There's pizza. And then there's wood-fired pizza. Every now and then, I'm lured from our regular pizzeria by the promise of a smaller, even less elaborate pie that redeems itself with incomparably crunchy crust and that telltale whiff of wood smoke. Among several wood-burning ovens in the Rogue Valley, Rosario's is my go-to in Medford for pies that come out in mere minutes compared with the region's busier pizza establishments.

The spectacle of our pizza's baptism by fire didn't impress my preschool-age son as much as I had hoped. He wanted to enjoy his lunch in view of a different restaurant's fish tanks. But assembling pizzas and calzones in full view of customers traversing from the front door to the dining room is another way that Rosario's keeps things real 42 years since its inception as an Italian deli.