Sunday Slice: Pizza Palmer Editon

Laying on a pile of its own grease, wrapped tightly in plastic, was a beautiful slice that saw its end come too soon.

This slice was charitable, beautiful, charismatic. In a world full of idiosyncrasies this slice made each and every moment feel perfect. The slice was made up of equal parts cheese, crust, and compassion. When it wasn’t sizzling in an oven it was dedicating itself to improving the life of others. It was determined to make every citizen in its tiny town feel important. Feel like they have a true purpose.

How does such a slice find itself discarded like a day old fish? Was their a dark and crispy crust beyond the cheesy and delicious exterior? For as good-willed and benevolent as this slice appeared to be, it could have needed an outlet. A venue to release all the stress. A place to be real. To be wanted for who it truly was. Unfortunately, such deep and dark places are home to specters and demons that you’d never want to encounter.

This slice may never see the inside of an oven again, but we will bring in the best coffee and pie loving FBI agent there is to solve this crime.

Sunday slice! I meant to past this last Sunday but things got away from me.

What a horrible photo this is, but I think you get the point. pizza Palermo isn’t that “X-traordinary!” it’s the type of pizza I wish was “X-Tinct!”

The pizza has no heart. In its place is a ton of cheese. I’m no pizza surgeon, but that sort of transplant can’t be healthy for the pizza. The cheese is a strange mixture, but the prominent flavor is Parmesan.

It reminds me of the times I would go to Pizza Hut as a child and (willing to do anything for a small laugh and a bit of the spotlight) pour a jar of Parmesan cheese on my pizza.

Pizza Compass App Review

A compass that locates the nearest pizza is, if I can be so blunt, an item that exists in so many pizza fantasies. Usually the adventurer inherits an ancient compass from their Neapolitan Grandmother, greasily passed down from one generation to the next. Legends say this compass connects you with your pizza. But can such a legendary fantastical object exist in our reality?

With the Pizza Compass App the answer is yes.

It’s a novel way that blends together technology with functionality. It’s a blend that goes together just as well as shredded mozzarella and provolone. 

When you open the pizza compass you’re met with a mystical slice that has been programmed to find and hunt down pizza. The slice rotates and keep your spirits in tune with the pie that resonates with your soul. You pick the destination and you’ll be guided their by your angelic pizza guide.

When it’s not being a compass, it acts as a handy guide to all the pizza in your area. Using the Foursquare API it gives you pizza-focused venues as well as relevant user ratings and reviews. The pizza market is nothing less than saturated and any tool that can help you make a better decision is more helpful than a surplus of flour when you’re dealing with particularly sticky dough.

What would be improved with this app was a bit more motivation. While pizza is surely motivation enough it wouldn’t hurt to have a few slices of sage wisdom or a mozzarella mentor that tosses encouragement your way. The journey to pizza can be a long one and mantras like “The pizza you seek is the pizza you’ll eat” would make the trip a breeze. If anything it would boost my mental fortitude and keep my hunger true.

It’s a solid experience and worth the $1 it cost in the app store. 

Pepperoni Graveyard. This is where pepperoni goes to die. The pit of despair. A pile of grease, cheese, and processed meats. From which no pizza will ever return.

Who will mourn for these lost pepperonis? Is it you? The pizza connoisseur  Or the alley-way dog that will go sleep with its bedfellow famine? 

It’s a gruesome and disturbing site of pizza nature. A trove of mystery and intrigue. Scientists speculate how the pepperoni found its way together to find a final resting place. Was it also their place of birth? Did they follow a cosmic sign? There’s just not enough government funding to know for sure.

Put the Pesto on the Pizza or the Basil Gets It

“Pizza is but a canvas to paint your hunger. A blank sheet for your stomach to express its dreams, desires, and true intentions”

-Ancient Pizza Philosopher

When I venture outside the house for pizza, I almost always stick to the plain-and-simple pizza. A bit of cheese, dough, and sauce. That’s all I request from the pizzerias. I’ve yet to get tired of that trifecta.

But in my home, my experimental pizza lab, I like to push the boundaries of what a pizza can be. Perhaps a pizza is all of a sudden covered in BBQ sauce and chickpeas? Or it’s been assaulted by cheddar cheese or baked ziti? Dressing up pizza in these various flavor-costumes is about as close as I’ve gotten to parenting. By the looks of things, there’s a very high percentage I’d eat my child. My delicious cheesy child.

The other night I got a hankering to make some pesto. Pizza wasn’t part of the original plan, but like the best laid plans of mice and men you’re going to end up incorporating pizza. I went down to my local market to find the core pesto ingredients. And here they are safely contained in a blender. Like a tiny zoo for herbs and spices.

All the pesto ingredients you’d ever need. See if you can spot them all:

  • Basil
  • Chinese Pine Nuts (cheap and effective knockoff variety)
  • Olive Oil
  • Garlic
  • Parmesan Cheese

Slaughter Mix them  all up and you have your pesto. It’s incredibly simple. So simple you’ll want to travel back in time and stop yourself from every buying the absurdly overpriced pesto in a jar. 

You can do anything with pesto! Like put it on a pizza. It behaves like most other sauces except for one key difference—the oil in the pesto will turn your crust a nice golden brown. This is good and bad. It can be a bit deceptive while cooking, but your crust will never be more savory. 

Above is the finished product with some rad Instagram filters. I opted to add some slice tomatoes and a few bits of mozzarella. Delicious, colorful, and a perfect medium for delivering pesto into your body.

Here’s a bonus photo of some eggs and toast I made with my leftover pesto.

Pizza Postcard: Flagstaff Pizza from Fratelli's

Chris was nice enough to include me in his journey through Arizona. He visited Frateli’s in Flagstaff, Arizona and boy howdy does this look like a great slice of pizza. There’s even a little lasso of cheese as if Pecos Bill himself made this slice.

Chris, who heads up things at PSNStores, the preeminent site for everything on the PlayStation Network, has been on pizza adventures with me in the past. He’s even from the Pittsburgh area! How outstanding.

Here’s another shot of the pizza, sans Instagram convo. There’s sausage on there if you can’t tell.

Mother's Day? More like Pizza Day

I had no intention to eat pizza on Mother’s Day. As a son, it’s my duty to ensure my mom is surrounded by flowers and other moms at Phipps Conservatory. After we trounced through the tulips and “ooo-ed” at the scentless orchards, we worked up quite an appetite. So my mom did what any sane mom would do and suggested we get some pizza. 

Mother’s Day? More like Pizza Day. Oh dang, that should be the title of this post. 

We headed to the Porch at Schenley, a fancy Eat N'Park establishment. We each had our own Margherita pizza which was the perfect end to Mother’s Day. The crust was fluffy, the cheese evenly distributed, and the presentation novel and full of utility. Be able to add on basil, pepper flakes, or a bit of parmesan at our leisure was delightful. 

It’s a bit thicker than most “wood fired pizza” (I put that in quotes because as they have an oven that looks like a wood-fired oven, there’s actually no wood involved!), and provides a healthy crunch. You’ll eat the slice with the speed of a cheetah just to get to the crust as fast and efficiently as possible.

As a parting gift, my mother gave me half of her pizza to take home. Something to remember her by. A delicious treat to cherish. I ate it all as soon as we parted way. 

Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there. May your offspring fill you to gills with pizza.

Pizza Dog Comic - Pizza Journalism

I don’t pay attention to comics because they have nothing to do with pizza. That’s not true. At times they have everything to do with pizza. With a slice in one hand and a comic in the other there’s no longer any need for napkins or self-esteem. You have everything you need right there.

Lately, there have been some barks coming from the comic community that Pizza Dog, Hawkeye’s puptacular and pizza consuming assistant, is getting a comic all to himself. As a pizza journalist I went right to the source: Pizza Dog.

While I didn’t get anything important from Pizza Dog, I think we’re sniffing down the pizza trail. Otherwise Pizza Dog wouldn’t have acted suspiciously like a dog. 

My primary source wasn’t cooperating so I took to Google. Inputting “Pizza Dog Comic” returned this result. A sneak preview of the Pizza Dog Comic!

26.2 Miles and A Hundred Slices of Pizza

One thing that fuels my pizza cravings is my constant running. This whole time I’ve been training for the Pittsburgh Marathon. It was the perfect relationship; I could run dozens of miles a week and in return I’d reward my body with pizza. After especially long runs on nice days I would grab a large pie and my pizza pal Christa for a pizza-in-the-park adventure. It’s the only way to celebrate fitness.

But the question remains - how much pizza is an athlete supposed to be eating before a run? I posed this to the Pittsburgh Marathon and their silence is as terrifying as a gas pizza oven ripe to explode.

They refused to respond - luckily I’m not only a pizza journalist, but an inside source on this matter. While I won’t have any concrete data until I finish the Pittsburgh Marathon tomorrow I have a very strong hypothesis on how much pizza you should eat before a marathon.

In the week leading up to the marathon I had pizza on the following days: 

  • Sunday - 1 slice
  • Monday - 1 slice
  • Tuesday - 2 slices
  • Wednesday - 5 slices
  • Thursday - 0 slices
  • Friday - 5 slices
  • Saturday - 6 slices

You can see the pattern. Start off the week slow, ramp up, plateau  add in a day of break, and lay down the hammer the crucial day before the marathon. If all goes well tomorrow it stands that an average marathoner should eat 20 slices of pizza the week leading up to the marathon.

And that’s a little bit of pizza science for you.  Have your own pizza regiment? Let me know!

Pizza Review: BZ's Bar & Grill

Across from PNC Park, past the statues of legends, and the special parking spot for the Pirates Bandwagon are a suite of bars. Bars engineered for the sole purpose of fueling fans of baseball both before and after the game. With ludicrous specials on Miller Lite, you can spend the same amount of money you spent on a Pirates ticket and wake up in a hospital if you so choose.

Unfortunately, baseball season isn’t eternal so they have to exist in some capacity They need a thing, a hook to keep people coming back. Something that goes beyond baseball, fried food, and cheap Miller Lite. Many spaces resort to dealing with the downtown lunch crowd, of which I was part of yesterday.

I wandered over to BZ’s Bar & Grill to meet some folks for lunch. I was worried about the large Martini glass in their logo; would we be drinking our lunch? Perhaps partake in a refreshing pizza smoothie? Not today.

We dined al fresco, along Federal Street with the Hustle and Bustle as a backdrop. It was a fine day, so we were quacked at by a number of passing Just Ducky Tours. The menu was classic bar food - sandwiches, fries, macaroni and cheese. I of course ordered the pizza.

As seen above, it’s a very plain looking pie. It’s passive and worried about offending your digestive track. “Don’t worry about me,” the pizza squeaks. “I’m just going to be over here, you know, being a lil’ pizza.” Okay, pizza.

I don’t know if BZ’s puts in a lot of effort into their pizza. I guess I could ask, but eating this pizza reveals so much more. A squishy crust that would be fine to eat for those who can’t find their dentures. The bottom is slightly charred, which would be great if the pizza was only 2-dimensions. But the third dimension, mainly the interior of the pizza, was forgotten It was fluff. The pizza was stuffed with nothingness. A pairing perfect for Miller Lite and a baseball ticket.

The pizza is innocuous. It’s taking absolutely zero chances and I think it’s okay. Like the Pirates who play it safe, the pizza is okay with a losing record. It’s fine pizza in a pinch, much better than the pizza served at PNC Park, and something I would even serve to the Just Ducky Tour ducks.

Three out of five pizza.

Pizza Maker Shortage in Italy →

Around the corner from Corneldaniel’s Zico shop, the crust as the Foccaciaria is made by an Egyptian. Nevertheless, people anxiously wait outside for a table.

This article is interesting for a number of reasons. First, it delves into the pizza making hierarchy in Italy. It’s not surprising that this is a serious profession, but at the same time it pays poorly. After all, they’re making pizza. While it’s rewarding and emotionally enriching, it won’t make you rich. Until pizza becomes currency. 

Many Italians are hanging up their dough hooks to pursue other careers. What does a professional pizza maker do post-pizza? Maybe retire to a beet farm or get into the calzone business.

Back to the hierarchy–pizzerias employ a “Neapolitan” to train and supervise employees. An overseer with pizza sauce flowing through their veins and years of experiencing packed into their DNA. The problem is that there aren’t enough Neapolitans to keep up with demand! This can be the beginning of a failing pizza infrastructure  A downward spiral smeared with spoiled vegetables and canned sauce. Without a Neapolitan on staff it’s complete bedlam.

Secondly, many Italian pizzerias employ workers from Egypt and Bangladesh. Proving that pizza is truly the one-food to rule them all. A circular disc that welcomes all life into its delicious portal. Once you succumb to the pizza siren, you’re within its grasp for eternity. One day, pizza shall inherit the earth. 

Thanks to Justine for sending this my way. 

Also, the article tries to shame the pizza establishment for employing an Egypt native to make pizza which is just disgusting.