Sunday, July 24, 2011

Saturday night pizza with the master Pizza maker of Whynot/Seagrove

My father use to tell people," Never miss an opportunity to eat at the table of Anna Henderson."
Of course Anna was my mother and a very experimental and excellent cook.
This rings in my head when someone like Tom Gray invites us over to share a meal at his house.
He was by last week and talking about his new wood-fired oven he has built.
"I tell you what, he says, Come over Saturday night and we will fire it up and make pizza".
You did not have to twist our arms.
Like I said never miss an opportunity.......
I made salad,a blueberry buckle and we packed a 6 pack of good beer.
But I did not pack a camera.















How could that be- but Tom handed his over and I took some shots that I am stealing from FB.
These are wee shoots,but you get the picture.
The oven was quite hot, good temperature, when the pizzas went in and they took all of 3-4 minutes to cook.

Tom declared them the best he had ever eaten or made, and folks they were fine pies.
As I said never miss...
The beer was cold, the pizza divine, salad good and fresh and the blueberry buckle rounded it all up nicely.
We eat better than Kings around here.
In fact my father use to tell me it is better to eat like a peasant.
He said that royalty ate refined foods and that peasants were stuck with what they grew or made themselves.
Peasant food is good fare. 

I  was also so bold as to show up with two loaves of rising bread to shove in after the kiln, whoops, oven cooled down a bit.
We put those in a bit above 500 degrees and checked them just over 15 minutes and they seemed done enough, good reduction on the crust. We plan to cut one today and see the results.
Tom then put in a pan of tomatoes and bricked the door to let them roast over night.
We have been interested in a brick oven for awhile and now we will have to see if we go the distance and make one..
But I know a place just down the road I might have to slip back over to with more bread in tow.
Meanwhile- never miss an opportunity to eat good food with good people.
Cheers,
M

10 comments:

Hollis Engley said...

Sounds fabulous. Can you up-size those photos so we can see what the dinner looked like?

Anonymous said...

The pleasure was all mine! The roasted tomatoes are black :-( I may just have to fire it up later this week with a plan in mind to utilize the heat as much as possible. Pizza, bread(s), casseroles and roasted 'maters. Thanks again for contributing to the meal with ya'lls presence, beer and buckle. Oh yeah, salad too!

Shortstuff said...

Sounds yummy.

Michèle Hastings said...

who needs restaurants in Seagrove when we have so many great cooks in town!
now if we could only get tom to deliver when we are too tired to cook...

Linda Starr said...

That wood, I mean, would be a good name for a pizza place, brick oven pizza. I've always wanted to make one of those adobe coated ones. I am dying to see a photo of that pizza oven. What is blueberry buckle? it sounds delicious.

cookingwithgas said...

Mark has larger copies sent from Tom- let me see what I can do.

Tracey Broome said...

reduction on the bread ? :)
I use Tom's pizza dough recipe all the time, the one you passed on to me, now if I only had an oven. Maybe Tom could start a new business constructing pizza ovens around here!
Sounds like a great evening and you and Mark make the most perfect couple!

ang design said...

well that all looks yum...I can't wait for summer :))

Laurie said...

Definitely yum! And I'm with you on the peasant fare.

cookingwithgas said...

Tracey the "reduction" on the bread was perfect!
And yum is right you all!