It’s been awhile since my last post. With an addition to the family and moving back south for the winter have been our priority. But, now that there’s another MAV, to which this blog is dedicated, here’s Part 1 of a catch-up that includes our new pizza oven, an Ooni Karu 12.
Quick Update of Pizza Tables
- Homemade Pizzas in 2022 – 211 pizzas made in 49 baking “events”
- Doughs in 2022 – 39 homemade dough “events”, purchased dough 6 times
- Purchased Pizzas in 2022 – 43 pizza purchases
- Fully updated PDF’s will be uploaded for the next blog post.
Neapolitan Word of the Day
Cazzimma (cots-ee-ma)- a true Neapolitan (not Nebaladan…aka Neapolitan-American) word that doesn’t translate well, but it kind of describes a personality trait of an opportunist (see Wiktionary).
Fans of the of the Sopranos might have heard the word “Juice” used like “he has juice” to describe a person with extra energy or determination. Juice is another way to envision cazzimma, although neither opportunist nor juice fully encapsulate it.
A modern word is swag or swagger. But swag doesn’t capture the cunning, street smarts of cazzimma.
There’s balls or coglione (Nebalatan pronounced as cal-yoon) as in “He really some big cogliones (see link)” to describe someone who takes risks. Again, this comes close to what the Neapolitans mean.
Finally, I’d interject, fearlessness or at least high faith in one’s own ability to “figure it out”, sometimes described as street smarts. In Napoli, cazzimma is routinely associated with the scugnizzi (the kids who wander the streets” of Napoli), and their ability to out smart, or “game”, the system.
Why is Cazzimma today’s word?
I’ve always felt that my energy was fusion. If I put a little in, a lot more energy would come out. I’d guess that would be another “near’ definition of Cazzimma.
My first boss, Louis Quadrini, recognized that I had special energy and worked to unleash it. He would just feed me work, and I’d spit out a finished project with some guidance from my mentor Kurt. It didn’t take long to figure out how to game the system. I still take great pleasure in figuring out how to game systems! Call it my hobby, or maybe it’s a calling!
Although I had figured out the game, had a good rep, and was given cream puff and important to Kodak projects that provided much high exposure, my energy mistakenly led me to believe that the work my group performed was “below” me and asked for a transfer to the guts of Kodak into photographic film and paper manufacturing, unfortunately.
Unlike Louis, an early boss in photo paper, Sullivan who haled from Ireland, spent an inordinate amount of time trying to channel my energy. Sullivan would explain that “we are only born with so much energy, and that we need to figure out how to use it best.” This was contrary to my belief in my fusion theory, and frankly, I ignored Sullivan! Presumably, that directed energy use was for the betterment of Kodak. Well, we see how far that got me…laid off, then Kodak went bankrupt!
That experience taught me that who I worked for was more important than what I did since by that point, I figured that with enough energy input I could figure anything out even software for which I had no training and then building a ”ride” at Disney.
I once asked a boss (who’s now a friend) later in my Kodak career why he selected me to be on a special project. He told me that I had juice. I didn’t fully understand what he meant. I was just me!
Now as I’ve aged, I’ve started to understand cazzimma. It really means a lot of things street smarts, opportunist, big cogliones, swag, and most importantly, faith in oneself all rolled up. Unfortunately, recent life events have me questioning my energy which have allowed some self doubt to enter which is something that I’m unfamiliar. It’s my post Christmas project for myself to regain some or all of my lost cazzimma.
New Oven – Ooni Karu 12
Moving back to Florida brought a new problem. What pizza oven? I know, a true first world problem! If we recall, before we left Florida in the spring, we’d purchased a grill top oven, but after having an Ooni Coda 12 for the summer, there was no going back for me.
What’s not been a problem has been the bike riding.
After some investigating, I narrowed my choices down to ovens that permitted both gas and wood fired cooking. I’ve want to try wood fired cooking ever since I started to dial in gas fired pizzas with the Ooni Coda (gas). The additional challenge and the smokey taste of authentic Neapolitan pizza drove the wood fired desire. But, I worried that if we bought a wood only oven, we’d have an expensive hunk of metal if I couldn’t figure out wood usage.
Wanting both gas and wood significantly reduced the number of candidate ovens. What I liked best were the Ooni Karu 12 and one from Pizzoula. The Pizzoula was almost $200 cheaper and included a cover, peel, and both gas and wood attachments.
But my familiarity with Ooni caused me to go with the Ooni Karu 12. I couldn’t be more thrilled! Ooni’s familiar design, it’s quality and reputation, and easy availability of spare parts both online and at Lowe’s drove the final choice decision.
As of this writing, I’ve done 3 bakes in the Ooni Karu 12. The taste has been superb! I was doubtful that the wood would (hah…word alliteration there!) permeate, but it does! The wood smoke flavor is subtle and adds another layer of taste enjoyment!
But, my 1st bake with wood has not been without challenges (remember, I WANTED a challenge). I’ve never been a BBQ guy. I can remember my father, Grandpa Tony, pulling out the grill, charcoal briquettes, and lighter fluid. After creating a small mountain of briquettes and thoroughly dousing the briquettes with fluid, he’d flick in a lit match, and poof, a small explosion! Maybe 30 minutes later, the fire would subside and the briquettes would be red hot. Although, he had to get grilling soon because those old style briquettes wouldn’t stay red very long, or he’d miss that short window for perfect searing.
Having remembered this as a kid, we’d always gone the simple, although less adventurous and tasty, route of gas grills. With this memory bouncing around in my massively cavernous cranium, I ventured to that first bake with a brand new fire extinguisher made for BBQing and a hose full of water at hand!
After watching countless YouTubes, I had hickory charcoal, hickory pellets, oak wood pieces cut specifically for the Karu, and straw fire starters on hand. I used some of each except for the pellets. At first, I loaded the fire box hopper with charcoal and a couple of starters, inserted it in the oven, and lit the starters. Easy enough!
Soon, the charcoal started to spark and sent soot out the back and up the chimney. I readied our friends with the fire extinguisher and hose expecting the worst. Soon, the sparking quieted, but the temperature of the oven was only around 650F. So as suggested on YouTube, I added a few oak pieces and whoosh, a burst of flame along the top of the oven. The temp quickly grew to 850F on the pizza stone.
I made 6 Genoa salame (pepperoni) Neapolitan pizzas on the first bake. As mentioned, the taste was great and there was much crispness. Unfortunately, there was much variation from pizza to pizza on the bottom. Some had nice char while others were slightly to no char. This is likely due to the fact that the oak pieces burn hot, but very quickly so it was difficult to keep the stone hot between each pizza.
So far, as mentioned, I’ve done 3 bakes and a total of 21 pizzas. I’ve been able to eliminate much of the sparking by allowing the coals and wood to sit in the sun of the day of the bake to dry out any residual moisture.
But, I still have quite a bit of pizza to pizza variability in crust char and some pizzas have slightly under cooked dough likely only noticeable by me.
Thankfully, the taste is still outstanding and has a lovely smoke flavor that is missing from my gas oven. Also, I’m just not happy with my dough workability. I’ll go into that in my next posting.
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