No home is complete without a pizza oven
I recently had the opportunity to attend a fabulous party cooking fantastic Niman Ranch steaks in our friends John and Katie's new pizza oven. The party was fantastic ...

It started off with the most amazing pizzas I've ever tasted. I learned that a lot goes into creating fantastic pizza. First is the flour - no run-of-the-mill flour here. Top restaurants use only the best, as did our friend. You can purchase the flour and get other tips and recipes on making superb pizzas. It takes and hour or so to get your dough to rise and then you should hand pull them to an 6 - 8 inch diameter.

The next key element to the pizza is a very hot pizza oven - we're talking 800 to 900 degrees here - so no sipping on the vino while you make your pizzas! It takes several hours burning wood logs to get the oven up to the proper temperature. One it's reached the optimal heat, you spread out the coals and then move them to the back to throw the pizzas on for a mere 4 to 6 minutes. Quite a delight to watch.

Finally, really delightful pizzas include fresh toppings. You won't see too much tomoato sauce in Italy, just a bit of really good olive oil (my current favorite comes from McEvoy Ranch), a bit of cheese (not necessarily Mozarella - try some dollaps goat cheese), and perhaps mushrooms, spinach, or fresh basil and tomato.

While our pizzas were absolutly delightful, the main attraction of this evening was cooking up some dry aged Niman Ranch NY Strip steaks. While I've heard a lot of great things about dry-aged steaks, I hadn't previously had a chance to try one.  My friend Eric (who fortunately happens to work at Niman) procured a nice big aged New York one for us which he butchered up and grilled in the pizza oven. I've been learning a great deal about good meat lately, and the lesson I've learned is there's a huge difference between quality, natural beef and most of the stuff you get at the grocery store.

Now I'll admit, like most women I know, I've been a tenderloin gal all my life. They're typically petit and tender, and they certainly come with a heavy price tag, so the perception is it's the 'best'. But recently I've learned that other cuts - such as the NY Strip or the Flank Steak - can be even more delightful if you're eating high quality beef. While they may be a bit less tender, they have a lot more flavor. And if they're dry aged - not only do they have even more flavor but can be as tender as a filet mignon / tenderloin. Dry aging involves hanging the beef in a refridgerated cooler for 10 - 28 days. This process extracts much of the water thereby producing a more intensely flavored meat, that's also quite tender.  I'm converted.