Fireworks Mobile Wood Fired Pizza of Turner

Pizza is one of those foods Americans never grow tired of eating and reinventing. Hot, crispy and topped with everything from marinara to barbecue sauce to pesto. Fresh veggies and herbs and just the right amount of cheese to hold it all together.

Who doesn’t wake up in the middle of the night longing for a slice or thinking about a new topping? Your options are limited in the wee hours, unless you’re Chris and Kate Abbruzzese, owners of Fireworks Mobile Wood Fired Pizza in Turner. In that case, you have a wood-fired oven in your backyard.

Chris and Kate met at Bowdoin College in 1979, married in 1983 and moved away to Illinois. They raised three children there, Chris working in global marketing for an international company and Kate translating books for the visually impaired.

They decided that when they turned 50, they would do something different with their lives. “We spent two or three years plotting it out,” said Chris.

Kate, who grew up in Wayne, saw Maine as a good place to land and pursue a new venture. While they contemplated the life change, they continued their hobbies of baking and cooking. They considered building a brick oven in their Illinois backyard, but if they did, they might not want to leave. So they bought a mobile pizza oven and started making pizzas. “It started out as something fun — Super Bowl parties for friends,” said Kate.

In 2010, they packed up the pizza oven and Kate’s two Belgian draft horses and relocated to Maine. They bought a 10-year’s vacant dairy farm on Upper Street in Turner. The farmhouse, originally built closer to the road, “needed everything . . . a new foundation, new septic, another well. So we decided to move it,” said Kate. They moved the house away from the road and rebuilt it in the middle of what is now grazing pastures.

Looking over the lush green fields with two lone trees marking their property line, Kate said, “This is not exactly what we planned. Usually, what you plan becomes different in reality.”

They thought they would have a few sheep and chickens, but “we ended up with more grazing lands than we had animals for,” she said. Their son, Teo, after finishing his master’s degree in integrated resource management at Colorado State University, brought his education and skills to the new family venture and now runs Double Z Land & Livestock, which, as its website says, “raises all-natural grass-fed beef and lamb in a way that is gentle on the animal, caring to the land and good for your health.”

The beginning: Hallowell Farmers Market

Throughout the move, the renovations and the changes of plans, the mobile pizza oven remained ready to go.

“In Maine, you can kind of cobble together a business if you’re a farmer. You do different things in different seasons. We had this oven, we knew what we were doing,” said Kate.

So one Saturday, they brought the pizza oven to the Hallowell Farmers Market. Kate said that although they’d done some specialized training with a professional chef, making pizza at a farmers market was “a great crucible, because we didn’t know what people would order and we did custom things for them.” Chris added, “People would walk over with stuff they’d bought and I’d cook it for them, things like beets and goat cheese.”

Wood-fired ovens have been around for centuries. Similar to a stationary oven, the Abbruzzeses’ mobile oven is constructed on a custom-built trailer. Simple and efficient, heat from a wood fire radiates throughout the domed-oven and is then absorbed by the dense interior masonry walls and stone oven floor. Baking temperatures can range from 500 to 900 degrees Fahrenheit.

Using hot-burning fruitwoods, it can take about 90 minutes to bring the oven up to temperature. Cooking occurs by direct heat, radiant heat and the convection heat that is created by the dome. By creatively managing all three sources of the oven’s heat, a variety of foods can be prepared.

Chris said the challenge in cooking in such an oven is “learning how to manage all three sources of heat, cooking the product and not burning it to a crisp.” Timing is critical, as the couple learned how to maximize the oven’s heat to cook various items. Food can also be grilled or baked in dishes, just like in a standard oven, leading to endless options, including garlic knots, focaccia, stuffed mushrooms, cocktail meatballs, caprese tomato skewers and oven-baked desserts.

As for all their ingredients, the Abbruzzeses said they use fresh and local whenever they can, including pizza dough made by Lisa Chouinard at Lewiston’s Italian Bakery.

After three fun and successful summers of farmers markets, this year the Abbruzzeses are taking their mobile pizza business to catered events, including weddings. What’s a mobile pizza oven but a tasty pie on wheels? “Food truck weddings are a blast,” said Chris.

Chris and Kate are currently booked for 2016 and starting to get requests for 2017, but Fireworks Mobile Wood Fired Pizza fans should mark their calendars for Sunday, July 24, which is Maine Open Farm Day. They’ll have their oven heated up right at their farm and will be serving popular favorites like Margherita with fresh mozzarella and basil, veggie with caramelized onions, roasted garlic, roasted red pepper, zucchini and olives, and maybe BBQ chicken pizza. They’ll create custom pizzas, too. Said Chris: “Pizza is basically a delivery system for a topping.”

For Chris and Kate Abbruzzese, the notion of changing the path and pace of their lives was intentional. Because of that, today they own a farm in Turner, Maine, and delight people with their mobile wood-fired pizza. And on occasion, like they did recently, they can take a break to look out over their pastures, watch the clouds and the cattle, and enjoy the breeze. “That’s a pretty sight,” said Chris.

And what about 60? Will they still be making pizzas at their next milestone birthday?

Chris and Kate looked at each other with a knowing look.

“We hope so.”

Recipes from Fireworks Mobile Wood Fired Pizza

Co-owner Chris Abbruzzese says two secrets to a good pizza are to make sure not to overload the pizza with toppings and to cook it at high heat (and watch it carefully).

Barbecued chicken pizza

Makes 4 personal-size pizzas

3/4 cup favorite barbecue sauce

3 boned and skinned chicken thighs

4 (5-ounce) pizza dough balls

1/2 pound smoked Gouda cheese, shredded

1 cup thinly sliced red onion (a mandolin works best)

1 tablespoon McCormick Grill Mates Montreal Chicken seasoning

2 scallions

Rice flour for shaping

Place a pizza brick, baking tiles or a baking sheet in the oven and preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Season the chicken thighs with the Montreal seasoning and bake for 25 minutes on a wire rack. If they are a bit under done, that is all right. They will finish cooking in the oven on the pizza shell. Remove from the oven and rest for 10 minutes. Slice or shred into bite-size pieces and toss them in 1/4 cup barbecue sauce to cover.

Turn the oven up to 550 degrees.

Form the dough on a floured surface into 8- to 9-inch rounds. Rice flour is the best, since it acts like ball bearings and is less likely to burn. Parbake the shaped rounds for 3-4 minutes until lightly brown and dry. Remove the pizza shells from the oven and prepare with toppings.

Spread the remaining BBQ on the four shells, top with smoked Gouda, then chicken pieces, red onion and scallions.

Bake for 6 minutes or until the desired crispness and serve immediately.

Pear and Gorgonzola pizza with balsamic glaze

Makes 4 personal-size pizzas

Good quality olive oil

1 ripe pear, thinly sliced in 16 pieces

4 (5-ounce) pizza dough balls

1/2 pound of Gorgonzola cheese

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Balsamic glaze for drizzling

Rice flour for shaping

Place a pizza brick, baking tiles or a baking sheet in the oven and preheat the oven to 550 degrees.

Form the dough on a floured surface into 8- to 9-inch rounds. Rice flour is the best, since it acts like ball bearings and is less likely to burn. Parbake the shaped rounds for 3-4 minutes until lightly brown and dry. Remove the pizza shells from the oven and prepare with toppings.

Drizzle the shell with olive oil. Then place 4 slices of pear, some Gorgonzola and chopped walnuts on each one.

Bake for 6 minutes, or until the desired crispness, drizzle with the balsamic glaze and serve immediately.