Making Pizza the Old-Fashioned Way

JOURNAL: ISSUE 4 - 2012

Local 3 AZ/NM retiree Dennis Cahill with the Forno oven he built at his cabin in Bear Flat, AZ.

Retired Local 3 Arizona/New Mexico officer Dennis Cahill spends most of the summer at his slump block cabin in Bear Flat in northern Arizona, which he built himself with the help of many of his Union bricklaying friends back in the mid '70's. After learning about an ancient masonry-constructed, wood-heated bread oven called a Forno (pronounced or-no), he was intrigued. Thanks to the Italian immigrants who brought their oven building skills with them, Brother Cahill was able to convert that knowledge to good use. Because of the oven's unique brick dome design, cooking heat can be retained for hours at a time. He built his first oven at his home in Tempe following with a second at Bear Flat. "The best thing to cook in these ovens," according to Brother Cahill, "is pizza."