I live in the New York metropolitan area, so I am blessed with great pizza places that satisfy my craving for the perfect combination of bread, sauce, and cheese.

But as much as I love eating pizza, I also love the challenge of making it. I have a recipe book for pizza dough. New York style, Sicilian style, focaccia, and even the so-called Chicago style deep dish.

However, one of the factors that limited my pizza-making prowess was my oven. This is because most home ovens can only heat up to 500 degrees Fahrenheit: that's Neapolitan pizza.

The light, bubbly crust and crisp, leopard-spotted backside can only be achieved with an oven that can heat to 900 degrees Fahrenheit or higher.

My request for Christmas was an Onifira pizza oven. And this proved to be one of the best gifts I ever received. (One of the reasons my oven, which I ordered in late November, did not arrive until late February. (As of this writing, there is a 7-9 week delay between ordering and receiving it.) (The order was placed at Ooni.com, and the list price is $349.) The model I got, the Ooni Frya 12, uses wood pellets as the heat source and can reach the blazing temperatures I need. (You can buy wood pellets at Lowe's or Home Depot for about $15 a bag.)

If you want something you can use indoors, check out my Breville Pizzaiolo review.

The pellets are gravity fed into a chamber in the rear of the oven, while the heat and flames are pulled forward through a flue in the front of the oven. The whole thing weighs only 22 pounds, and the legs fold down and the chimney can be removed, making it surprisingly easy to store when not making pizza.

Oni claims that the filer reaches a temperature of 950 degrees in about 15 minutes. I wanted to see that for myself, so I bought a $25 laser thermometer to see how hot it gets.

Not only did the filer reach the advertised temperature, it exceeded it. I measured a high of 1,010 degrees, an incredible temperature for something this small.

So what about cooking? That is, a perfectly cooked pizza in about a minute. From raw dough and fresh mozzarella cheese to crispy, bubbly, delicious pizza took only 60 seconds.

I've made about 20 pizzas so far, and the size of the fila limits me to a 12-inch pie. You have to rotate the pizza during the baking process (I use this 9-inch pizza rotary peel, but something smaller in diameter might work better), and you have to be careful at all times to keep the pizza from turning into a charred flame.

I also try new toppings and combinations. Marc Vetri's Pizza Carbonara is still elusive, but even the mistakes are fun. Oni Fila was a gift to me, but the whole family enjoys it.