One of the things I miss about a regular-sized kitchen is a regular-sized oven. I am not much of a baker, and any baking I do is limited to rare bursts of culinary enterprise (you know the kind; ‘it looked so good on the magazine page/tv screen; surely it’s a cinch’…?), mostly during the holiday season; so it’s not as though I feel deprived. Nevertheless, I found myself wishing for something more substantial than a convection oven the other day, when I came down with a severe case of ‘Must-make-Pizza-itis’. Of course, the fact remains that the best pizzas are made in a wood-fired oven; which, incidentally, is something I probably would never own; but still, a regular-sized oven would be far more convenient to work with than the itty-bitty I own.

You might wonder why I was wasting so much breath over something that was merely a phone call away; but then, you see, I’m a bit of a pizza snob and won’t settle for anything other than the best. Which, incidentally (in these parts), is the Cheese Board in Berkeley; home to a fantastic pizza of the day on most days of the week. However, like a lot of good things, they’re not all that accessible-the distance from SF, for one (not much, but still too far for a regular pizza), and they don’t deliver. But try reasoning with strong craving.

Thus, necessity bore invention; and I made do with the convection oven. And it turned out not too bad, actually-I ended up going on a bender and turned out enough to warrant daily rigorous workouts for the next year.

Fully aware that any project I undertake is bound to go awry with my keenness getting a bit out of hand, I desisted from going ‘all out’ the first few rounds-in other words, I didn’t get off to messing around with yeast and all that, and sufficed with frozen pizza dough courtesy of Trader Joes’s (which, incidentally, is the best of its kind). I just needed to concentrate on the toppings at this point.

After a few rounds with frozen pizza dough, I moved onto making the dough from scratch. To my surprise, it was neither difficult nor time consuming. I realized I had let my fear of dealing with yeast and bread-making (thou too shall be conquered someday!) get a bit ahead of me. I experimented with a few tutorials, till I settled on the one that worked best for my type of oven, preferred toppings, and of course, constitution: While the verbose instructions seem complicated, they are easier than pie (no pun intended) once you get the kneading process going. And as with most other recipes, practice makes not only perfect, but easy as well.

Pizza toppings are some of my favorite things to experiment with; and I had a blast with these. In fact, I made every one of them more than twice-at least.

1. My most favorite pizza of all; the Margherita. Basic tomato sauce-smooth, garlicky and hot; topped with quality Bocconcini and fresh basil, and the lot drizzled with the best olive oil you can get your hands on:

2. Fennel, caramelized with crushed red pepper, and layered with some Nicoise olives and sharp, aged Gruyere over a basic tomato sauce:

3. Red, Orange & Yellow Peppers, sliced and mixed with sliced red onion, chopped basil & parsley, and some sea salt & pepper over minced garlic in olive oil and shredded mozzarella. The prettiest by far.

4. Ripe Mission figs, caramelized red onion and goat cheese with rosemary. This was S’s favorite.

5. And last but not least (unfortunately, not pictured), a sort of end-of-the-week-one-vegetable-left pizza: creamy potato slices in a hot tomato-adobo sauce, topped with gruyere (and one without).

It’s great to know that a small oven doesn’t have to keep you from baking pizza, that food of all beings creative-or wishing to be so.