CMH Gourmand – Eating in Columbus & Ohio

A life lived is having a passion and following it through to where it takes you. Many, maybe most people can’t, don’t, or miss out on following their passion(s) because they get sidetracked or bushwhacked along the way. Or they don’t look. A joy in my life is being able to pause for a moment when I see someone in the zone of doing exactly what they want to do without any compromises. I was able to have one of those moments at Pizza Grand Prix IV on Sunday. “If you grill it, they will come.”

The Pizza Grand Prix is essentially a pizza potluck party that is a pet project of mine. For my friend Dave, grilling is his Manhattan Project. While readers of CMH Gourmand may not have heard of Webercam, the diehard followers of Columbus Foodcast know him well as our most frequent guest (episodes 10, 11, 14, 16, 24, 36 and 45). He serves as our resident grilling and home cooking expert. While some people are seasonal grill cooks, Dave grills year round. His blog, Webercam tracks his adventures and experiments in grilling. When I was invited to his laboratory in Weberville to sample the grilled pizza project I knew that he and Pizza Grand Prix were meant to be. I just gave fate a nudge and a bump with an invitation to attend.

Pizza is dear to me as an eater, writer and food historian. Anything that can get me close to the taste of a wood or coal fired pizza oven is worth the effort. Dave modified his Weber lid to have a door to maintain temperature. Add in a clay cooking surface and some other tested techniques and you have the Firedome!

For the full story on all things Firedome, check the links below.

Webercam, Enter the Firedome

Webercam, Firedome testing and data

Webercam, the search for fuel

Dave loaded up his grill onto a bike rack and prepped ingredients for 20 pizzas then headed off to Wild Goose Creative to set up for his craft. He had past opportunities to test for temperature. He had not had chances to test for taste appeal to the massses or seeing if he could manage mass pizza production and an audience at the same time. I added an extra variable to his experiment. I threw in an Iron Chef style element into the fray by asking people to bring Dave some mystery ingredients for toppings. Luckily we received some ham from Thurn’s, fresh sage, and a few other good goodies.

Dave was in his niche all night. He grilled up great pizza and was able to talk shop with guests all evening. It was a valid social and culinary experiment.