In Oberursel-Stierstadt, near Frankfurt, there is a house everyone simply calls “the Kommune”, the commune. Timo lives there, and somehow everybody else lives there as well: all summer long someone drops by, neighbours, friends, family, young and old. There is a barbecue, a lot of laughing, and sooner or later music. Samuel grabs his guitar, Boris sings. And Boris does not only sing in the garden: as an Elvis impersonator he has even been on TV.
There has always been pizza
In our family pizza belongs to life like the barbecue belongs to summer. And it was always Timo who baked it. Timo cooks with passion, every day and for everyone. Even his two cats get freshly cooked meals. One of them is very shy, the other one not at all: Margherita, our tortoiseshell lucky cat, who always knows better.
“Not good enough”
For years it went like this: pizza stone on the grill, pizza on the stone, pizza gone. The moment one hit the table, it had disappeared. Everyone was happy. Everyone except Timo. Sometimes the base was not crisp enough, sometimes the crust not airy enough. We told him it was perfect. He never believed us.
The night of the oven
In spring 2026 a new oven suddenly stood on the terrace: an electric pizza oven that reaches 500 °C and bakes the pizza on a rotating stone. Timo did not explain much, he just sent out an invitation: pizza night at the Kommune. We all stood around the oven as if waiting for a rocket launch. Dad’s first question was what the oven had cost. He is still waiting for an answer.
Then the first pizza came out. An airy crust, a thin, crisp base, tomato, mozzarella, basil, nothing else. For a few seconds the whole table went quiet. That rarely happens at our place.
Since then the oven has been part of every evening at the Kommune. And Timo? Ask him whether the pizza is good enough now and he will say: “Almost.”
How these evenings turned into a pizza stand is the story of our next post.
