Six years ago I started out the new year with a resolution to make amazing pizza. What was originally a goal to make delicious pizza for my family, turned into an obsession with the process itself. I tried so many pizza crust recipes and incrementally made a crust that was better with every batch, but was short of anything that I would share with people. I bought a stone for the convection oven, tried different temperatures etc. but after three months of mediocre pizza I thought my quest for the perfect pi was futile.

I took a break from pizza making until spring that year. As the weather warmed, I became eager to find a project to do outside, and forgetful of my new years resolution I decided to build a brick oven. Armed with Allan Scott’s bread builders book, I built my first pizza oven.

After 80 bags of concrete and who knows how many bricks, vermiculite, rebar etc. I was ready to fire my first pizza. I was pretty sure that I must be crazy and that after two weeks of hard labor I had assembled the largest masonry blob known to man. My Thai Pi went into the oven and after the first bite I knew that this was the start of something amazing. New recipes followed and I began serving the extras to neighbors. The feedback was to take the show on the road.

We frequently have pizza at our house 3 to 4 times a week as we work on recipes and new flavor combinations. To build upon our pizza obsession we built yet another “pizza temple” to mimic those found in Naples. I also went through training by the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana — or the V.P.N. — a Naples-based trade organization to get certified in the art of making Neapolitan pizza.

Just as I did not know what drove me to build my first wood fired oven, I decided in 2010 to buy a box truck and a 4,000 pound oven to literally take the show on the road. The beginning of 2011 my niece left an excellent job from a very reputable advertising and PR firm to expand on the vision of sharing the wood fired, craft pizza with Louisville.

Many friends and associates have pitched in and rallied behind the idea, and now we invite you to contribute whether an encouraging word or constructive criticism, so together we can write a story that is not only amazing, but one you may be able to call your very own.