It’s not delivery — it’s my backyard pizza oven

Today’s hottest outdoor appliance is the pizza oven. If you’re looking for that perfectly baked pizza, with slightly charred cheese bubbles and cracker-crisp crust — and, let’s be frank, who isn’t? — then an outdoor pizza oven may be the appliance of your dreams.

Increasingly popular among those who can afford them and the envy of those who can’t, one of the stainless steel, stone-lined, arch-top beauties from Kalamazoo Outdoor Gourmet could make indoor living obsolete all by itself. Although the price can be eye-popping — the open-flame Artisan Fire Pizza Oven checks in north of six grand — the results are sublime.

“Pizza ovens are definitely one of the hottest items for outdoor kitchens right now,” says Chris Mordi, vice president of communications at Kalamazoo. “Sales were up 20 percent last year, and that’s despite the economy. More people are simply staying at home and entertaining in a relaxed atmosphere.”

If wood-fired pizzas are more to your taste, the Vesuvio Grande from Chicago Brick Ovens is a stationary, all-brick model that will set you back some $12,000 — or about what you’d pay for 2,000 medium two-topping pizzas to be delivered to your door from Domino’s.

Too much? Opt for the wood-fired Aztec Allure Pizza Oven from Deeco. Although the faux brick exterior is actually cast metal, the pizza is real, and the price of admission is only $375.