Thirroul's Andrew Parker says he uses his outdoor wood-fired oven mostly to cook pizzas. Picture: ROBERT PEET
The expression "worth the wait" must have been coined by a group of blokes sitting around an outdoor wood-fired oven.
These ovens take a few hours to heat up, but their owners will tell you it's well worth the wait when you can then go ahead and cook a pizza in just over a minute . . . and then put more pizzas in and keep cooking all night.
With the weather warming, the timber piles are building inside these outdoor ovens in preparation for the backyard summer entertaining ahead. After all, wood-fired ovens have been popular for a long time - from as far back as ancient Rome.
Andrew Parker had an outdoor wood-fired oven built 18 months ago and pizza nights have never been the same since.
"We light it in the morning and heat it up, and it's still hot enough late at night to cook a casserole," Parker says.
"We joke about it being a nuclear reactor."
Parker says he and his wife had talked about getting a wood-fired oven for years and it became a reality when they built their Thirroul home.
"We've played around with making bread, but it's mostly the pizza we cook," he says.
"You can cook pizza in 90 seconds."
Abbey Fireplaces and Elite Pizza Ovens sales manager Kieran Mulvihill says the ovens can provide 10 to 15 pizzas in 30 minutes and it's no wonder they are becoming more popular.
"You can cook everything easily in them except cake," Mulvihill says, adding that recipes can easily be found on websites, particular those of oven manufacturers.
"What you cook depends on your imagination.
"Breads are nice to cook in them.
"But you'll probably burn your first roast, it can overheat easily."
Mulvihill says the most common mistakes made were using too much wood and overheating the oven, and not warming up the oven gently (which causes cracks).
"You don't need to give it too much fuel as they retain the heat for at least three hours."
A heat-resistant base and a good set of tools are also important, he says.
Corrimal brick layer Col Woolmer builds outdoor ovens and has had one for about five years.
"I start mine up on a Friday afternoon and I'm still cooking on Sunday night," Woolmer says.