The View From The Drey

The Squirrel

Well-Known Member
Talk to @Delish for tips! And have fun!!

I know, right? I saw that perfect pie that was documented. @Delish looks like quite the accomplished Pizzaiolo (lucky you!). I've been lurking pizzamaking.com for a while. I'm not going to venture too far from what I've been doing with my Baking Steel for the first few as I get used to cooking with such high heat. Images to follow!
 

The Kalmyk

Well-Known Member
Not quite so pro but it was my first go at Almond flour pizza. Big mistake with this one in not using baking powder, duh. Please post up you pies. I'd love to see a pie from a UUni oven. I make pizza for the family every Friday night.
IMG_0331.JPG
 

The Squirrel

Well-Known Member
Not quite so pro but it was my first go at Almond flour pizza. Big mistake with this one in not using baking powder, duh. Please post up you pies. I'd love to see a pie from a UUni oven. I make pizza for the family every Friday night. View attachment 50118
Absolutely. @Delish has one and there's an image of one of his glorious pies that was posted recently. I forget where.

Almond flour, very interesting. I can't use white flour so I have work with WW and specialty grains. I haven't thought about almond at all.
 

The Squirrel

Well-Known Member
First Pies of the Season

For the past few years I've been making pizzas on my (modified) grill and a Baking Steel. As hard as I tried I could never get them right. This past fall I stumbled across the Uuni on the interwebs. I tried to wait until the spring to order it, but I ran out of patience and put my name on the list for the 2S. This worked out well because I got upgraded to the new model 3 (whatever that means). I received it a few weeks ago, but with everything going on and the weather, today would be the highly anticipated maiden voyage of my new Uuni.

It burns pellets and can get up to 900 degrees, which was a big seller for me.

I decided to try a new recipe for the whole wheat dough as well:

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I had mixed feelings about this dough and I'll be exploring new recipes throughout the year.

Wifey wasn't feeling great today so I was doing the whole project solo. I did all the prep for 4 pies:

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I had a hard time starting a flame in the Uuni. I'm sure I'll figure out the subtleties eventually. I finally was able to get some heat and started popping out pies:
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These first two were for my son and wife (who didn't eat much)
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These next two were for me and wifey.

All-n-all, this effort wasn't so bad. I wasn't happy with the temp. of the deck vs. the dome, but because I had a difficult time lighting it, I most likely didn't give it enough time to get to full and balanced temp. I'll be running to Chef Central to get a digital thermometer so I can check the temps before I cook. I like the Uuni, but I feel it will take a few more to get it right.
 

The Squirrel

Well-Known Member
It's been a while. Life's gotten in the way and my cycling has suffered tremendously.

Things were going so well for the first 6 weeks of the year and I was feeling optimistic about the upcoming CX season. I was alternating between lifting and trainer riding and seeing gains.

Then, wham!, the dreaded head cold that ended up in my throat for longer than I had hoped. This dovetailed so gracefully into allergy season, which I am still feeling the effects of. Had a nice little vacation in April and I had hoped it would recharge me. I was wrong. I didn't even like looking at my bike let alone getting on it. End of April I had a 3-day conference in Asbury Park. The weight room sucked as well as the stationary bike, so I decided I would run along the boardwalk. I'm not much of a runner; never liked it. Well, I guess the running gods struck back and screwed up my hip and both knees. Last week I was in Japan and even though I got in some stationary bike riding I am just hating the idea of getting on a bike. Now I'm in a couple of long-term projects that will eat up my time into the beginning of August.

So, in summary, I'm tired, I'm stressed, I'm fighting with my body fat (and losing), I hate my bike, and haven't made a pizza in a month. I've been so embarrassed by my rides I put my Strava account on private. I'm thinking of starting from scratch, bypassing CX season this year and just trying to find the joy in cycling again.

I Kissed A Girl

Artists will do anything to get a song right. This story comes to me from the engineer on said session during the mastering of said record:

Male artist is doing a cover of the Katy Perry tune, I Kissed A Girl. He comes to the session with more bags than usual. They set up to do the tune and he vanishes. Well, he was carrying a full wardrobe of women's clothes, had the receptionist help with make-up and marches into the studio dolled up head to toe. From what I was told, he did not pull if off well. They then proceed to do the recording. It's just not working and takes all day to get it right. Clearly, cross-dressing did not help.

At the mastering session, the concern was that he would show up with said wardrobe and want to transform during the mastering of the tune. Every time he left the room we braced for the worst., but thankfully, we were spared.
 

The Squirrel

Well-Known Member
The grill is an older version of this:

https://www.chargriller.com/charcoal-grills-and-smokers/pro-deluxe-grill-2727-2727

Where the vent is on the side is also a big cut-out for the smoker. I just couldn't get my grill hot enough for pizza, so I popped out the side (it's just tacked on there with small welds) where the vent is for tons more air to flow through it. Then, instead of using charcoal I use trimmed down firewood. I can get it up to about 600 degrees and with a Baking Steel it was sort of ok. I recently saw that someone did a pizza under a baking steel. The plate was elevated on bricks and the pizza was on the grate. It looked promising.

The downside to all that heat is that it's turned it into a rusty heap much faster.

I can try to take a picture of it this weekend if I get out there.
 
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The Squirrel

Well-Known Member
It's been a while. The past 6 months haven't been fun and for a while, I really hated my bike. Not in a "I need a new bike" kind of way, but a "I'd rather play in traffic on the Grand Central Parkway than ride this thing" kind of way. Most recently, I've screwed up my knee. My only guess is that I messed it up doing heavy weights. I am back on my bike because it's the least painful thing I can do, but I got nothin'. Laterally, my knee is unstable, so even if I wanted to gear up for late season antics, cross is out.

The family is tired of backyard pizza (???), so I haven't fired up the Unni in a while.

There's always next year for pizza and CX.

As far as a story, it's not from the studio, but has to do with my rubber band balls:

http://www.mtbnj.com/forum/threads/...p-in-a-couple-months.43294/page-2#post-749793

My AIM tag was llabdnabrebbur, which is rubberband ball backwards. I had a few REALLY big ones. It all started 18 years ago. We had just moved into a house from a condo and every Saturday I would clean the stoop, my postage stamp sized front yard and the sidewalk in front of the house. I'd also pick up the crap that was littered all over the place (I live in Jersey City). One Saturday, while returning from the store, and after cleaning the front of the house, I see the postman doing his rounds. The mail in his hand is wrapped in a rubberband. He undoes the rubberband from the letters, looks at the addresses and uncontiously tossed the rubberband onto the sidewalk. THE SIDEWALK I JUST CLEANED!!!! So, I walk by him, pick up the rubberband, and confront him. I tell him, "Here, this is yours. I watched you throw it on the ground. How about finding a better place for this". He takes it from me and I walk away. A few steps later I'm struck with the urge to turn around and just as I do, he tosseds the same rubberband back on the ground. I'm furious, but the thought of long jail time keeps me from kicking a Federal employee's ass up and down the block.

I'm not getting over this. The entire weekend is destroyed by this guy. Monday morning comes and it's time to take my first grader to school. His school was in Hoboken, so it was a walk to the bus, bus ride, and walk to school. The first thing I notice as I leave the house is THE rubberband. I pick it up and put it on my wrist. Then a few yards later I see another one. I pick that one up. By the time I dropped Sam off, I had picked up over TWENTY rubberbands. I brought them to work and decided I was going to use them whenever I needed one (which isn't often).

It seemed every day I was picking up rubberbands. 10, 20, 30 , 40 rubberbands a day. I had a big ass pile of rubberbands and I was hardly using any. Well, this had to be rectified. The post office was throwing money away every day in the form of rubberbands and I had to do something about it. I started to make a rubberband ball. It got pretty big. the first one was the size of a small medicine ball and took two hands to pick up When you bounced it, they heard it in the studio next door. My clients thought it was a a very funny story, but silently I did not.

When the bands would break while stretching them onto the first ball, I decided to start a second ball. This one I built up to the size of a bocce ball.

One day, while looking at the balls, I decided this was not helping the situation. I had a lot of rubberbands, but only musicians knew I had them. I decided I had to go to the top. I spent evenings crafting the right sentences to explain the situation to the POST MASTER GENERAL! I finally had the perfect letter, explaining how these balls came to being, why this was a waste of money, and that this situation should be looked into.

I boxed up the balls with the letter and waited in line at the post office to send this package.

I never received a return letter. I'm not even sure the PMG received it. It might have been flagged as dangerous, I don't know. It weighted a lot. But if it arrived, I'm sure he's got a couple of sweet-ass rubber band balls on his desk and a very funny letter from a disgruntled customer hanging on his wall.

Once It dawned on me that I was not getting a response, I came to the conclusion I was the crazy (not that) old guy that lives down the block that everyone laughs at. I stopped picking up the rubber bands and have found other things to be angry about.
 

1speed

Incredibly profound yet fantastically flawed
It's been a while. The past 6 months haven't been fun and for a while, I really hated my bike. Not in a "I need a new bike" kind of way, but a "I'd rather play in traffic on the Grand Central Parkway than ride this thing" kind of way. Most recently, I've screwed up my knee. My only guess is that I messed it up doing heavy weights. I am back on my bike because it's the least painful thing I can do, but I got nothin'. Laterally, my knee is unstable, so even if I wanted to gear up for late season antics, cross is out.

The family is tired of backyard pizza (???), so I haven't fired up the Unni in a while.

There's always next year for pizza and CX.

As far as a story, it's not from the studio, but has to do with my rubber band balls:

http://www.mtbnj.com/forum/threads/...p-in-a-couple-months.43294/page-2#post-749793

My AIM tag was llabdnabrebbur, which is rubberband ball backwards. I had a few REALLY big ones. It all started 18 years ago. We had just moved into a house from a condo and every Saturday I would clean the stoop, my postage stamp sized front yard and the sidewalk in front of the house. I'd also pick up the crap that was littered all over the place (I live in Jersey City). One Saturday, while returning from the store, and after cleaning the front of the house, I see the postman doing his rounds. The mail in his hand is wrapped in a rubberband. He undoes the rubberband from the letters, looks at the addresses and uncontiously tossed the rubberband onto the sidewalk. THE SIDEWALK I JUST CLEANED!!!! So, I walk by him, pick up the rubberband, and confront him. I tell him, "Here, this is yours. I watched you throw it on the ground. How about finding a better place for this". He takes it from me and I walk away. A few steps later I'm struck with the urge to turn around and just as I do, he tosseds the same rubberband back on the ground. I'm furious, but the thought of long jail time keeps me from kicking a Federal employee's ass up and down the block.

I'm not getting over this. The entire weekend is destroyed by this guy. Monday morning comes and it's time to take my first grader to school. His school was in Hoboken, so it was a walk to the bus, bus ride, and walk to school. The first thing I notice as I leave the house is THE rubberband. I pick it up and put it on my wrist. Then a few yards later I see another one. I pick that one up. By the time I dropped Sam off, I had picked up over TWENTY rubberbands. I brought them to work and decided I was going to use them whenever I needed one (which isn't often).

It seemed every day I was picking up rubberbands. 10, 20, 30 , 40 rubberbands a day. I had a big ass pile of rubberbands and I was hardly using any. Well, this had to be rectified. The post office was throwing money away every day in the form of rubberbands and I had to do something about it. I started to make a rubberband ball. It got pretty big. the first one was the size of a small medicine ball and took two hands to pick up When you bounced it, they heard it in the studio next door. My clients thought it was a a very funny story, but silently I did not.

When the bands would break while stretching them onto the first ball, I decided to start a second ball. This one I built up to the size of a bocce ball.

One day, while looking at the balls, I decided this was not helping the situation. I had a lot of rubberbands, but only musicians knew I had them. I decided I had to go to the top. I spent evenings crafting the right sentences to explain the situation to the POST MASTER GENERAL! I finally had the perfect letter, explaining how these balls came to being, why this was a waste of money, and that this situation should be looked into.

I boxed up the balls with the letter and waited in line at the post office to send this package.

I never received a return letter. I'm not even sure the PMG received it. It might have been flagged as dangerous, I don't know. It weighted a lot. But if it arrived, I'm sure he's got a couple of sweet-ass rubber band balls on his desk and a very funny letter from a disgruntled customer hanging on his wall.

Once It dawned on me that I was not getting a response, I came to the conclusion I was the crazy (not that) old guy that lives down the block that everyone laughs at. I stopped picking up the rubber bands and have found other things to be angry about.

The postmaster would have been right to be concerned ...
 

The Squirrel

Well-Known Member
The postmaster would have been right to be concerned ...

Oh, I'm not done with the postmaster. In my area, we have the crappiest postal service in the world. And they all have terrible attitudes as well. Whenever I get the reciept after a visit to the PO, I always flame them. I look forward to DMV or a colonoscopy after dealing with the PO in my area.
 

The Squirrel

Well-Known Member
I'm going to try to make a race or two this season for cowbell abuse. A friend at work has 4 y.o. twins and they're both into cycling. Timo is totally into CX after he caught Bubblecross and me rolling in the sand. I'm thinking of bringing them to HPCX with their cowbells.
 
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