Built Outside

I've been making pizza and working with ovens for more than a decade.

I started around 2012 with no formal training or professional pizza kitchen, mixing dough by hand in a Costco bin in my mother's kitchen. In 2015, I built a wood-fired oven on a retired military trailer. Then I had to learn how to use it.

Enzo at Primavera Pizza supplied me with custom dough for free that first summer, when I barely knew what I was doing. I still have his dough trays today.

I learned outside through my catering business — in driveways, backyards, schools, and vineyards across the East End. Fire, weather, and a crowd waiting to eat leave little room for pretending. When something went wrong, I learned from it and tried to make the next pizza better.

In 2019, I began selling frozen pizzas as Homeslice at the Riverhead Indoor Farmers Market. That winter, I cooked every pizza outside in the parking lot of Stony Brook Southampton's shared-use kitchen. I didn't use an indoor pizza oven until 2021.

The road to Fireborn hasn't been straight. There have been successes, setbacks, partnerships, fresh starts, and more business names than I care to count.

Today, Fireborn includes our mobile catering business, frozen pizzas, and frozen dough. I'm proud of our work, and I believe it can stand alongside anyone's.

None of this would exist without my mother, Maryellen McGuire. She gave me a place to begin, believed in me, and stood behind me through everything. I'm also grateful to Enzo, Will Graham, the Hayground School, my family, my team, my clients, and everyone who helped along the way.