As a chef, Rick Weaver has tried his hand at all kinds of cooking. But it wasn't until a 2001 visit to Northern Italy that he started thinking in earnest about pizza. Not those oversized, mass-produced orbs you get at your local pizzeria, mind you, but the true Italian kind made fresh in the intense heat of a wood-fired brick oven.

Martha Rial, Post-Gazette As his 5-year-old niece, Samantha Gaffney, watches, Rick Weaver places a Margherita pizza inside the wood-fired oven he built in the back yard of his Westwood home. Weaver, an assistant chef at Antonini's Restaurant in Scott, uses the tomatoes and herbs he grows in his garden for his pizzas. Click photo for larger image. Sources EarthstoneWood-Fire Ovens -- www.earthstoneovens.com or 1-800-840-4915 Fogazzo Wood-Fired Ovens & BBQs -- www.fogazzo.com or 1-866-364-2996 Forno Bravo -- www.fornobravo.com or 1-707-836-0105 Hillmon Appliance -- www.hillmonappliance.com or 724-779-9393 Mugnaini Imports -- www.mugnaini.com or 1-888-887-7206 Renato Ovens -- www.renatos.com or 1-800-876-9731 Tino's Brick Ovens -- www.brick-ovens.com or 1-203-509-6063

Sitting in a tiny ristorante in Modena, a little city known for its flavorful balsamic vinegar, he watched as the chef slipped one pie at a time off the wooden pizza "peel" into the 700-degree oven. Almost immediately, the crust would puff up, and the gobs of fresh mozzarella di bufala would start to bubble. A few minutes later, it was on a customer's table.

For the next couple of years, the idea of re-creating the wood-fired ovens percolated in his head. Although his budget wouldn't allow for a $4,000 ready-made model imported from Italy, why couldn't he build one in the back yard of his home in Westwood?

Last spring, even though he's not particularly handy, he put those thoughts into action. Using only his memory as a guide, he spent two months constructing an 8-foot-tall concrete-block oven.

"I figured, why not?" says Weaver, 35, an assistant chef at Antonini's Restaurant in Scott.

Crafted mostly out of standard wall stone from Atlas Clay & Metal Products in the North Side, the structure resembles a giant beehive crowned with a chimney. The oven opening stands about chest high and is framed by red firebrick. The cooking surface is also built from firebrick.

Because a wood-fired oven has to withstand fairly high temperatures (up to 700 degrees), the whole thing is held together with a refractory mortar made from Portland cement mixed with fireclay and sand. There's also a space underneath for storing wood and other supplies.

"I kind of winged it," Weaver says with a laugh.

Now, anytime Weaver or his family feels like pizza, they simply wander over. His sister, Nancy Gaffney, lives next door and his parents, Sally and Len, down the street. But make no mistake; baking pizza in this fashion is no casual affair. As Weaver demonstrated on a recent evening, cooking in a wood-burning oven takes some planning and a great deal of patience.

The fire has to be started hours before that first disk of homemade dough hits the cooking stone, and only one pizza can be cooked at a time. So most pizza dinners are stretched out over the course of an evening.

Not that his back yard is a bad place to hang out. It's an oasis framed by long, skinny poles laden with luscious clusters of 'Reliance' grapes, a self-pollinating variety with glossy red fruit. A large herb garden is planted with lemon grass, oregano, rosemary, sage and three kinds of basil (Greek, large-leaf sweet and purple ruffled). A row of hemlocks and two 15-foot arborvitaes keep prying eyes away. There's also a lush tomato garden filled with 'Brandywine' beefsteak and 'Health Kick' Roma tomatoes (named for their high lycopene content).

	Martha Rial, Post-Gazette Rick Weaver grates fresh Parmesan on the pizza before putting it in the oven under the watchful eye of his niece, Samantha Gaffney. Click photo for larger image.

In keeping with Italian tradition, Weaver typically makes sauce from his own tomatoes on his gourmet Terim gas stove, imported from Italy.

Ditto with the pizza dough, which he makes using regular flour, yeast, water and a little sugar. If he's feeling particularly inspired, he'll make it the Italian way, with olive oil and no sugar and special pizza flour from Pennsylvania Macaroni Co. in the Strip District . Much of the time, his niece Samantha, 5, and nephew Will, 7, get into the act.

"They like to get their hands in the dough," he says.

Once the dough has been prepared and the fire is hot enough, pizza making goes fairly quickly. He pushes the glowing embers off to the side with a long board and gives the cooking surface a quick wipe-down with a wet cloth. He then flours his work surface and pats and stretches a small ball of dough into a 12-inch circle. If he's making a classic Margherita, a light coating of tomato sauce follows, along with chunks of fresh buffalo mozzarella, basil leaves picked from the garden, a drizzle of olive oil and grated Parmigiano-Reggiano his brother-in-law Dan Gaffney brought back from Italy. Other toppings include fresh mushrooms, pepperoni and sliced tomatoes.

With just two seasons of pizza making under his belt, Weaver concedes he's still learning.

"I still get some soggy pizzas and burn a few," he says with a rueful smile.

But no matter. They still taste great, if the smeared tomato sauce on Samantha's cheeks and the long line around the prep table are any indication.

"I love the authenticness of it," says Weaver. "It's as close to a true Italian oven that I could have come up with."

Oven kits

	Above: This wood-fired ML Forni pizza oven heats to about 600 degrees. It weighs 690 pounds and comes with a removable cooking grid and ash-collecting drawer that can be transformed into a barbecue. It can cook three 12-inch pizzas. Below: Earthstone Ovens Inc. in Glendale, Calif., offers modular and pre-assembled ovens in various sizes and price ranges. Click photo for larger image.

Of course, not everyone is a whiz with bricks and mortar. For those folks, there's a variety of ready-made and modular pizza oven kits available, both locally and via the Internet.

Hillmon Appliance in Cranberry sells a free-standing wood-fired oven from ML Forni that heats up to about 600 degrees. About the size of a hotdog cart, it is available in red or blue and features a bottom drawer for storage. The smaller model costs about $3,900 and can hold three 12-inch pizzas on its bake stone; the larger oven is priced at $4,900 and accommodates six pizzas. Both come with a removable grilling rack and baking tray for cooking chicken, roasts, pasta, even a 50-pound pig.

An added benefit for people who aren't so crazy about a woodsy flavor: The cooking area and combustion chamber are completely separate, so food is not affected by smoke. But once it gets hot, "it stays hot," says general manager associate Matt Rendulich.

California-based Forno Bravo is among a handful of U.S. companies that sell authentic Italian pizza ovens. Their modular line can be installed either by the homeowner or a professional builder and ranges in size from a 31 1/2-inch round cooking surface to a larger oval. Prices start at $1,750, plus shipping.

The company also has a selection of pre-assembled ovens that can be set in place, finished and fired. Cost: $2,950 to $7,450. All of them give the homeowner enough space to bake several pizzas or loaves of bread at one time, or to cook roasts along with platters of vegetables.

Fogazzo offers two precast wood-fired oven kits that can be assembled using common masonry tools in just a few hours. Model 850 features a 33 1/2-inch cooking surface and costs $2,199; Model 1050 has a 41 1/4-inch oven deck and runs $2,899. Both come with a steel oven door with handle.

Earthstone Wood-Fire Ovens also offers modular and pre-assembled ovens in various sizes and price ranges.

The smallest of their three modular ovens has an interior cooking area of 23 by 26 inches and costs $2,450, plus shipping; the largest is priced at $4,100 and offers an interior cooking area 43 inches in diameter. The wood-fired pre-assembled ovens also come in three sizes and run between $5,500 and $7,800.

At $1,950, Tino's Brick Ovens are a bit less expensive. These dome-shaped stucco ovens are shipped ready to use; all you have to decide is whether you want a red or gray brick arch and have some sort of base ready when the delivery truck shows up (or pay an additional $250 for a steel support base).

Mugnaini's wood-fired ovens can be installed indoors or out and reach temperatures of 900 degrees or more. All feature a terra cotta brick arch and iron door and require exterior finish work and some sort of base support. One of the most popular models is the Medio 100 oven, which boasts a 39 1/2-inch cooking surface. It ranges in price from $3,150 for one with an on-site masonry foundation to $5,950 for one that's been pre-assembled.