In 2020, after eating wood fired pizza while visiting family, we spent an entire 5 hour car ride home discussing what just happened to us. I don’t know if we have never had this pizza before, or this happened to be particularly memorable order, but within 24 hours of being back, we had an Ooni wood fired pizza oven shipping to our doorstep.

We are coming up on 3 years since we have owned our pizza oven and we are happy to report that it has not fallen to the wayside like other appliances that accumulate around your house. Instead, we turned it into a weekly family tradition and spend our Sundays hand making dough to later fire in the oven for our meal. We have made at least 4 pizzas in the Ooni every weekend since owning it. That is a total of of over 500 pizzas made in those 3 years. The only exceptions are when we are gone, or the weather is completely unrealistic to cook outside. As seen in these photos though, we do not let rain or snow stop us.

This oven does take a bit of work. Each week, we have to not only make all the pizza dough and have the ingredients on hand, but we also have to maintain a healthy wood pile to serve as fuel.

When I think back to when we were growing up, there are so many meals that come to my head that define those years. Some good, some really awful, but still great memories. Now being a parent, I often think what our kids will remember later on in life and tell their kids from their childhood. Luckily, I know pizza night will be on the top of that list.