gadget is the Ooni Karu 12 pizza oven. It’s a portable oven which uses charcoal, wood, or gas (with extra attachment). Today I used a combination of lump coal and wood, and the pizzas turned out pretty good!
The first pizza was a little scorched because I didn’t know how quickly an 850°F /454°C oven cooks a pizza! It only took about 20 seconds before the side that was nearest the back of the oven started burning. The next pizza was better, with a slightly cooler temperature (I bought an infrared thermometer from Harbor Freight) and more diligent rotating of the pizza. Our third pizza turned out almost perfect which means I am getting the hang of using the Ooni.
What made it a bit challenging was the fact that our normal pizza peel is too big for the Ooni Karu 12, so we had to improvise with a foil-covered cutting board and parchment paper to launch the pizza. FYI, parchment paper and pizza ovens do NOT mix. 😂
I also was using my regular barbecue grill spatula to rotate the pizza, which was okay, but not optimal. But we have an appropriately sized pizza peel on the way, and I think I will just practice with the spatula a bit more.
So, how did the pizza taste? Honestly, it didn’t really taste that much better than our regular oven-baked pizza. Maybe I need to use different charcoal and/or wood? This time I used oak lump coal and hickory wood. I’m not sure how much a difference it would make since there isn’t hardly any smoke.
Anyways, I am looking forward to making more pizza using the Ooni Karu 12. It’s a lot of fun, especially controlling the flame using pieces of hard wood. And seeing the dough puff up and the top of the pizza bubbling is really exciting. ♥️🍕


I ate too much… but it was so good! Pictured above is a “meat-lover’s” pizza, but there was a second pizza with tomato, onion, mushroom and sausage. It was also excellent! ❤️🍕
Pizza is definitely a contender for the “if you could only eat one food for the rest of your life” question.

Today we had two families over for an in-person pizza lesson. Usually, Mariko teaches via Zoom but today it was a special visit with friends. Lots of fun! And of course, the pizza was yummy. 😀🍕

