Zorthian Ranch Pizza Party

A celebration of my favorite place in Los Angeles

Over the past few years, I’ve had the immense pleasure of being a regular visitor to the Zorthian Ranch, a sustainable arts community located on top of a mountain in Altadena. Picture this: you’re driving down a rambling dirt road, cross a dilapidated bridge, then wind your way up into the hills. Behind you, the dense urban sprawl of Los Angeles slowly disappears, and you are reminded of what this city once looked like before colonization. Black oaks trees, manzanita and chaparral take over your view. At the top of the mountain, you behold an eclectic arts community. There are hand crafted houses, custom designed pathways made of stone, and an enormous quantity of found items and bric-a-brac repurposed into art and sculpture.

It’s home to 20-30 artists, musicians, builders, sustainable gardeners, livestock tenders, and other creative types. Frequently, the ranch plays host to weddings, dinner parties, sound baths, yoga sessions, educational tours, artist retreats, sustainable building workshops, figure drawing sessions… it would take far too much time to name all the things that go on in this strange and wonderful place.

While the Ranch is often difficult to describe with words, it plays a critical role as a creative hub and community gathering space in an increasingly gentrified city during an age where community spaces are rapidly disappearing.

Last week, the Zorthian Ranch was almost completely destroyed, along with most of Altadena, in a raging wildfire that razed 7,000 structures and counting, rendering thousands of people homeless. There have been so many losses in Los Angeles - too many to count - but the Zorthian Ranch is surely among the greatest.

This week on Jersey Boy Eats, we celebrate the Zorthian Ranch through one of the most epic pizza parties I have ever experienced.

It was a perfect day in April when our friend Rohan, an expert in Earthship architecture and design, decided to throw a going away party, as he was about to travel to Costa Rica to continue his mission of improving the world through sustainable building. He couldn’t have known then, that this would be the very last time he laid eyes on the Ranch in its current form.

Rohan invited a wholesome mix of family and friends spanning all ages and backgrounds.

About 30 guests arrived, laden with big bowls of ingredients: vegetables and meats and cheeses and doughs and toppings of all colors, flavors, and varieties.

The first step was to fire up the pizza oven. Now, this is no ordinary pizza oven. Let me tell you about it.

The Zorthian Pizza oven is hand-crafted out of cob, a sustainable material comprised of soil, water, and organic matter. It was built a few years ago by a group of inspired individuals who came together in community spirit to combine their efforts and build a most wonderful pizza oven with a singular purpose: to bring the community together through food.

For days on end, they toiled in the hot LA sun, carrying materials, carefully laying out the design, and adorning it with a delightful array of shiny found objects (nothing at Zorthian is just function… everything is also art). The completed project was a lovely hand-crafted oven perfectly balancing function with form and artful intention.

Behold…

Now, it’s time to light the oven. But because we are at Zorthian, and this is Rohan’s going-away party, we do not simply “light” the oven. What happens next is a highly intentional ceremony, beginning with local elder and native plant guide, Jim Robertson, explaining the process of how to create fire from nature without matches or lighter.

Jim pulls out a bow, a drill, and a fire board. Each item is handcrafted from pieces of wood Jim has collected on his educational walks through the San Gabriel Mountains. With a singleminded focus, Jim applies his bow to the drill, moving it back and forth, spinning the drill into the fire board. Next to the fire board, a soft bundle of wood shavings is delicately placed as tinder, ready to catch the spark.

Encircled by a crowd eager to observe this alchemy, Jim continues to drill, as thin wisps of smoke begin to emerge from the board. In about two minutes, a tiny glowing ember is produced. “The baby has been born,” Jim explains, “and now it’s time for the baby to grow into a child.”

With practiced care, he gently transfers the baby coal onto the tinder bundle, then blows, gently, until smoke begins to pour from the bundle. Suddenly and with great excitement, a flame bursts forth, igniting the bundle. Jim expertly transfers the bundle into the pizza oven, within which sticks and kindling have been carefully piled.

The oven has been lit and the pizza party has begun!

What happens next is a whirlwind of activity. Guests of all ages align in two rows on either side of a long table laden with a bountiful arrangement of ingredients.

A joyful pandemonium ensues as we stretch out the dough and pass it along to be dressed with tomato sauce or pesto or olive oil before handfuls of cheeses of all types and varieties are generosity applied, followed by a such a bounty of toppings that no pizza party in history has even seen before or since.

It would be impossible to list every single pizza we crafted, but here is a selection of highlights:

~ Classic Margherita with fresh mozzarella and garden-ripe tomatoes.

~Brie and pear with local fig jam and balsamic reduction.

~ Sausage and mushroom with fresh garlic.

~ Vegetable medley featuring red peppers, tomatoes, salad greens, basil, red onion, and green olive.

~ Vegan special featuring cashew cheese and soy-based meats (it’s California, what can I say?)

~ An absolute wildcard pie made from mango, jalapeño, white onion, and cheese.

~ My signature “green pizza” featuring fresh pesto and mozzarella topped with arugula and minced garlic.

As the self-proclaimed resident pizzaiolo of Zorthian Ranch, I assume the important role of firing the pizzas, each of which has been assembled by a different guest. My helper is a boy of about 10 years of age.

“Ready to fire?” I ask my helper.

“Ready!” he shouts, with the eager discipline of a solider on a patrol. Using a long stick, the boy opens the door to the oven and holds it aloft as I slide in a pizza, inspect those under flame, and remove the finished pies.

Over and over, for hours on end, this process is repeated. Dough, sauce, and toppings in infinite combinations are assembled, fired, then rapidly consumed in a joyous revelry. We do this all night, until every single person is absolutely stuffed.

Without exaggeration, we cooked over 20 pizzas that night.

The entire scenario was a raucous scene of such indulgence that I didn’t capture a single photo of a finished pie, because the moment they were pulled from the oven, they were devoured in an instant.

When the dust finally settled, Rohan poured us a cup of tea from the built-in water boiler, funnel attached to a coiled copper pipe that routes directly through the oven, instantly heating the water as it courses through the pizza oven.

As the sun set over the mountains, a spontaneous jam session began, featuring a man in wizard robes playing an electronic pipe while the guitar player’s daughter sang a song with lyrics consisting entirely of cat noises.

Oh, how far from Jersey I have come.

And thus concluded the greatest pizza party I have ever participated in.

We did not know then just how good we had it.

To put things in perspective, this night was one out of thousands of gatherings hosted at the Zorthian Ranch, each one just as special as this one. The Ranch has been bringing joy, beauty, creativity, silliness, and revelry to the Altadena community for over 75 years.

I shudder to think of what we have lost. At this time, the Zorthian Ranch is in their greatest hour of need. Please consider donating to their recovery fund, so we can rebuild this wonderful place.

Help us keep the pizza oven lit. 🔥🔥🔥

Donate here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-zorthian-ranch-recover

And if you choose to become a paid subscriber to Jersey Boy Eats, know that all this month’s proceeds will go towards the Zorthian recovery fund.

FINAL THOUGHTS

There are few places as special to my heart as the Zorthian Ranch. Zorthian combined with pizza? Fuhgeddaboudit! There’s nothing better. This place is so great, it’s inspired the least sassy, most hippie-dippy and heartfelt edition of Jersey Boy Eats ever written. As much as I love to clown the usually bad pizza and bagels in California, I love this state, I love Los Angeles, and most importantly, I love all of my friends who have created such a wonderful community together.

West Coast: Heartbroken.

East Coast: Ready to help rebuild.