The “self-control facilitation grate” is a new home oven invention that saves the roof of your mouth from being melted by molten pizza cheese. Ask for—no, DEMAND—this option in your next high-end kitchen appliance purchase.

Background:

When baking a pizza in an oven, it’s it’s easy to remove the pizza from the oven and instantly start devouring it.

The issue:

Unfortunately, molten cheese (Fig. 1) cannot coexist with human tissue, so this causes severe burns to the impatient pizza-eater.

1-melting-hot
Figure 1: It’s easy to remove a still-too-hot pizza from an oven and be punished for your impatience.

Proposal:

We can prevent further occurrences of this culinary tragedy by adding a secondary grating to the oven.

This secondary “pizza self-control facilitation grating” is a thin set of metal wires that extend across the opening to the oven (Figure 2).

After a pizza is done, the grating stays closed for a few additional minutes, while the pizza cools. Once the pizza has reached an acceptable temperature, the grating retracts and the user may obtain their pizza.

(Activating this grating would be done by selecting “pizza” mode when first setting the temperature. This would be similar to how a “popcorn” button on a microwave is used).

 

2-with-the-self-control-enhancement-grating.png
Figure 2: This shows the “pizza grating” in action. The grating (shown here in blue) does not retract until several minutes after the pizza is done. If this method is insufficient to allow the pizza to cool (it is, after all, still in a very hot oven), the grating could be adapted to a “pizza cage” cube shape that would be attached to the baking rack.

Thermodynamic issue:

The pizza may become overcooked, since it must remain in the (hot) oven, yet it is also expected to cool off.

This may be solvable by either opening the oven slightly before the pizza is done, or by allowing the grating to be a complete cube shape (a “pizza cage”) that can slide out along with the baking racks, thus removing the pizza from the source of heat while still preventing the impatient pizza-eater from immediately accessing it.

PROS: Solves the health hazard of pizza-related first-degree burns. Possibly reduces your insurance premiums.

CONS: May be mechanically complex, due to the conflicting goals of 1) cooling off the pizza and 2) keeping the pizza in close proximity to (or inside of) a 400º oven.