“Pizza was the focus of Thanksgiving until lobbyists got involved.” True story of Pizzagiving.
I’ve hit my stride as a pizza journalist. See ya in Vegas!
Pizza salad.
Friends and Pizza go together likes Pizza..and..More Pizza
What’s better than a pizza? How about like eight pizzas. Eight pizzas that are birthed at a house with the help if eight people.
Don’t get me wrong, pizza is great on its own. But there’s something melancholy about eating an entire pizza yourself then turning to your left and right looking for someone to brag about your achievement.
I guess social media fills that role, but that doesn’t mean you’re any less bloated. Which is why pizza + friends = P-P-PIZZA PARADISE
Last Summer I was invited to a pizza-making party at Chad’s place. Chad is real into pizza. Like legit pizza enthusiast. That’s him up above and his (blurry) pizza. His secret? A sauce recipe that’s passed down from his grandmother. A sauce formula so potent that it left his face mangled. Man. Poor Chad. He’ll never be able to open up a pizza shop with a mug like that.
I did my part to bring the annoyingly-traditional pizza to the party. As you can see it’s humble, tiny, and contains almost no cheese. Does a traditional pizza play in a party setting? You’d think someone who runs a pizza blog would know better.
It looked meager compared to Chad’s pizza bonanza, but sometimes great pizza comes in traditional packages. The gang was really wowed by my sauce, but I’ll never tell my secret…
I felt my pizza was exquisite, but it might have just been the company. Being able to share my favorite past-time with a group of pals only enriches the pizza experience.
I swear no one there is on the verge of tossing up their pizza. Totally promise.
A possible downside is that when you’re cooking up a hodge-podge of tiny pizzas you gotta slice and dice those suckers. Which means some people don’t get to handle the soft, pillowy crust.
My tactic has always been to elbow everyone out of the way and stack a plate full of crust. Let the wild dogs deal with the crust-less pizza in the middle. Those animals.
Bottom line: Pizza with friends is pretty legit. 100% of the time it’s better than eating alone because you get to share the cultural experience of pizza. As a team you can dismantle a pizza, discuss what destroys your tastebuds and how pizza makes you feel alive.
I’ve also noticed that when you have pizza coursing through your veins, your guard drops a little and you become way more honest. It’s like a naturally occurring truth serum. This probably happens because packed into every triangle of pizza are years of memories waiting to be absorbed into your bloodstream.
Pittsburgh's Proper Brick Oven and Tap Room - Pizza Review
As downtown Pittsburgh begins to revitalize, one of the driving forces behind its resurgence is pizza. In the past few years there have been a suspicious amount of restaurants serving "authentic" pizza in the area. Places like Winghart’s, Il Pizzaiolo, and Stone. It’s nice that in a half-mile radius you can grab a dozen different types of pizza. If you collect them all I can guarantee no two will be the same, but you’ll probably be barfing into one of the rivers. Maybe that’s why we have so many rivers? In case of our sudden gluttony.
The newest addition to Pittsburgh’s Pizza Club is Proper. Proper Brick Over and Tap Room, to be long-winded.
Proper promises a proper dining experience that any human should be proud of—a draft list that encompasses an entire alphabet of beer; a finely-tuned menu focused on pizza, pasta and sandwiches; and the option for incidental bacon. The latter surprised me. For sure I thought we were over the “bacon makes everything” better culinary phase?
Let’s talk pizza. When I visited I had the Margherita. It’s the most basic of pizzas and if you can’t make a margherita right you’re in trouble. And take a look! It looks like a pizza, but what are those charred bits on top?
The bacon isn’t just any bacon it’s house-cured black pepper bacon. And when you put it on the pizza-stage it only takes away from the experience. It’s a blemish on an otherwise ideal pizza. I resorted to picking off some of the bacon halfway through the pie, but the damage was done. Pools of grease dotted the pizza like boils on a victim of a plague. The melted mozzarella lakes were just a tad darker. The bacon had left its mark and it was a sad state of affairs.
Despite the bacon carnage, a mistake I hope you don’t make, the pizza was high-quality. The crust had a crispy edge, but pillowy-soft inside. It’s easy to shovel slice after slice into your mouth because it’s just so soft. It’s like eating rectangular bliss.
While the outside of the pizza was perfect, the middle was a bit undercooked. Resulting in a thin, floppy pizza. Great for folding, but I was hoping for a bit more of a crunch when my teeth penetrated the basil, sauce, and cheese. Pizza just taste better when it at least sounds like it’s putting up a fight.
The Margherita I devoured was prepared right on the premises in this wood-fired oven. The oven rests right in the middle of the restaurant. Pizza smell radiates from within, filling your nostrils with succulent scents. There are other things on the menu, but I’m not sure how you can not order a pizza in a place like this.
When the pizza had vanished I was in a pretty great mood. The Margherita was great, it has some character, but stays safely within the definition of what a Margherita pizza is. If you’re in downtown Pittsburgh looking for pizza from Italy, it’s a nice place to stop into. Chances are they’ll have a perfect beer to pair with it.
Pizza Kickstarter News - The Pizza Grate
Another day another Kickstarter trying to revolutionize the pizza business. Well, the home pizza business. This time, The Pizza Grate is trying to capture The Elusive Home Pizza.
The Elusive Home Pizza (TEHP) is something I’ve chased. Like a pizza-shaped rabbit down a greasy rabbit hole, anytime I think I’ve nabbed it, the rabbit slips from my grip. My greasy pizza paws clawing at nothing.
But TEHP is important—it’s 2013 and getting a bubbly, crisp, airy, pizza shouldn’t be impossible. Hopefully, The Pizza Grate is the missing link between your oven and a perfect pie.
So how does it work?
Well, I guess this grate does a few things differently than other grates and stones.
- The Pizza Grate is aluminum, which retains heat better than most metals. So I’m told. I’m not metalologist.
- The holes in The Grate allow steam to escape from the bottom of the pizza, meaning your crust is free of moisture that it would otherwise absorb.
- No rusting - and easy to clean. My pizza stone is actually in quite a hideous state as we speak.
- You can cook a chicken on it, which I guess you would then put on top of a pizza.
Pretty neat stuff. I know I’ve almost burned the house down trying to get my oven hot enough to produce TEHP. And, I don’t have a stock of bricks lying around to construct my own pizza oven. This seems like something that can bring The Elusive Home Pizza to the masses.
Check out their Pizza Grate Kickstarter for more info. Maybe I’ll try and nab an interview with these pizza innovators?
Making big inroads in the pizza journalism community.
I work at WebKite (which is hiring some sales folk if you’re interested). One thing I created at the company is that super awesome Pizza Directory. Sort and filter by a number of very very important pizza facets! Life-changing technology!
Anyways, one of these sales candidates came into the office for an interview and fulfilled all my criteria for a stellar interview:
- Arrive slightly early (but not too early).
- Dress like everyone is watching.
- Bring pizza.
Done and done and done. He brought this pizza after doing some Googling and realized that I am a pizza journalist that works at WebKite. Also, he noticed I haven’t written about Mama Lucia’s which is his go-to pie shop.
I grew up scarfing down Mama Lucia’s but don’t get out there for pizza-errands as much as I should, so he murdered like four birds with one pizza.
Either way, this sales guy knows his audience. Too bad I’m not the one making these very important hiring decisions. Sorry, bud!
Insider Pizza Secret
Halloween is the Black Friday of pizza business. I’d make nearly $100 in tips on Halloween night and the phones would ring straight from 3pm to 8pm. Every employee was required to be in the kitchen ready to make some spooky pies.
Gotta fill those kids up with as much pizza and candy as is humanly possible.
If you’re getting a pizza tonight I reckon you order now!
On October 9, the 5th annual Slice Out Hunger raised $20,000 for Food Bank For New York City. We hosted 800 pizzas from 43 different pizzerias, most of which were served by the owners themselves. Everything was just $1, from slices to sodas to desserts. The grand total will sponsor 100,000 meals for the hungry in NYC.
[Photos by Dan Lane, Lindsay Berk and Claire Kelly.]
Awesome cause. Awesome event. Pizza really can change lives.
Another entry for Law & Order: Pizza Victims Unit. I’m ashamed to admit this, but that photo above of pizza abuse comes courtesy of my dad, Tommy T.
You see, he raised us to be caring and tolerant of everyone’s limits. Everyone’s different and reacts to a megaton of ingredients a different way. And yet, he’s snapped. He went against everything he taught us as children.
In this instance, the pizza will surely crumble underneath the three pounds of banana peppers, the entire pig that he’s crumbled onto the crust, and cheese that 10 cows put together couldn’t produce in a day. That poor pizza will never survive being left in an oven for 20 minutes at 600 degrees. I don’t even want to think how uneven he’ll cook. Ugh.
I think he’s gotten to the point in his life where he has come to terms with the way he treats his pizza. They’re not a piece of cattle created to carry your goods from one town to the next. They’re delicate, fragile beings that need our loving and care. And he’s gone too far. And he knows it.
Cuff ‘em Pizano.
Pizza and Hobos: an oddly specific combination of my interests.
Chad is visiting Di Fara pizza like a true amateur.
Some photos of Di Fara pizza
I went to Di Fara Pizza a few months back and took these photos! These very photos that are never before seen!
How fresh is that basil?
Absurdly fresh.
My Dad deals with the loneliness of the road by ordering pizza as an appetizer at dinner for himself.
It's National Cheese Pizza Day and the Pizza Compass App is FREE in the App Store →
Got this email sent to my pizza journalist account and I thought I’d share it with all you pizza hooligans.
If you have an iPhone you can download the pizza compass for free today. I gladly paid a dollar for the pizza compass a while ago. Great for parties or, you know, hunting down pizza.
Di Fara's Pizza in Brooklyn -
I recently took a trip to Brooklyn, New York. The same area that the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles got their start and, I’m guessing, their addiction to pizza. A turtle eating pizza makes total sense in a place like Brooklyn. The pizza there is like an ambrosia passed down by the god. Every one of these pizzerias found their equivalent of Thor’s Hammer, but in the form of an ancient pizza oven.
While traveling through the Olympus of Pizza I did find one clear winner. And no, it was not that fried pizza from Forcella’s in Williamsburg.
One pizza place that understands the balance of the pizza triforce; a perfect blend of sauce, cheese, and crust.
A pizza place that knows how to deliver a fundamentally perfect pie and sidesteps gimmicks.
A pizza so perfect that it was crafted on Zeus’s anvil and delivered by pegasus himself.
That place is DiFara in Midwood, Brooklyn. I was so inspired by my visit I put together a video chronicling what goes on at DiFara. I talk to some folks who waited an hour in line just to get into the pizza place, and a chef who goes into the nitty gritty of what makes DiFara the best.
Enjoy the video. I’ll have more on DiFara Pizza tomorrow.
Some say Pittsburgh’s Little Italy is in Bloomfield. But those people are wrong. They’ve never been to the secret best Pizza place in Pittsburgh - the backyard of a certain Dan Cardone.
I’m lucky enough to frequent this quasi-pizzeria regularly and it never disappoints. When you get over the shock that there’s a legitimate pizza oven in the backyard (next to the Bocci court, naturally), the surreal thought thatmaybe, just maybe, you’ve been transported to Naples begins to set in.
The oven is a magical thing. Dough, cheese, and sauce go in, and out comes a circular, bubbly, disc, that shares the same DNA as the pizzas served in the heart of Italy. The edges get a little charred during the cooking. But because of the 900 degree temperatures, it remains fluffy and soft on the inside. It’s hard outer shell is just an evolutionary feature of pizza and, obviously, how it’s survived in the wild so long.
No matter what comes out of that oven, it’s automatically added to the list you keep in the back of your mind of the top 10 pizzas you’ve ever eaten. There’s no discussion, no discourse. It’s added onto the list and there’s nothing you can do about it. Then you spend the rest of your life wondering if you’re the type of person who builds a brick oven in your backyard. And guess what? You probably are. Start collecting those bricks.
While my Lawrenceville apartment can’t currently host a pizza oven without fear of burning down a city block, this is the next best thing. Enjoy the photos - they chronicle my latest outing there and what it takes for a pizza to go from a chunk of dough to a slice of heaven.
Fantasizing about Sir Pizza. The only pizza to be knighted by the Pizza King, Harold. Harold the Pizza King.
I found the Andre the Giant of pizza. That slice is your standard slice size. I had to take this photo from 15 feet away to fit it all in the frame.
Amazing.