I’ve been quiet on the blog for a while now for many reasons- not the least of which is that the world has felt very heavy. I wrote about it on October 9th in my I Am Not OK post. Since that time there have been many days where I have not been OK and gratefully, many when I have. It took some time but I choose to LIVE and ENJOY life as much as possible, because that means that I am choosing life. I still have better days and worse days, but I have been moving forward as much as I can.

Back in October, I came across an IG post by a woman who displayed so much empathy and understanding and was unafraid to speak up about the atrocities of October 7th, despite the fact that she is not Jewish. This woman was…IS…a unicorn. Her words show that she is determined to stand up for what is right and even more so to stand up against what is wrong. Her words have helped to lessen the solitude and have brought me hope for humanity. She has been an ally from the get-go and has addressed not only the atrocities of October 7th to the rampant rise in antisemitism ever since.

This amazing woman’s name is Caroline D’Amore and you may have come across her as well. You may also know her – or refer to her – as’ ‘the pink-haired girl’.

To say that Caroline D’Amore is an inspiration is an understatement.

When I attended the solidarity rally in Ottawa in early December and I heard them announce that she would be speaking, I actually went berserk  (in a good way!).  If she reads this post, she will know that I was the one screaming  ‘Keep Talking!’  when she said that she will not ever stop talking. What Caroline D’Amore has to say is eloquent, pertinent, relevant and hits home. There are not enough words to thank her for her activism (although she will definitely tell you that she is not an activist, she is ‘a Mom’).

If showing up in Ottawa weren’t enough, I opened up IG not long thereafter to see her walking through various sites of the October 7th massacre in a bullet proof vest in Israel. The thought that came to my mind was ‘The values are strong with this one’.

In the meantime, as I admire her for being brave, strong, eloquent and outspoken, I found myself intrigued by her IG handle @pizzagirl and wondered what was behind it.

I discovered that she is an entrepreneur.  Inspired by her family’s well known pizza biz in Malibu as well as her grandmother’s secret to all Italian cooking (Hint: it’s all about the sauce), she started her own company called Pizza Girl. She basically took her family’s recipes and put her own touch to them to develop delicious sauces made with wholesome organic ingredients with no added sugar or unnecessary additives. Most importantly, she wanted them to be delicious and something she would be happy to feed to her own daughter.

She recently also launched her ‘Pizza Grill’ – a super cool, PINK, retro-looking pizza grill equipped with a pizza stone that heats up to as high as 760 degrees F… and IYKYK that the key to baking a perfect pizza is super-hight heat.

So outside of all of her ‘activism’ this woman is a MOM and an ENTREPRENEUR. Can anyone say QUEEN? ROCKSTAR?  Take your pick!

I started to think about how much time that this amazing woman is spending posting, travelling to Ottawa and to Israel all in support of the Jewish community… As a fellow Mompreneur, I also know that all this time is also time away from her business.

Given that I was already intrigued by the Pizza Girl Pizza Grill, I decided that I wanted to try out the grill for myself and let me readers know what I think about it.

As you know, companies usually approach me in the hopes that I will review their products and services. If you’ve reading for a while then you also know that for over a decade, even with sponsored posts, my opinions have always been , and continue to be my own and can never be bought.

In this case, I want to be crystal clear that no one even asked me to review this product.  I ordered the Pizza Grill and accessories because I wanted to check them out for myself and for my readers.

The grill arrived right before my trip to Israel and I was so excited to try it that I put it to use that very same evening for dinner.

Here’s what it looked like unboxed:

I used my regular pizza dough recipe which I prep in my bread maker. (You can also use store bought)

I watched the videos on her website with tips and suggestions.

I then got to work wiping down my grill, following the first time use instructions and I was ready to roll.

I made smaller, thicker pizzas than I usually make in the oven

The first was ‘plain’ (aka tomato sauce and cheese). I heeded Caroline’s advice and put very little sauce and did not overdo it on the cheese.

Here was the result:

The picture does not even do it justice. The texture and taste were just fantastic…I somehow made a pizzeria-style pizza in my own kitchen!!!

 

Next we tried pineapple and onion (a regular in our home, usually made with red onion, but we were out) as well as one with Kalamata olives. Both were scrumptious.

 

Can you see the beautiful dough bubbles???

‘I went on to test a thin crust…more testing will be required as I burnt it a bit.. will try again and keep you posted! Meanwhile we still enjoyed the salvageable parts and this one was my hubby’s favourite.

Made the rest of the dough into ‘plain’ but we were so full we had leftover, which by the way, reheats beautifully on the grill itself…but it will take practice to get the perfect reheating formula of time & temperature down pat 😉

‘At the end of the day, I used the same recipe as I do for my usual pizzas but the pizza that I made using the Pizza Girl Pizza Grill had an undeniable pizzeria quality that my regular pizzas, delicious as they are, just do not have. The super-high heat is DEFINITELY a factor and I can’t get there in a regular oven. The texture of the crust was beyond and the taste was spectacular with the simplest of ingredients: Dough, pizza sauce & shreded cheese (I used Mozzarella) Note: I was unable to sample the Pizza Girl Pizza sauce because it is not offered for shipment to Canada.

Thinking about getting one? Here’s what you need to know:

PERFORMANCE
As per everything above, it performs!  My family and friends love my pizza…but this grill brings it to the next level 🙂 Note: Apparently the grill works great with frozen pizza as well- I have not yet tried this.

COOK TIME
You will have to heat the grill for 5 minutes just to fire it up for the first time. For each use thereafter it is about a 10-15 minute preheat time plus 4 maybe 5 minutes per pizza…and watch to make sure they don’t burn- they bake off super-fast!

CLEAN-UP
Instructions are simple and involve just scraping away any remaining bits of food using the scraper (I bought it together with a Pizza Girl pizza cutter) and wiping with a damp cloth, if anything. You absolutely must not immerse the parts in water so it’s really not difficult.

The ‘hardest’ part of the cleanup is understanding that the black staining that will naturally happen from burnt bits of flour. You can try to remove the stains with a paste mad of baking soda and water (full disclosure – I tried lol) but I have decided it is best to ‘get over it’, and accept that the pizza stone not being perfectly white is a sign of it being used and more importantly, well-seasoned which Caroline explains will contribute to even better flavour for future pizzas 🙂 VERY IMPORTANT: Allow to cool COMPLETELY before attempting any sort of cleanup.

EASE-OF-USE
It could really not be easier. I will play with the temperature controls and timing for the first few batches to find my ‘sweet spot’ to avoid overcooking/burning any pizzas, but it is really easy. That said, be mindful that the parts of the grill can get very hot, so be sure to wear oven mitts at all times when handling the grill.

I will add here that the instructions could be slightly clearer ( eg a list of included components and what they are called so that when referred to in the instructions, the reader understands more readily. Also: which direction to place the pizza stone onto the unit – but you can figure it out from photos on the website. Figuring it out is pretty easy but spelling it out would make it a bit easier 😉

THE LOOK
I happen to LOVE the pink retro look, it adds to the fun and is a definite conversation piece!

STORAGE
You will definitely have to make room for this baby, but to be honest, it was not as large and ‘intrusive’ as I had imagined it might be. Only you can decide what you keep in your space, but I have decided that even if I have to store mine outside the kitchen, it is something that I am happy to have in my home.

CANADIAN AVAILABILITY:

YES! The Pizza Girl pizza grill can be shipped to Canada but you will likely have to pay customs / duties charges  COD or prior to delivery (see below)

In the meantime, the pizza grill  is currently SOLD OUT!!!! Rest assured, they are still taking orders as their next batch is supposed to be ready this month.

PRICE
The price for the pizza grill itself is actually quite reasonable for what you might expect at $213 CAD plus shipping, but you must be ready to pay the customs/duties/tariffs upon (or prior to) delivery. Pizza Girl makes sure you know about this on its website and notes that there is no guarantee as to what the cost of this may be. I typically estimate these ‘surprise costs’ to be the same amount as what I paid for the item as I figure that it would not make sense to charge me more (but this is just my assumption).  It ended up being less than that, plus there was a 10% DISCOUNT CODE for your first purchase which helped 🙂

At the end of the day, with Discount code TRYSOME10 applied,  the grill ($213), plus accessories ($34), plus shipping came to $264.50 CAD and customs charges came in at $139.77 for a grand total of $404.27 all fees and delivery included. If we look at it in our Canadian perspective that would be a breakdown of about $350 for both the grill and accessories shipping included plus GST/QST -OR- $270 retail for the grill, $34 for the accessories, $35 for shipping plus GST/QST. To be honest, while not ‘cheap’, it is what you would expect to pay for a quality appliance of this nature with premium styling. It would also make a fantastic gift for yourself or someone special 🙂 Note: they also offer a payment plan if you prefer to go that route 🙂

 

Overall, I am thrilled with this addition to my home, the kids love it and it makes for a very fun ‘Pizza Party’ chez-nous.

Now I owe Caroline D’Amore a double thank-you: Thank you for all of your amazing support and for bring this delicious pizza (and pizza experience) into our home!!!!!

Here’s the link to the Pizza Girl website for those of you who want to check it out for yourselves: www.pizzagirl.com

Buon appetito!

Tanya