The three best holiday gifts for pizza-making newbies that they often won’t buy for themselves. (Hint: one of them is not an oven.)

“Here’s the wrong thing! Merry Christmas!” How do you know you’re buying the right gift for the hobbyist in your life? That’s one of the biggest, hairiest questions when it comes to buying specialty products for a specialized hobby like making pizza.
 
With pizza, the one question that’s off the table for me is, “What oven should I buy him/her?” Whenever someone asks me what my favorite oven is, I say, “My home oven.” I don’t know why it is, but some people just LOVE hearing that answer. But it’s an easy pick for me.

After learning to make pizza in a 1950s Wedgewood stove; after owning both a half-ton, $7,000 wood-fired dome oven and a $300 pellet-fired outdoor pizza oven; and after making pizza in the home ovens of friends from California to New Hampshire, it’s simple. The home oven can be set up quickly with a steel, gets to about the same temperature as the deck oven in a typical pizzeria, and it’s far easier to use.

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