In order to chip away at my student debt, I worked in dining halls, I waited tables, I did yard work and then eventually lucked into a job at a shiny pizzeria with a display kitchen near a mall outside Cleveland, Ohio. I arrived early in the day to gather hardwood logs from pallets near the Dumpster and stoke the wood-fired brick oven to over 1,000°F before letting it fall to around 800°F in order to bake pizzas in a few minutes. While the fire crackled, burning the oven’s interior clean, I prepared doughs and toppings and waited with clean tools and a crisp apron for customers to arrive. And sometimes while waiting, I made myself a pie, my first food of the day.

Place the wooden peel, blackened from heat and use, on the counter and sprinkle evenly and generously with coarse cornmeal. Cornmeal keeps the dough from sticking and, once toasted, adds a nutty speckled crunch to the bottom crust. Stretch the dough thinly and evenly and gently place on the peel, carefully tugging it to form a perfect circle. Ladle a scoop of red sauce in the center and spread, spiraling outward in a nautilus shape, stopping just shy of the crust edge. Add whole-milk mozzarella and a small shower of grated smoked cheese. A couple of shakes of the peel will confirm that the pie isn’t adhering before it is sent onto the hearth near licking flames. Loading a pie off the peel is a skill that takes time to master—it is a movement in two parts: a fling forward and a snap back, the timing of which requires practice and learning from mistakes. In the early seconds a well-heated oven will puff the edge crust, producing large, irregular dough bubbles. Then, as sauce, crust, and cheese superheat, ingredients boil, shimmering and pushing pipes of steam up, backlit by orange light, as the cheese darkens and the crust colors deeply. If something is missing at that moment, none of us waiting in the fire glow for pizza will care, for worries melt and hearts lighten. I had no hair on my arms that entire summer but did have the best pizza of my life and, most important, I was back to making things, using my hands, my nose, my mouth, and my smile.

I continue to love the simplicity of hot fire, dark crust, red sauce, and molten cheese—humans have been topping and baking flatbreads much longer than tomatoes or pastas have been in Italy. From Asia to Africa, South America to the Pacific Rim, many cultures have found their way through naan, roti, pita, and paratha to eat flat things both plain and topped. This vestigial connection between heart and hearth continues today even if much of the bread eaten in America isn’t made with human hands. Both heart and hearth hold warmth and life force, each near the center of its structure. The words that relate to fireplace, the focus of a home, are endless and enduring and extend into our baking lives—even the floor of an oven is referred to as the sole. And, while the best of these pizzas are baked with live fire, great pizza can also be had from the home oven.