3FIRES OVEN

My love for pizza began after reading Kiko Denzer's classic how-to book "Build Your Own Earth Oven"; building an adobe oven in my backyard and then making pizzas and bread from the freshest ingredients one could find. Until then I had experienced no endearment for pizza. Shortly thereafter I came across Francis Mallman's brilliant and fascinating book "Seven Fires, Grilling the Argentine way" and bought it on the spot.

This nascent curiosity with wood-fire cooking led me to build a Tandoori oven, and then a Parrilla grill next to the backyard earth oven. Our name, 3Fires, then is a reference to the three wood-fired cooking structures I built with simple, natural materials in my backyard and with which I cook and entertain neighbors, friends and family.

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While I read both books rather voraciously, none of them teaches one how to make a pizza. Kiko Denzer's book teaches you how to build a very efficient oven with easily available natural materials like clay, sand, straw and water. Francis Mallman's book deals more with the seven  ways to cook with wood fire and the nuances thereof.

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Mallman is correct when he says "Cooking with wood fire is like going on a first date. It is something that you look forward to with great anticipation and a little anxiety"