Slice

Chain Reaction: Pizza Hut Cheesy Bites Pizza

Thu, 24 May 2012 12:00:00 -0500

While we think mom-and-pop shops make the best pizza in the nation, we'd be remiss if we didn't keep abreast of what the chains are up to. Suit up, it's time for another Chain Reaction, folks.

[Photographs: Will Gordon]

Head Slice has a fiery temper and a filthy mouth that belie her sweet smile and genteel upbringing. She's a lovely woman through and through, but when displeased she starts swearing like a sailor who swallowed David Mamet's parrot. She's told me to go do some pretty gross stuff to myself through the years, but nothing worse than the curse she hurled at me last week: "Hey, pal, why don't you go have Pizza Hut's new Cheesy Bites Pizza for lunch?"

I lack the food pedigree of most Serious Eaters; the only reason I'm even allowed to write about food is because I have naked photos of Kenji (just kidding—everyone has naked photos of Kenji). At any rate, I've settled into the role of token populist, which suits me fine because I've always been something of a chain restaurant apologist. I think a lot of food people are too reflexively harsh on the corporate places.

While I agree that the best restaurants in a given city are rarely the chains, we tend to overlook the fact that the worst restaurants in town tend to be just as independent as the best, with the chains hovering somewhere in the boring but acceptable lower-middle rank. There are plenty of dirty, incompetent moms and pops out there, and by comparison chains usually have cleanliness and consistency going for them, if nothing else. This is as true for pizza as it is for signature sizzlin' skewer bowls, which is why I didn't consider myself above a Pizza Hut Cheesy Bites Pizza lunch.

This limited-time-if-we're-lucky abomination is of the modern trick-pie kind, in which unlikely things are stuffed into, welded onto, or stacked atop a normal, unsuspecting pizza. In this case, the Hutters have affixed mozzarella-filled dough nuggets along the perimeter of a standard round pizza. It's a dubious idea with even worse execution.

Cheesy Bites Pizzas are available as large only, with a one-topping going for $11.99. That's not a bad deal by volume: My dozen dollars netted a big pepperoni pizza ringed by 28 Bites (3.5 Bites to the slice), which would be more than enough food to satisfy a couple of fat guys, provided those fat guys didn't have nerve endings in their tongues.

Nothing about this pizza worked. The most immediate problem concerned the approach: How the hell is one supposed to go about eating this thing? The obvious way seems to be removing the Bites first and then eating the actual pizza after you've been sufficiently appetized, but when I went this direction I was left with a crustless pizza and a bad case of pie-thumb.

The other option is to eat the pizza first and then have the Bites for dessert, which is tricky because not all Bite bonds are created equal: Some of them fall off at the slightest touch, making for an unreliable crust and a high risk of lap pizza.

The cheese from the Bites—a creamy and, to be fair, not bad mozzarella—leaked out onto the pizza to form an extra layer of white cheese around the edge of the standard white-and-orange mix. The Bites themselves are therefore just blobs of dough rendered hollow by the escaped cheese. They're salty.

Once you dispense with the Bites distraction, you're left with no choice but to confront the root of the problem: Pizza Hut doesn't make good pizza. It was slightly undercooked, though structurally sound. The crust didn't taste like anything much, but it had no glaring flaws. And that's it for the good news.

The pepperoni was terrible—sour and gamy and dominant—and once I removed it, there wasn't much flavor coming from any other pizza component. The cheese blend was somehow plainer than the straight mozz from the Bites, really nothing more than a rubbery slick of salt and grease. The sauce was slightly sweet and suggested a chance encounter with garlic powder but was otherwise nondescript.

Remember the baked ziti from the middle school cafeteria? How when you ate it you wouldn't even have known you were alive if not for the occasional forkful of dried oregano tangled up in the cheese? That's what Pizza Hut reminds me of, minus the oregano.

About the author: Will Gordon loves life and hates mayonnaise. You can eat and drink with him in Boston or follow him on twitter @WillGordonAgain.

Gino's Of Great Neck: Drunk on alla Vodka

Thu, 24 May 2012 09:45:00 -0500

[Photos: Emily Fox]

I do not live or die by the specialty slice. On any given day, a good old-fashioned cheese is more than enough to satisfy my considerably-sized, pizza-craving belly. But when a pizzeria proudly boasts "over 30 different varieties of pizza" on its menu—an establishment such as Gino's Pizzeria & Restaurant of Great Neck, for instance—I'm inclined to see what all the fuss is about.

Gino's is a Great Neck slice staple. There are some who argue on behalf of nearby Francesca's, but a good friend of mine who grew up in the area passionately prefers Gino's. To her, Gino's is pizza. This is what she, and many other Great Neck locals, look to it as the benchmark for all things triangular, saucy, and cheesy.

At Gino's, "options" is a theme that extends beyond the food. You can order slices to go at the counter, or enjoy an extensive list of pies and other assorted Italian restaurant staples in the dining areas out back and upstairs. On my inaugural trip to the Great Neck joint last weekend, I chose a mix of the two: a cozy seat in the back of the house with three slices aimed straight at my face.

The results: a mixed bag of highs and lows, punctuated perfectly by vodka.

I kicked things off topping-free with a classic cheese slice ($2.30). Gino's sticks to the basics here (a mozzarella-heavy cheese blend atop a thin coating of basic tomato sauce; nothing fancy) and the result is what you'd expect: good, solid pizza. I was presented with a wonderfully browned slice, blackened at points. I'm the type who always seeks out the burnt bits, and this one more than fit that bill. Not everyone's cup of tea, of course, so be wary if you're a burnaphobe.

My second slice, the Eggplant Parmigiana ($3.75), was a disappointment. Kudos to the crust for staying strong beneath the massive amount of fried, breaded eggplant piled high on the slice, but that's where the compliments end. The dollops of ricotta tasted stale, the eggplant was mushy and not crisp, and the vast volume of toppings overwhelmed. Not recommended.

Here, we have the winner: Pizza alla Vodka ($3.75), made up of a thin layer of creamy, tomato-based sauce topped with equally thin slivers of fresh mozzarella. Nothing more, nothing less, nothing else needed. While I wouldn't say no to some fresh basil or the addition of some good prosciutto, as it stands Gino's Pizza alla Vodka is really, really tasty. It's so good, in fact, that I had to bring a second one home; it barely survived the car ride. Needless to say, I look forward to slaughtering future generations of Gino's pink-sauced slices.

(For what it's worth, you can order this slice with baked rigatoni on top—not an uncommon topping to find in the Long Island pizza scene—but I advise against it. The addition of carb-on-carb action would greatly detract from the pizza's lightness, but to each their own.)

Not straying too far from the pie selection, I rounded off my meal with a chicken roll ($5.50). For the unfamiliar, chicken rolls are just a few steps removed from calzones, stuffed to the gills with breaded chicken and mozzarella (no ricotta to be found here). It's one of the most consistently featured menu items at any Long Island pizzeria, and certainly one of my most ordered meals. Gino's take on the dish did not disappoint, sporting flavorful chicken coated in marinara and oozing, gooey mozz, all melded together in thick, doughy goodness. I do think that fifty cents is an annoying price tag for a side of the same tomato sauce that coats their slices, but it's the price you'll have to pay if you want to take the roll for a dip.

At the end of the meal, watching families at nearby tables chowing down on fresh-made 18" cheese pies ($14), I realized I was missing out: Gino's counter slices are great (well, two out of three isn't so bad), but fresh out of the oven, the pizza looked downright delicious. I would do terrible, terrible things to have a whole alla Vodka pie to myself right now. Thankfully, Great Neck is the halfway point between my hometown of Huntington and my current residence in New York City. I'll have plenty of opportunities to correct my rookie mistake down the road. But before that, perhaps a trip to Francesca's is in order...

Gino's Pizzeria & Restaurant of Great Neck

60 Middle Neck Road, Great Neck, NY (map)
516-487-1122; Gino's on Facebook

About the author: Josh Wigler keeps the wheels spinning at MTV Movies Blog, fueled by pop culture lust and an unhealthy appetite for pizza. (Easy on the toppings, serve at room temperature, and add some blue cheese dressing for crust-dipping—yes, he's one of those.) Follow him on Twitter @roundhoward.

Landmark Tavern: New-School Bar Pies in an Old-School Setting

Wed, 23 May 2012 12:15:00 -0500

[Photographs: Casey Barber]

Landmark Tavern

259 W. Mount Pleasant Ave., Livingston NJ 07039 (map); 973-533-9787; landmarklivingston.com
Pizza style: bar pizza
The skinny: Modern toppings on the classic thin-crust bar pie
Price: Large pies $10-16

The look of the Landmark Tavern tells you it's old the minute you step through the door—1970s old, based on the dark wood paneling and red vinyl seats cluttered around tables in a stepped series of low-ceilinged rooms. But the basic setup, seemingly good for a decent bar pie while you watch whatever afternoon game's playing on SNY, is unrecognizable as a former stagecoach stop dating back to 1882.

Ah, New Jersey. Sneaking that 19th century history into everything. A mural to the left of the bar paints a picture of the tavern's former life, a white clapboard house along a dirt road that saw everything from horse-delivered newspapers to picnic socials off the front porch (now a banquette-lined extension to the bar room where the mural is painted). These days, union workers belly up to the bar after their shift ends to catch up via burgers and beers, and families herd the kiddies into booths after yet another softball game.

And modern tavern-goers want modern pizzas. We live in a CPK- and Puck-inspired world, one where you'll find chicken fajita, Thai, shrimp scampi, and buffalo chicken pizzas even in a no-frills tavern like the Landmark. I made equal concessions to tradition and innovation with an order of the Old World pizza ($12) and the pesto pizza ($14). The Old World, a variation on a white pizza, came sprinkled with mozzarella, fresh garlic, and a healthy dose of black pepper on an olive oil-brushed crust. Sauce was optional, but bar consensus told me most people order the Old World with it, and when in Rome....

Adding the sauce was the right choice for this pizza. Though I'm not the world's biggest dried oregano fan, the simple crushed tomato sauce, dolloped on top of the mozzarella like ricotta on a white pizza, worked in the pie's favor. They weren't kidding with that black pepper; visible like freckles across the surface, it brought the heat in a good way. But the slightly sweet sauce kept it in balance with the buttery crust and salty cheese.

And the origin of the Old World name? No older and no further toward Europe than Little Falls. Owner Penny Oswald learned it from the owner of a now-defunct bar when expanding the Landmark's kitchen and menu beyond burgers and beers in 1999. The building's been in her family for 53 years and had been run as a tavern even before her cousin Al bought the place, but we can all credit Penny for bringing pizza to the Landmark.

We can also credit Penny for the pesto pizza, her favorite of the lineup, covered with a thin but super-garlicky swipe of fresh basil sauce spread to the edges of the thin crust. Almost more like a flatbread than a pizza, the pesto soaks into the crust to infuse it with oil and flavor and leave a deeply satisfying golden richness. And on such thin pies, the cheese crisps up almost frico-style, like when you microwave your nachos a bit too long or a slice of Cheddar falls out of your grilled cheese sandwich when you flip it in the pan. I love those little bits of caramelized cheese, so I'm down with a pizza that's more or less covered in it.

No offense to the Old World, but I guess I'm a New World gal after all. The black pepper spice carried me through the meal—I'll take a little bit of sinus-clearing heat wherever I can get it—but it was the pesto pizza that surprised me, and it's the one I'd order again. Bar pies they might be, but Landmark's pizzas offer quality variations on a theme in an unlikely setting. Bonus: any pizza tastes better when it's served with a $3.25 beer of the week, even more so when that beer's Brooklyn Summer.

About the author: Casey Barber is the editor of Good. Food. Stories., a freelance food writer, and a transplanted Pittsburgher making the most of the Garden State. Find her on Twitter: @GoodFoodStories

The Pizza Lab: We Test The New and Improved KettlePizza Grill Insert

Wed, 23 May 2012 09:15:00 -0500

[Photographs: J. Kenji Lopez-Alt]

If you're a pizza geek, no doubt you've seen the KettlePizza insert. It's an after-market device that you add to your weber grill which increases its volume, and provides an opening for inserting and removing pizzas from a stone you place on the grill grate. The food blogs all seem to love the thing. Food Republic has called it a "grilling gamechanger". The Daily What says that it's "life altering". Laughing Squid says it'll turn your kettle grill "into an outdoor oven", while Urban Daddy says it'll "turn an everyday backyard grill into a sublime pizza-making machine".

Sounds like a dream come true, right?

Except for one thing: none of those folks have actually tested the darn thing. Well we did, back in 2010, when it first came out (see the full results here), and were not extremely impressed with the results. We ended up having to use several times more coal than was recommended to get results that were only mildly better than what you can get out of a home oven, and not nearly as good as what you can get by cooking directly on the grill or using the skillet-broiler method in a regular old oven.

Since that early look, the inventor, Al Contarino has jumped into the conversation to let us know that he's come up with a new and improved model that should address many of the problems we had with the old one.

We've also heard from Serious Eats ~~shill~~ commenter Elijahdavid912 that he was able to bake 60-90 second pies on his, calling it "The Answer To All Our Prayers". Those numbers are nowhere near what we managed, even with 3 1/2 times the recommended amount of charcoal being used.

We were all too happy to give the new model another whirl. Here's how it went down.

The Basic Science

Before we jump in, just a quick refresher course on some of the basic science of heat transfer in grilled pizzas:

Frequent Slice readers may know this already, but for those who don't, a Neapolitan pizza cooks via two modes of heat transfer: The bottom of the pizza is cooked by conduction, the direct transfer of energy from the stone to the crust. The top of the pizza is cooked via convection, the transfer of energy via hot air.
Conduction is a much more efficient method of heat transfer, which is why in a professional oven, to cook a pizza properly, the base of the oven need only be around 750°F or so, while the air above must be significantly hotter—in the 1,000°F to 1,200°F range.

The problem with trying to cook a pizza on a stone in a regular kettle grill is that, as many people have pointed out, the stone gets really hot, and it's hard to get the air temp above the pizza hot enough to match it. The bottom of the pizza burns before the top takes on any color. You might think that raising the lid higher and adding an opening would have the opposite of the desired effect, lowering the temperature inside the oven and making the top cook even less efficiently, but this is not the case. The important thing to remember is that moving air cooks a lot more efficiently than still air (think: convection mode in an oven vs. standard mode. The only difference is a fan circulating the air).

So really, the goal when cooking a pizza on the grill should be to get as much hot air circulating over the top surface of the pizza as fast as possible. The main advantage that I see to using the Kettle Pizza insert is that when you get the fire and positioning of the stone right, it creates good convection currents. With the coals banked in the back, hot air rises off the coals toward the domed lid, then gets pulled back down and out the oven door opening. This moving air cooks the top of the pizza a lot faster than the relatively still air inside a completely sealed kettle.

That's the theory. But does it hold up?

The New Model

There are a couple changes that have been made. First, it's now made of a heavier gauge steel and completely unpainted (the old version had a coat of black paint that would burn off at high temperatures). It's also got a cute little "HOT" sign cut into its front, as well as a slightly modified shape to decrease the volume inside the oven.

Al also pointed out that for best results, we should use charcoal briquettes as our base fire and add a few big chunks of hardwood oak to pump up the temperature right before we start cooking the pies.

It also comes with its own line of accessories now, depending on the model you get. Ours came with a nifty metal peel with a built-in beer bottle opener (how thoughtful!), as well as an American-made round stone for the grill and an aluminum pan, so you have your choice of baking method.

I fired up a full, overflowing chimney of coals, spread'em out in a C-shape (as recommended) in the back of the grill, then put the stone and cover on to preheat. About 15 minutes later, the stone temp was at around 450°F, while the top of the dome was at around 500°F. The air temp inside according to the probe thermometer built into the device was pushing 700°F.

For the dough, I used my basic Neapolitan Pizza Dough—the kind of pizza dough typically used in the super-hot ovens the PizzaKettle is meant to emulate. Just before stretching and topping the dough, I added a few planks of oak to the fire, quickly replacing the lid to trap the heat.

By the time I finished stretching and topping the dough, there was a raging inferno going on back there. It buried the needle of the probe thermometer. I'd guess the air temp was around 1,000°F or so, which seems like it should work for Neapolitan pizza.

The pie went in, and I waited... and waited... and waited... After the first 90 seconds (the amount of time it typically takes to cook a Neapolitan pie start-to-finish), it had shown some decent oven spring and a bit of char on the bottom surface touching the stone, but there was essentially no browning at all on the top surface.

On the PizzaKettle website, it's suggested that you can "dome" the pies to get more browning on the top; That is, put them on the peel and lift them towards the top of the oven where the air is hotter and the convection currents are faster.

I did this, holding up the pie for several minutes before I finally started to see a hint of browning in the crust.

The first pie took a total of nearly 7 minutes to cook through, and even then, it was still a bit anemic looking on the top surface.

Take a look at the cross-section to check out the internal structure:

Again, decent, but not spectacularly poofy, without the thin-crisp exterior and moist-airy interior you look for in a great pie.

The undercarriage, on the other hand, looks pretty good to me. Nicely charred and spotty.

As I got ready for round two, I noticed that the temperature had already dropped significantly. Adding a few more chunks of hardwood boosted it again, and I threw in my second pie.

This time, it took even longer to bake, and no amount of doming seemed to help cook the top. I pulled the pie when the bottom was threatening to burn—at around 10 minutes.

The top of the pie was still completely pale and the crumb was quite dry after that extended baking time.

Why Doesn't It Work?

Unfortunately, the device doesn't produce pizzas as good as what you can get in a real wood-fired stone oven, or even a regular home oven made using the skillet-broiler method. The question is, with the air temp reading off the charts, why doesn't it work? My guess is it all comes down to a lack of radiant heat.

As I mentioned above, pizza cooks via several different modes of heat transfer. Convection is important for the top of the crust, conduction is important for the undercarriage, but radiant heat—that's heat energy transferred directly via electro-magnetic radiation—is also essential for proper browning and charring on the top surface.

With a stone pizza oven, it's not just the air temperature that matters. The amount of energy stored in the stone walls of the oven and re-emitted as infrared radiation is also important. That's why a stone oven needs to be preheated for several hours before you can start baking in it—that energy takes a while to build up. With a kettle grill, you have no material to store the energy. Rather than being collected in thick stone walls, it's conducted straight through. That's all energy that should be going into your pies, but instead is being lost to the air outside.

The Verdict

Our recommendation from our first round of testing still stands: If you want to bake outdoors and get results marginally better than in a regular oven (that is, a regular oven using regular baking methods on a pizza stone), then you might enjoy this product. It's fun, it's pretty, it's well-crafted, and it gets a certain job done.

If, on the other hand, great Neapolitan-style pizza is what you're after—pizza that cooks in a matter of minutes with a charred crust and soft, airy interior—then we recommend using either the skillet-broiler method, or just cooking directly on the grill grates. Both methods will give you superior end results.

Did we miss something here? Have you had a different experience with the KettlePizza? We'd love to hear about it. We've still got the guy set up on our grill, so if you have any suggestions as to how to improve our results, we're more than happy to give it another whirl!

About the author: J. Kenji Lopez-Alt is the Chief Creative Officer of Serious Eats where he likes to explore the science of home cooking in his weekly column The Food Lab. You can follow him at @thefoodlab on Twitter, or at The Food Lab on Facebook.

Pizzoetrope: Making Animated Gifs on Pizza

Tue, 22 May 2012 16:15:00 -0500

[By: Andrew Salomone on Make]

Seeing how the animated pizza gif like the one above came to life it pretty cool. Seriously, I would have thought it was some sort of Photoshop/stop animation combo. The hybrid of zoetrope and pizza looks way more entertaining than computer animation. If you didn't catch this when it started making the rounds on the internet last week, check out the how-to video below.

Cool, right? Too bad the tools required are a little obscure/dated.
Of the things needed to make this happen I only have the knife, cutting board, and a record (but no record player...). I edit a pizza blog and I don't even have a pizza pan! Maybe some of you better appointed, creative Slice'rs out there can make your own animated pizza gifs to show off on Slice.

About the author: Meredith Smith is the Slice editor. You can follow her on Twitter: @mertsmith.

Photo of the Day: The Impossible

Tue, 22 May 2012 13:45:00 -0500

[Photograph: Andrew J Small]

This dog must be stuffed. I have never met a pizza hound that could exert the willpower necessary to endure this kind of torture. Certainly not Hambone (getting his pie on with me here), or Yuba (who loves all kinds of crust, even ones stuffed with Polyfil). And, while I've never met her personally, I can only imagine dhorst tried a trick like this at home.

[From Food on my Dog via David Kover]

About the author: Meredith Smith is the Slice editor. You can follow her on Twitter: @mertsmith.

Home Slice: 'Pizza Within a Pizza'

Tue, 22 May 2012 09:15:00 -0500

This Pizza from the Past Will Alter Your Pizza Future

[Photographs: Adam Kuban]

I am a huge fan of speculative fiction—especially alternate history and time-travel stories. Why do I mention it? Well, the recipe I'm about to share with you had me thinking about these genres as I kneaded sausage and onion and other stuff into my typical pizza dough over the weekend.

But first, some background...

The D is for Digression: Mama D's Pasta & Pizza

What you're looking at above is the cookbook I stole from my parents' house as I packed off to college. It was already pretty rough looking by the time I got my hands on it, and 12 moves and 20 years since then have taken their toll as well.

Olive oil and tomato stains mar the inside cover and title page, where I scribbled notes and copied out the sauce and dough recipes for one-flip access. Heck, the cover long ago tore off, and I'd just been binder-clipping the thing together.

But I wasn't the first to abuse this book. Here's my mom, jotting notes to herself—probably from as far back as 1982.

Apparently my mom deemed this recipe "good," although I don't remember her ever cooking it when I was a kid. Maybe she wants to now, though, because she asked about this book the last time I talked to her.

Before I mailed it back, though, I leafed through it to make sure I wasn't giving up any gems.

The recipe for Basic Pizza Dough? After learning so much from all you Slice'rs and from Pizzamaking.com, I can't believe I ever followed it. But I don't fault "Mama D" (aka Giovanna D'Agostino), a sweet lady who did a lot of good for her hometown of St. Paul. Her book, Mama D's Pasta & Pizza, is from another era. In 1978, when it was published, it was probably a revelation that you could even make pizza at home—say nothing about hydration, cold-ferments, blended flours, etc.

So, nothing I can't get online.

But, whoa, wait ... WHAT'S THIS?!?

Pizza within a freakin' pizza?!? Mama D, you have spoken to me from the past with an idea that was almost 20 years ahead of its time. After all, it wasn't until 1994 that Pizza Hut got around to stuffing its crust.

And it's here that I began thinking of alternate timelines and time travel. What if:

...Mama D had served Pizza Within a Pizza at her restaurant and it had caught on and made her a pizza sensation?
...the World Wide Web had existed in 1978 and this crazy pizza got blogged around? Surely we'd be generations past the Cheeseburger Crown Crust pizza by present day
...I went back in time to Mama D's Ristorante Italiano in St. Paul as a mysterious stranger, whispered "stuffed crust" in her ear, and thereby altered the timeline of stunt-pizzadom forever?

I was also thinking of time travel because the Pizza Within a Pizza just doesn't seem that INSANE by today's standards. I mean, when you're baking cheeseburgers and hot dogs into a crust, what's so novel about kneading in sausage, onion, oregano, Parmesan, garlic, and tomato sauce?

If you could go back in time and show the people of 1978 the Cheeseburger Crown Crust pizza, you would BLOW THEIR PRIMITIVE MINDS.

But, guess what? Unlike all that other BS, Mama D's Pizza Within a Pizza is actually kinda good. I think the relative restraint gives it enough wackiness and flavor to make it fun and delicious but not so much that it's a gross-out gutbomb. Anyway, without further ado...

The Method

I used Mama D's formula as a jumping-off point. After all, when I posted the recipe on Facebook on Sunday, someone quipped, "You have to love a recipe that calls for garlic powder." I subbed in fresh minced garlic instead.

And instead of mixing all the topping-like ingredients in with the traditional dough ingredients at once, I made a straight dough, let it do a room-temperature bulk rise overnight, and then kneaded in the "Pizza Within" components (above).

The result was kinda ugly. Looks like an asteroid or Pizza the Hut or something. One thing I learned: I should have adjusted for added liquid in the form of tomato sauce. It made my dough very wet. My original dough was about 64% hydration, but I figured the quarter-cup sauce wouldn't bump that up much. In reality, I think it increased the hydration to 74%.

Which is why there's so much bench flour here.

This is my first pizza of the session. I didn't wait long enough after kneading in the "Pizza Within" ingredients and balling it up. Consequently, it was messy and hard to stretch.

I discovered quickly that the additional ingredients make this dough VERY EASY to tear. If you think about it, the chunks of sausage or onion have essentially made holes in the dough as it is. When you try to do a traditional dough-stretch technique, things go south fast.

I ended up pinching together a lot of tears and was gun shy about stretching too far. Which is why this first one is so thick and lumpy looking.

But, hey, not a bad rise in the cross-section shot, right?

In the undercarriage, you can see the onion and the bits where the sausage charred—and all the folds and wrinkling that come from the timid stretch method.

Here's dough No. 2, which had more resting time than dough No. 1. As a result, it was easier to shape.

I ended up simply pressing it out flat on top of probably too much bench flour, but it worked better this time.

Here's the cross-section:

By the time I got to my third ball of dough (of four total PWAP doughs), I had gotten the hang of it, using less bench flour and getting a more traditional pizza-like shape and look. Here's a Pizza Within a Pizza topped with a combination of Parmesan, regular mozzarella, and fresh mozzarella:

And here's the cutaway view from this pie once again:

On all my PWIAP pies I laid on the thinnest slick of sauce I could get away with. After all, there's some sauce in the dough. I also took a lighter hand than usual with the cheese on all of these because, you know, there's ALREADY A PIZZA IN THE CRUST.

Except for this bad boy:

It's my signature "Famous Original A" pizza on PWAP crust. I couldn't resist. Though you can't really tell where the PWAP ends and the pizza pizza begins. So it sort of defeats the purpose.

What Worked and What I'd Do Differently

I was actually surprised this crust worked as well as it did. In future attempts I know to press it out without lifting it from the counter.

But perhaps the biggest change I'll make is trying it as a Sicilian-style pan pizza, an idea I got when New Jersey pizza-maker Al Santillo chimed in on my Facebook preview photo:

"I make a focaccia similiar to that. I start with a sicilian dough in a pan. Then I twist the extras in one at a time. Then I wait for it to raise. Then you could top it, if you like."

Actually, the change I'd love to make would be jotting down some of my current pizza knowledge in the Mama D's book, sending it back in time to 19-year-old me, and jumpstarting Past Adam's pizza skills before he'd even started down the pizza path. But that's the stuff of fiction.

About the author: Adam Kuban is the founder of Slice, where he has been blogging about pizza for more than eight years. You can follow him as @akuban on Twitter.

My Pie Monday: Squash Blossoms, Pork Roll, Montanara, and More!

Mon, 21 May 2012 18:45:00 -0500

VIEW SLIDESHOW: My Pie Monday: Squash Blossoms, Pork Roll, Montanara, and More!

At last, My Pie Monday! There are some freakin' incredible looking pies this week. There's lots of evidence of Slice'rs helping Slice'rs via past inspiration, advice, and collaboration. Dmcavanagh, Jimmyg, and Norma427 put their heads together on some dough experiments and the results appear here. Adam took some tips from TXCraig1, who also was the source of topping inspiration for Atmast (who, by the way, is soliciting some pizza stone advice.) Imwalkin represents with the Aleppo, which I'm sure fellow addict Dhorst would greet with a big thumbs up. She and newcomer Mitch Birrittella sent in pics of some drool-worthy grilled pies. Scott D's Margherita being pulled from his newly finished wood fired oven is sure to induce some Slice'r envy. And just look at how beautiful JEL's squash blossom pie is. Amusebouche1 makes a eye-catching pie with zucchini and cured meats, and hogletboglet makes a damn good case for how crave-worthy a simple pepperoni pie can be. After all the fried pie talk last week, it's great to see Thezaman's montanara. And last, but not least, livrefreeorpie works a very near and dear regional ingredient onto his pie. Click through to see.

If you make pizza at home, join us for next week's My Pie Monday!

Just take one snapshot of your homemade pizza, describe your cooking method (briefly!), and follow these instructions to get it to Slice HQ by 8pm EST on Thursday night. Be sure to let us know your Slice/Serious Eats screen name!

Want to see more awesome homemade pizza photos from previous weeks? They're right here »

Classic Bakery Pizza and Tomato Pie from Cacia's in South Philadelphia

Mon, 21 May 2012 14:15:00 -0500

[Photographs: Hawk Krall]

Cacia's Bakery

1526 West Ritner Street, Philadelphia, PA (map); caciabakery.com
Pizza style: Bakery
Oven type: 50 year old Brick Oven
The skinny: Classic south Philly room temp square slices
Price: Slices $1.10-$1.30 By the dozen - $10-12

Another piece of the great bakery pizza / tomato pie puzzle, Cacia's has been a south Philly staple for over 50 years, a tiny brick-oven bakery storefront - no chairs or tables and room for maybe 5 people, usually full - that sells room-temperature square sheet pan pizza along with bread, rolls, and stromboli.

Cacia's pizza is different from most in that their crust is much thinner than the sicilian-and-then-some tPhiladelphia tomato pie standard, maybe the thinnest in the city that still falls under the category of authentic bakery pizza.

Cacia is also insanely cheap and insanely popular. This is not the sort of place I visit once or twice to write about; I literally stop in for a slice or 5 every time I'm within a few blocks, and most of south Philadelphia seems to have the same idea. The slices move fast and if you're lucky you'll walk in the door when they're pulling something out of the oven and you can eat a hot slice right there and save the rest for later.

First up is the classic tomato pie, really basic here with no cheese sprinkled on top, and unlike most tomato pie the sauce is not sweet at all, but instead really rich in a meaty sunday gravy kind of way. It's definitely way different from the light, almost spongy super thick slices from Corropolese and Sam's, but it's still one of Philly's great tomato pies, with a great crisp yet soft in the center crust and a good choice for anyone who doesn't love sweet sauce.

What I really love are Cacia's white pies, super super minimal in a way I might dare to compare to Pizza Bianca. Brushed with oil and garlic, salt and pepper and just barely topped with cheese—mozzarella plus a hint of something sharper, I'm guessing provolone or Parmesan.

Check out the undercarriage on the white pie. Oiled on both sides and a little greasy but in a good way, with a nice color to the crust. They also definitely hit it with a perforator, which is unusual for this type of pizza.

And here's the infamous pizzaz, the only in Philadelphia concoction that consists of American cheese, sliced tomatoes, and usually pickled neon green banana peppers, but this time red cherry peppers—a nice change that makes it somewhat less wawa-hoagie-esque. I love pizzaz in theory, but can't usually deal with more than one slice.

The cheese pizza literally came out of the oven the second I walked into the bakery. I ate one immediately and had to buy this one just for the photo. A surprisingly solid slice, with the same meaty sauce from the tomato pie, and loads of well-browned cheese. Somehow the white and tomato pies work at room temp but these really don't. If you're lucky enough to catch one right out of the oven go for it, or heat it up in the oven at home.

I also really love this white broccoli slice, really just garlicky crust and barely caramelized broccoli with a hint of cheese, and possibly some anchovy going on back there somewhere. Simple and awesome; great hot or cold.

Loads of spinach on the thin, slightly chewy crust with that same mysterious anchovy flavor in the background. Good, but I think I prefer the broccoli.

I also checked out one of Cacia's cheesesteak strombolis, unlike the pizza it's not meant to be eaten at room temp, but heated in the oven for 15 minutes per the instructions on the bag. It was OK, but overall a little bready and it needed a side of sauce or something. Word is, the real deal is Cacia's roast pork strombolis, stuffed with pork roasted right in the bread ovens and available only on Sunday—and also as a sandwich. Whoa.

Cacia is a great introduction to what bakery pizza in Philadelphia is all about—super cheap, insanely consistent comforting slices from an unpretentious neighborhood spot that hasn't changed much in 50 years, and quite possibly the only tomato pie bakery in Philadelphia that's opened on Sunday and Monday.

Hawk Krall is a Philadelphia-based illustrator who has a serious thing for hot dogs. Dig his dog drawings? Many of the illustrations he has created for Hot Dog of the Week are available for sale: hawkkrall.net/prints/.

Poll: What Chain Appetizer Pizza Mashup Will Strike Next?

Mon, 21 May 2012 11:45:00 -0500

Buffalo Chicken Pizza from Papa John's. [Photograph: Meredith Smith]

Chains continue to adapt their popular appetizers into pies with somewhat appalling results. Obviously people love some of these monstrosities—remember the Papa John's Buffalo Chicken Pizza? So it's obvious the trend will continue, but what will come next? In this weeks poll tell us what transgression you think will be the next appetizer pizza mash-up?

About the author: Meredith Smith is the Slice editor. You can follow her on Twitter: @mertsmith.

This Week in Pizza

Sun, 20 May 2012 14:00:00 -0500

HOLY CRAP, VINCENT'S PIZZA PARK HAS CLOSED [Post-Gazette]
And here's the Slice review of Vincent's
Neapolitan tightasses apoplectic over outre toppings [Guardian]
The "epoxy method" [Pizzamaking via Norma]
Golden Boy Pizza [Photos of Pizza Boxes]
Bacon and eggs on pizza [Pizza Quest]
Truck Pizza in the Hudson Valley [IDoP]
NOLA's Pizza Delicious tries Facebook advertising [NPR]
Scrutiny for Domino's "gluten-free" crust [NRN]
Senators' important work: making hockey bets involving pizza [WSJ]

A Whole New Serious Eats

Sat, 19 May 2012 18:15:52 -0500

From Serious Eats

Welcome to the new Serious Eats! We've made a whole new design for the site, in order to accomplish a few important goals:

Make it easier, faster, and more satisfying to find content on Serious Eats, while modernizing the design to work with the latest technologies.
Eliminate the biggest frustrations for frequent users of the site, such as glitches in search and in browsing the archives.
Give a stronger sense of community by showing off what's popular, what a particular author has written, and what stories are related to the article you're reading.
Set the stage for future improvements by streamlining the systems that run the site behind the scenes.

Two weeks ago, we invited you to preview the new Serious Eats and described the new features. Thanks to everyone who took the time to comment and submit feedback, because you helped us make Serious Eats even better!

You told us the preview site felt "too narrow" and cluttered, and that you wanted to see more and bigger photos. You were right. So on the homepage, we went wider with content and introduced big, beautiful photos. We also made adjustments to our fonts so that they're easier to read across different operating systems and web browsers.

We hope you like what you see, let us know what you think. You might still encounter some funny looking pages tonight as archive pages continue to update overnight, so bear with us until that process is complete.

Special thanks to the team that worked on this project: Tracie Lee, Christine Tsai, Paul Cline, Ben Fishner, and 29th Street Publishing.

P.S. If it doesn't look quite right i.e. you don't see any images, clear your browser cache to make sure you see all the new styles! Here's how: http://www.wikihow.com/Clear-Your-Browser's-Cache.

Pardon our Dust While We Upgrade

Sat, 19 May 2012 09:15:00 -0500

From Serious Eats

We're making some upgrades behind the scenes today. Beginning this morning at 9:30 a.m. ET, all community features will be disabled (commenting, favoriting, and new submissions to Talk and Photograzing). We expect the upgrade to take approximately 3 hours and as soon as it is complete, community features will be restored. Thanks for your patience!

New York's Artichoke Basille Pizza: Why The Controversy?

Fri, 18 May 2012 16:00:00 -0500

[Photographs: J. Kenji Lopez-Alt]

Last week I wrote a quick, off-the-cuff post in defense of Artichoke Basille's pizza after another blogger posted a pretty unapologetic take-down of their slices. The New York three-location mini-chain seems to inspire quite a bit of passion on both sides of the spectrum.

On the one hand, are the lines. On any given weekend, you can hit the shop expecting to see a crowd snaking out the door, particularly in the post-drinking hours between 11pm and 3am or so. Head there for lunch and you'll see a steady stream of both regulars and out-of-towners who've simply heard about their massive cream-and-artichoke laden slices.

On the other hand, there are those who claim the pizza is not worth the hype.

Our friend Paulie Gee of Paulie Gee's pizzeria in Greenpoint takes issue with the often blackened underbelly:

Oh how I wish those slices were "slightly charred"

Regular Slice'r John Wozniak is even less apologetic with his opinion of the folks who patronize Artichoke:

Plain and simple Artichoke is bad pizza for people that patronize places like Momofuku—they go so they can feel hip and in the know (and are amongst their own kind)... By all means, please wait on line for at best mediocre pizza. I won't get in your way.

Even our own Adam Kuban has this to say:

I can't even recall the last time I've been able to fold a slice of Artichoke Basille's plain pie. It's crisp and stiff from the rim to about halfway into the pie, then the center is just soggy. Most of the time when I try to pick it up, it just breaks in half. Which is why I hardly ever get a plain regular slice there.

At Slice we're not ones to throw around judgement without due diligence and back up, so In the interest of TRUTH (and a opinion), I decided to revisit Artichoke to re-assess their entire pizza menu, top to bottom. In the interest of thoroughness, I visited multiple times—at 11AM when the first round pies are coming straight out of the oven, at noon when the first square pies emerge, and again in the mid-afternoon when a re-heat is necessary on your slices.

At no point did I have to wait on any kind of line at the West Village location. Indeed, as someone who's only once been to Artichoke after 10pm, I can say that only once have I ever had to wait on line there.

Let's break down the pies.

The Margherita Slice ($4)

I'm conflicted here. As a born-and-raised New Yorker used to a relatively thin and tender crust with just a hint of crispness on the bottom and a soft, pliant chew, it's hard to get behind Artichoke's crust. It starts with a layer of crispness that's a good 1/16th of an inch thick. Thick enough that it doesn't just crunch when you bite or fold it, it outright shatters like a cracker. This doesn't bode well for those who like to fold-and-go.

That said, this is not the type of slice you'd fold-and-go with anyway; It's too hefty, saucy, and cheesy, weighing in at 1.5 to 2 times the average NY slice. A lot of that bulk is in the remainder of the crust which is quite a bit chewier than normal. The cloesest analogy I can give is that it has the eating qualities of a rustic Italian bread with a thick crust and chewy crumb. It's not really like any other pizza I know.

Saucewise, we're in good territory. Bright, fresh, tomatoey, and lightly chunky, it has that great naturally sweet and acidic balance you look for in good tomatoes, accented by not much more than salt, olive oil, and a few whole basil leaves. Similarly, the cheese is top notch. It starts with a base layer of aged mozzarella mixed with Parmigiano Reggiano. After it comes out of the oven, it gets a sprinkle of roughly grated Pecorino Romano. The one-two punch of hard cheeses makes the slice salty, but I like a salty pie. Honestly, I don't know any slice joint in New York using a cheese combo of this caliber other than DiFara.

Now, I can easily see how a New Yorker could look down on this slice. And that's because it's not a New York slice. However, I personally find it pretty delicious. I've done pizza walking tours with non-New Yorkers (who thus don't have a New York pizza bias), more than one of whom have said Artichoke's Margherita was the best they tasted.

Between a fresh pie and a re-heated slice, I found that the reheated slice verged into too-tough territory, which probably explains the inconsistency problem. Get a fresh slice from a pie out of the oven, and it's great. But get a re-heated slice, and you'll be chewing for a long time.

The Crab Slice ($4.50)

It's an odd one. The crab tastes fresh (not canned/pasteurized), which is a very good thing, and there are some nicely seasoned crunchy breadcrumbs on top. Seafood and cheese occupies the same shelf on my goes-well-together list as tuna fish and peanut butter (that is, they don't), but given that bias, I'm strangely un-disgusted by this slice.

The crust is the same thick, crunchy guy the Margherita gets. It's almost like a crab cake smooshed onto a pizza. My wife would dig it.

The Artichoke Slice ($4.50)

Ah, the eponymous artichoke slice. The stuff of late night drunk/high out-of-towners' dreams. It's a stick of butter and a few quarts of cream thickened and dropped onto an extra-thick pizza crust (even thicker than the standard), with some perfunctory slices of artichoke thrown in for... for whatever reason.

As the Artichoke Aficionado himself says, "not enough ARTICHOKE!"

I'm pretty sure that this is the slice he-who-must-not-be-named was referring to in his rant, but he couldn't (or more accurately, quite rudely wouldn't) be reached for comment, so I'm not sure.

I'm with the haters on this one. It's sloppy, over-the-top in a not-good way, and sickness-inducing. I ate a bite, felt like retching, and brought the rest back to the office, where it sat, slowly congealing for the rest of the afternoon.

The Meatball Slice ($4.50)

Adam Kuban would immediately take issue with this slice, as the meatballs are entirely disassembled and scattered (Adam likes his meatballs whole). But the flavor is there. It has a deeper, richer sauce cooked down with onions like a good Sunday gravy. It reminds me a lot of eating a meat lasagna, but in crunchy, holdable form. As we mentioned in a recent Daily Slice post, "if oily, rich, and filling while being plenty flavorful is what you're looking for, it'll do you just fine.

The Best For Last: The Grandma Slice ($4)

This is the star in their stable of actors. The one to get if you are only going to visit once.

To me, the grandma slice, when fresh out of the oven, is one of the great slices in New York. Saturated in olive oil (they use a combination of pomace olive oil to grease the pan and extra-virgin to finish off the pies) with plenty of that same great sweet, fresh sauce and a ton of flavorful cheese, it bakes for a good 40 minutes or so, during which time the bottom fries into a crisp, golden brown slab, pockmarked with splotches of cheese that have managed to slip under and crunch up.

The crust edges are dark. Very dark. Warning: If blackened spots on your crust are not your thing, then you will not like this slice. If, on the other hand, you enjoy the flavor of crunchy, crusty, charred-to-oblivion cheese like I do, then you will be in grandma-slice heaven.

As with the regular slices, the same caveat applies: you must get this slice fresh out of the oven. I returned for a reheated slice and it was dry to the point of nearly hurting my teeth when I bit into it.

Figuring this out makes me think that the DiFara comparison that some have made is not so far off. DiFara's makes similar, long-cooked, heavy on cheese and olive oil pies, except at DiFara, you never get a re-heated slice. It's virtually impossible with a single man making all the pizza.

At Artichoke, on the other hand, they swing the balance in favor of volume. As a result, at any given moment there's a good chance you'll get a reheated slice. My advice: wait for a fresh pie to come out of the oven and eat it, post haste.

Perhaps even the long-time haters will be willing to give it another shot and report back?

Video: Caleb Schiff Interview

Fri, 18 May 2012 14:30:00 -0500

Caleb Schiff documented his transition from pizza enthusiast to owner and operator of Pizzicletta in the Slice series, Building a Pizzeria. In the series, we got to follow along as Caleb transformed his dream into a reality, and in doing so, demonstrated the passion, dedication, and hard work that goes into such an endeavor. It's always great to get updates from Caleb, and this week we have a very well done short film by a local college student, with Caleb as its focus. There are some great shots of pizza making and the space, but the best part is getting to see Caleb speak about his approach with regard to simplicity, the inertia that fuels and sustains his business, and the balance that keeps his restaurant true to his vision.

PIZZICLETTA from Austen Lavery on Vimeo.

About the author: Meredith Smith is the Slice editor. You can follow her on Twitter: @mertsmith.

Daily Slice: Il Mondo, Boston

Fri, 18 May 2012 12:00:00 -0500

Daily Slice gives a quick snapshot each weekday of a different slice or pie that the folks at the Serious Eats empire have enjoyed lately.

[Photograph: Paige Brocious]

I have very fond memories of eating Il Mondo since becoming a Mission Hill resident a few years ago. That's why I'm sad to report that these slices were pretty dissapointing. I'd like to chalk it up to just an off-day, but I'll have to stop by again and investigate.

They were offering the basic spread of slices, so I decided to try the plain cheese and the meat lovers ($3.25). Both slices were humongous for the price, and one is more than enough to fill you up. The meaty slice was topped with sausage, bacon, and pepperoni. All of the toppings were good, but the sausage was of the precooked-little-chunks variety. You know the kind; blandly spicy, designed specifically to top pizzas, and always storebought. The pizza itself was lackluster. Very little flavor was contributed from the cheese and the sauce. And although I was pleased to see a nice scorched backside on my slice, it did little to enhance the crunchiness of the dough. I hope this visit was a fluke. But either way Il Mondo is still a decent neighborhood option for a substantial slice.

Il Mondo Pizzeria

682 Huntington Ave. Boston, MA 02115 (map)
617-492-6444; ilmondopizza.com

About the author: Paige Brocious is a former Serious Eats intern now helping out with Slice in Boston.

F*ck You Pizza From Pizza Hut

Thu, 17 May 2012 15:30:00 -0500

[YouTube worldwideinterweb.com]

A lot of Slice'rs out there are of the mind that if anyone can eff up a pizza, the chains can. Case in point, and fueling this grotesque pizza parody, is the Cheeseburger Crown Pizza from Pizza Hut Middle East. Is that burger-crusted Frankenpizza the worse damage that chains have done? Have a look at some pies overseas, and you be the judge. In response to all this hybridized pizza persecution, the folks at worldwideinterweb.com have created this satire for your viewing pleasure. It's like Epic Meal Time's Fast Food Pizza, but way more revolting.

In case the title didn't tip you off, this is definitely a NSFW video.

[Via: Huffington Post]

About the author: Meredith Smith is the Slice editor. You can follow her on Twitter: @mertsmith.

Daily Slice: Pizza Contadino, Portland, Oregon

Thu, 17 May 2012 13:30:00 -0500

Daily Slice gives a quick snapshot each weekday of a different slice or pie that the folks at the Serious Eats empire have enjoyed lately.

The Chef's Choice pizza at Pizza Contadino. [Photographs: Jim Bonomo]

Pizza Contadino was once a food cart, but has since moved their talent into the kitchen of the hipster North Portland bar, The Fixin' To. The pastel yellow food cart still remains parked outside (for storage purposes), which made this hidden spot a little easier to find. Chef's choice on the day of my visit was a kale, sausage, roasted red pepper, and goat cheese ($18, 16-inch), and after several chef runs from the kitchen to the abandoned cart and back, a pie was born and delivered.

Visually, this was one mouth-watering pie. However, one bite in revealed a sweet-and-pasty tomato base. The goat cheese lacked pungency, which may have been the adequate foil for the cloying sauce element. An overabundance of dried herbs also added concentrated sharpness, disrupting the overall harmony. The kale was pleasantly earthy without often-problematic metallic notes, and the sausage was smooth and rich. The red pepper? More sweetness. The scales had been irrevocably tipped in favor of sugar.

The crust was a saving grace here. What first looked overcooked actually provided a nice firmness to the skirt and maintained a surprising level of chewiness buried inside the darkened cornicione. Overall, this pie didn't lack artisan craftsmanship, but it missed the mark on flavor. I will give Contadino another shot, while making sure to stick to simpler ingredient combinations and throw in a white pie as well.

Pizza Contadino (inside the kitchen of The Fixin' To)

8218 North Lombard St, Portland, Oregon (map)
503-935-4375; pizzacontadino.com

About the author:Jim Bonomo was born and raised in Milford, Connecticut. He is currently eating and drinking his way through Portland, Oregon. Once all the pizza and beer is gone, he promises to go back home. You can follow him on Twitter at @goodbyeohio.

Eight Styles to Add to Your Pizza Lexicon

Thu, 17 May 2012 11:00:00 -0500

VIEW SLIDESHOW: Eight Styles to Add to Your Pizza Lexicon

At Slice we ever endeavor to keep expanding our knowledge about all things pizza. As such, our Regional Pizza Style Index is always growing as we learn about new regional varieties around the globe. The time has come to add some updates to our style guide!

When you get into the taxonomy of pizza, some styles are so closely related to one another that the lines can start to get blurred. Different regions can call what is essentially the same pizza by different names, and that can even extend to the names and labels that pizza makers apply to their pies. So we approach the style guide with the attitude that these styles are elastic by nature. Think of this list as tool to help navigate your way through the saucy, cheesy crusts of the world.

We'll continue to fine tune the existing styles, as well as add new ones down the line. Hopefully these styles will be a good jumping off point for discussing and sussing out what distinguishes the many styles of pizza form one another. Drop some thoughts or styles we need to include in the next update in the comments section.

Pizza Styles Index

Click here for the complete Regional Style Guide »

Daily Slice: Tuttobene's in Greenpoint

Wed, 16 May 2012 12:30:00 -0500

Daily Slice gives a quick snapshot each weekday of a different slice or pie that the folks at the Serious Eats empire have enjoyed lately.

[Photographs: Michael Berman]

It's been years since I've stopped anywhere along McGuiness Boulevard. When I lived in Willamsburg in late '90s, the Key Food near Greenpoint Avenue was my "big shop" grocery destination. And I did spend a handful of evenings playing pool at La Cue, near Calyer Street. There were house phones along the walls provided to expedite beverage orders.

But lunch on McGuiness? Never. It's a road for trucks and cars traveling between the BQE and Long Island City. Of course, McGuiness (and much of Brooklyn) has changed since the late '90s. Now, along its still rather un-scenic expanse, one will see pedestrians—and, I learned the other day, a good new option for pizza.

Tuttobene's, located across the street from La Cue, serves brick oven pies in three sizes. They do not offer slices, but the personal size (10-inch) works as lunch for one. At $6 for a plain (made with fresh mozzarella), it's a good value.

There were two people working behind the counter when I visited last week: Sal (the owner's son) and Maria (Sal's cousin). Maria told me that the oven could handle wood, but the pizzeria prefers gas because it enables pies to "cook more evenly and get crisper."

She was right. Tuttobene's pizza has a thin and crisp bottom that does not become soggy, even when cool. Of course, temperatures and methods of heating do present tradeoffs. I've often wished pies made in wood burning ovens were less soggy, and in the case of Tuttobene's I yearned for more complexity of flavor—complexity that the burning of wood could furnish.

Tuttobene's makes good pizza. I had a personal size pie with sausage and peppers ($8). The sauce is not at all doctored; but rather, tastes of low acid good-quality tomatoes. I like that they do not season or sweeten it, but instead let the tomatoes speak for themselves. It could, however, benefit from a dash more salt. The cheese, which they make in-house daily from a Grande sourced curd, melts across the pie and (to borrow Grandes' terminology) "weeps" a little oil: it must be a whole milk curd.

Despite the pedestrian-friendly changes along many of NYC's car-dominated thoroughfares, McGuiness Boulevard has not yet evolved in the vein of Houston Street in Manhattan—or in Brooklyn, Atlantic Avenue west of Flatbush. I can see why Tuttobene's refrains from offering slices: the pies might sit too long.

But in this case, our loss is our gain: everyone gets fresh. And with the house-made mozzarella, good simple sauce, and light and crisp crust, it's a pizza worth returning for.

Tuttobene's Pizzeria

230 Calyer Street, at McGuiness Boulevard Brooklyn, NY (map)
718-643-6120; tuttobenes.com

Michael Berman is a photographer and writer based in New York. He publishes food stories on his blog www.pizzacentric.com; and more frequent Twitter observations at @michaelberman.

Redd Wood in Yountville: A Pizza Destination in Napa Valley

Wed, 16 May 2012 10:15:00 -0500

[Photographs: J. Kenji Lopez-Alt]

Redd Wood

6755 Washington Street, Yountville CA 94599 (map); 707-299-5030; redd-wood.com
Pizza style: Really its own thing; individual pies are Neapolitan-sized but with a much thinner crust, and a bit of semolina flour worked into it.
Oven type: Wood-fired
The skinny: Awesome and intelligently-topped pizzas from a Michelin-starred chef
Price: Large individual pies $10-27

When we editors are out on eating tours, like we did with Ford Escape in Napa a few weeks ago, we map out our own itineraries. But Serious Eats overlord Ed Levine does chime in with opinions from time to time—and when he does, they tend to be pretty spot-on.

"Redd Wood is Richard Reddington's new pizzeria," he emailed us. "I just met him [in Los Angeles] tonight. I had apps at his other restaurant in Yountville, Redd, and they were really good. I bet his pizza is pretty damn good. You should try it."

A few pies later, we decided that "pretty damn good" was indeed a correct assessment.

Redd Wood opened in late January to a great deal of anticipation, given how respected chef Reddington is in these parts—for his first restaurant, the Michelin-starred Redd down the street, as well as his work at Masa's and Jardiniere in San Francisco, and Auberge du Soleil in Rutherford.

San Francisco Chronicle critic Michael Bauer recently reviewed Redd Wood, declaring just about everything on the menu "superb," except the "mildly disappointing" pizza. But we're not quite agreed there, because the pizza we had was extraordinarily good.

It doesn't quite fit into any of our identified pizza-styles. It's served whole at around 10" in diameter, like a Neapolitan, and cooked in a wood-fired oven that chef Reddington estimates to burn at around 750°F. But it's much thinner and sturdier, almost closer to a New York-Neapolitan crust. No droopy middles or super-poofy edges here. We loved the crisp on the outside and the airy, chewy interior...

... as well as the substantial char on each of the pies, enough to flavor, but not overwhelm. But what really fascinated us was the dough itself, which is made with pizza gold standard 00 flour, but worked, stretched, and kneaded with half 00, half semolina flour. It adds a slightly nutty, slightly coarse element to the crust, almost like when pizzerias coat the bottom of their crusts with cornmeal—except nowhere near as heavy-handed. And it doesn't remotely interrupt the lightness of the end crusts. It's pretty awesome.

I grew up accustomed to a cornmeal dusting on the bottom of a crust, but usually it's just a layer of sandy grit to get through before the real pizza begins. Redd Wood's is the first time I've seen it done really well.

Pizza draped with lardo isn't what we'd usually order when sitting outside on a blistering hot April day, but the "lardo, mushroom, spinach, fontina" ($14) pie was good enough that we knocked it back without a thought. Thin ribbons of lardo, laid on after the pizza is fired, melt all over the roasted creminis and browned spinach, adding a layer of lush, unmistakable pigginess but without the strong competing flavors that another cured meat might contribute. (Redd Wood is curing their own lardo, too, reminding you that there's a lot of talent beyond pizzamaking in this kitchen.)

And the asparagus, prosciutto cotto, taleggio, red onion, farm egg ($17) was mighty tasty, too—particularly, of course, when that almost-orange yolk gets all over everything. (Redd Wood's pizzas are pre-cut; we loved how this one came cut party-style, into squares rather than wedges, with a big square around the egg in the middle so that it remains intact.) I was a little surprised at how little a role the Taleggio played, a cheese I love and wished I could've tasted more of. But there's no faulting asparagus with ham and egg yolk; an ideal spring brunch that happens to arrive on a pizza.

We preferred both to the satisfying, if not perfect meatball sub ($14) with tomato sauce and caciocavallo. The bread works well here; Redd Wood's roll (made in-house) looks a little soft, but it's crusty enough to crunch through, and thick enough to carry the load and not fall apart. The fresh-tasting sauce isn't quite what we associate with a meatball sub—it's a sort of bright California version rather than a stewed-down New York sub shop one; and I love caciocavallo, but could barely taste it here.

If you like tender meatballs, these aren't quite it—they're a little more densely packed—but the flavors of beef, pork, and veal, with added richness from salumi trimmings, made for a great bite. (And the herb-flecked fries are awesome.)

We enjoyed a strawberry Italian Ice for dessert, incredibly fine-grained and not gritty in the slightest; it's more sweet than tart, but as a refreshing end to a meal, that's okay with me.

You'd expect generally high quality from a Michelin-starred chef, of course, but you don't always expect them to nail pizzamaking straight off the bat. For a pizzeria just over two months old when we visited, we found Redd Wood incredibly impressive.

While I usually imagine dough-slingers with a flour-streaked Yankees or Mets cap, it does my hometown heart good to see a Giants cap on the guy making seriously awesome pizza. And it's only fair. Between Redd Wood and the first-rate Oenotri, plus great pizza-like "flatbreads" at The Kitchen Door and more-than-decent Neapolitan pies at Ca'Momi, Napa Valley's becoming a pretty pizza-rich place.

About the author: Carey Jones is the Senior Managing Editor of Serious Eats. Follow her on Twitter (@careyjones).

Pizza Obsessives: Pizzablogger, Raw and (Mostly) Uncensored

Tue, 15 May 2012 13:30:00 -0500

If you've spent any time here at Slice, you've probably read some of this guy's work and seen his comments. Some of them might have even caused you to pause, raise an eyebrow, or maybe shake your head in disbelief. So who is the guy who writes this stuff??? It's high time we find out; Pizzablogger has resisted his turn in the hot seat for far too long.—Craig Lindberg

[Photograph: Adam Kuban]

Over the past year or so, I've gotten to know him a little bit, and I'm proud to call him a friend. Somehow, I managed to leverage that friendship and twist his arm to open up a little, so without further delay, here it is—the long awaited Pizzablogger interview. You might want to send the children out of the room for this one.

Name: Pizzablogger (a.k.a. Kelly or -K)
Location: Baltimore
Occupation: ???
URL(s): seriouseats.com/PIzzabloggger; pizzablogger.org; Twitter @pizzablogger

I'll dispense with the niceties and dive right in. When and how did you first "discover" pizza? Was your path to pizza obsessivness gradual, or did you have an epiphany one day?

It's been a gradual journey with lots of kindling being laid out over the years to help fuel a relatively recent dousing with lighter fluid and sparking a conflagration of sorts.

My first crap-the-pants moment was in 1993 or so when I was working in the Uptown Bakery on Connecticut Avenue in Cleveland Park, DC. Next door was Vace's Italian Delicatessen. They still make a decent slice—a tad too sweet, but a decent slice. One day a person at the counter and I talked about pizza and he told me about how I needed to try Patsy's in Harlem, NYC. Later on that year I went to NYC and made it to Patsy's. We got a whole pizza and it was one of those moments where you realize a seemingly simple food item can be an object of desire if made well. That was when the seed was planted, but it remained largely dormant for years.

After that, I ate pizzas out and about in DC from time to time, with Pizza Paradiso being the earliest wood-fired pizza joint I can remember visiting back in the mid-90's when I lived in DC. Over time I ate at places like 2Amys, Tocanelli's in Philadelphia, etc, but I was not one of those people that knew a lot about pizza. This was also before broadband, YouTube and blogs really came to the fore and just blew open the available knowledge base on a particular topic for the average person.

The shitstorm was stirred by the June 30, 2008 edition of Wine Spectator: Great American Pizza. Having homebrewed in the very early nineties and long being a fan of craft made items like beer, coffee, bread, and wine, the passion of the pizza makers that article brought to life really struck a chord in me. Not long after seeing that Wine Spectator article my wife and I rented a friend's apartment in Manhattan for a week and made a point to visit a few pizzerias, including Una Pizza Napoletana. That UPN trip really blew my mind—not only the best pizza I had ever eaten, but one of the better meals I could remember. It was so moving, I convinced my parents to drive to NYC with us just to eat at UPN and come home. About nine and a half hours in the car just to spend one hour eating pizzas and we all loved it. My Dad still says he can taste that crust in his mouth. He is now as much a pizza fanatic as I am.

From there, I quickly kind of went berserk. The blog, the backyard tasting at Paulie Gee's house, the Pieman's Craft in 2009, and multiple trips to NYC to eat a lot of pizza and so on from there. And here I am today, an over opinionated gasbag and foul-mouthed pot stirrer.

Pizzablogger's square on a can of Paulie's secret tomatoes —used for the sauce.

That mouth of yours is legendary. Is it really you?

It's not me in general. Most people will tell you I am a very nice person and it would be a big mistake to think I am a pessimist. I'm a huge optimist.... just one who is definitely opinionated about things I am passionate about, both in person and online. And you just can't please everyone all of the time. They are my opinions... not any more or less valid than anyone else's opinion. My fault is that sometimes I just need to shut my trap instead of saying whatever is on my mind.

You've hinted at working at a bakery. Give us some history on your bread making. Did Pizza flow from it?

It was before pizza, but I'm not sure pizza flowed from it per se. But I did learn an appreciation for working with dough. I was not on the floor of the bakery for very long and ended up spending more time in the offices, being the purchaser for a time. But something about feeling, working with, and seeing the dough making process was something I really enjoyed, and I often went down to the floor to catch-up with the crew in action.

I think about those days when making dough for bread or pizza at home... when the ciabatta came fresh out of the oven, there was nothing like a summer day when the crew would take a break out back, stuff a hot loaf full of Plugra butter and pull down a few cold sips from a beer. A wonderful time.

Most of what I see you comment on today is NY or Neo, what is your favorite style?

Like beer and wine, I like virtually any style made really well. At the end of the day, "Napply-Don" inspired pies and square pizzas are my favorite types to eat.

Napply-Don?

When you speak to old timers that grew up in the borough of Kings (Brooklyn), they don't say "Knee-ah-pahl-ah-tun", the accent and way it comes out is "Napply-Don." Long winded way to say Neapolitan is my favorite style.

A couple of PB's all-broiler pies. He doesn't think they deserve the "Napply-Don" moniker. I disagree.

If you could hop on a plane right now and go anywhere, where would you go for that Napply-Don pie?

Put Napoli and San Francisco on a wheel and spin it. I'd be happy either way. For a single pizzeria, it would be to go to Japan and meet Akinari Makishima ("Pizzaiolo Pasquale") and shake his hand.

Unfortunately I don't have a jet for you; what if I stuck a slice of low-grade chain pizza in front of you instead, would you eat it?

No. I would rather drink witch hazel.

So, what is the best pie you ever ate?

Una Pizza Napoletana. My preferences have shifted a little and that crust is perhaps a tad too bready for me now, but when I had it, that pizza was like hitting a one outer on the river with all the chips in the middle.

What pie do you regret even having laid eyes on?

I ruefully regret laying eyes on the four pizzas I bought on four separate occasions from the Frank Pepe's location in the Mohegan Sun Casino in Connecticut. All four of them ended up mostly uneaten and in the trashcan or given away. I kept buying a pie there because I kept thinking it can't be that bad. Well it was... and I might as well have thrown $70 into the trash after wiping my arsehole with it.

A typical Pizzabloger crumb—baked in his Little Black Egg.

When trying a pizza, are you like Paul Giamatti's character Miles in the movie Sideways, or are you more ad hoc in your approach?

I was totally like Giamatti in the past... tearing open the crust to see the crumb, smelling the inside of the crumb, etc. One night it struck me how absurd that was. Now I enjoy myself much more.

I can totally see you with your nose buried in the cornicione, telling me it smells like the "back of a fucking L.A. school bus" as I just shovel it down and say "tastes pretty good to me." Sticking with the Sideways references, I know you're not eating any fucking chain pizza, but seriously, is pizza ever just food?

At the end of the day, it is just food. But I'll never forget Jim Lahey calling Dominos a comestible. What a perfect word, which describes my thoughts on food in general. Look, I don't expect every meal I eat to be like a BJ at all, but I don't really understand the mentality of I'm gonna shove whatever shit is in front of me into my piehole because "I need to get full." And I'm not talking about spending a lot of money either.

Let's switch gears a little. What led you to start pizzablogger.org initially? To shut it down? And to recently restart it after declaring "good riddance" to it last year?

I had eaten at a bunch of local pizzerias and got tired of reading all of the glowing reviews in magazines about how good or great all of them were. I did not have a mission to bash pizzerias, but I had been to many of them and thought they were simply nowhere near as good as the reviews often cited. It's like there is an unwritten rule that you can never say anything bad about a local business. Shouldn't it just be an honest review? And the actual facts stated in the articles were too often just not correct.
So I started the blog on April 15, 2009 and had a strong first year, struggled with how ridiculous the notion of a pizza blog was for the next year, and last summer I finally just said screw it. And because I am a jackass and did not back up all of that 2009 to mid-2011 blog information, I lost it all when my hard drive crashed.

The reviews I put up were what really made me frustrated. One of the benchmarks of pizzerias in general is consistency. For that reason, I think all the one-off reviews you see on the internet suck. It would not be bad if it was mentioned prominently that the review was based on a one-off, but most do not. I think every review should list how many visits the write-up was based on.

Too many people write too many reviews just to add content to their blog. But my opinion is if your goal is to have your blog be seen as a trusted resource, a review (I really like Adam Lindsley's use of the term "Impressions" on his site) should be based on multiple visits and be a living review with updates from subsequent visits added. Maybe I think about this shit too much, but it would have taken me years to get a really good string of reviews of Baltimore area pizzerias that I was comfortable with on-line. I've been to nearly every pizzeria in Baltimore City and definitely have my opinions on them, but that does not make me qualified to open my fucking mouth about them if I've only been to each joint once or twice. That's how I began to feel at least... so that was a reason I pulled the plug.

The other issue that tugged at me was the possibility that I may sell pizzas in one form or another in Baltimore in the future. If that ain't a conflict of interest, I don't know what is. But I stated that clearly on my blog when I started it back up in January of 2012.

I'm still trying to reason why I resuscitated it on a part-time basis.

Pizza Ruby (named for a beloved dog): cherrywood smoked mozzarella, sauce, sea salt, olive oil, Parmigiano-Reggiano, montegrappa, marjoram.

You may go pro??? Are we breaking some news here? Hold on—we'll get back to that later. First, tell us what have you learned from pizzablogging that you probably would not have otherwise learned?

How much total horse dung is involved with some socialites and social media bloggers. While dining out, I've seen firsthand people comp'd foods, items, etc. and then as I checked my phone seeing them immediately posting glowing reviews and photos to Twitter, blogs, etc. (even at places where the food really is not that good). They put their faces out, announce who they are and really get the silver spoon treatment from the moment they walk in. When you may be fearful of biting the hand that feeds you, how much honesty is there in any review? You're just a whore.

So what you do differently from other pizza/food critics?

From a blogging perspective, I actually make a concerted effort to fact check. I've used voice recorders, notes, phone calls, multiple trips, bugging pizza makers with follow up questions, etc. Do I make mistakes? You bet your ass I do, but there have not been many. For Christ's sake, at least make an effort to get it correct. I learned in the beginning that you can rarely take another person's or blog's word for it... go to the source and vet it for yourself if you are going to put something on the internet.

What has surprised you the most when talking to pizza restaurateurs?

In Baltimore, as a group, how little they know about the history of pizza or of the process of making good pizza. I'm far from an expert, but when talking with pizza makers and/or owners it is often shocking how little they know about the pizza scene in just their area, let alone the country. It's the difference between an enthusiast owner and a businessman owner.

The better pizzeria owners in Baltimore can tell you who the players are, and in their spare time go search out pizza places both in and out-of-town. It's the same everywhere. "Better knowledgeable and enthusiastic owner-operators, better pizza." That's the true slogan.

Guess I should call you Papa Pizzablogger from now on. So Papa, what are your thoughts on certifications such as VPN?

I think the certification itself has a healthy dose of bullshit built into it. Really, you have people with limited pizza making experience paying money to take a two week class and then setting up their restaurant to get the certification, pay the money and then obtain it? Sure, the pizzas have to be tasted and approved beforehand, but in some instances the after-the-fact policing of VPN joints is lacking.

And I get tired of the better-than-thou bullocks that sometimes gets bandied about by some (not all) VPN joints. Too many places advertise and promote the fact that "We're VPN" instead of focusing on "We make great fucking pizza!" The two are not synonymous.

At the same time I realize the VPN is an important organization. Perhaps maybe more so now than ever. We have already seen, and will continue to see, pizzerias trying to capitalize on the popularity of wood-fired pizzerias and authentic Italian pizze. It's important to have an organization set some minimal standards and be a resource to what construes authentic Neapolitan pizza.

Tell us about "great fucking pizza." What are the most important elements? Are they the same for homemade and restaurant pizza?

They are the same for both. Balance is key, but attention to the crust is of paramount importance. For styles like NY-Style and Neapolitan, the crust is the only part of a pie that gets to define itself in the absence of the other ingredients... once you eat all the other stuff, the end crust is all that remains. You should want to scarf the end crust because it is delicious and has a nice texture (it's often the first bite I take). For me, pizza bones are one of the saddest sights in pizzadom.

Let's talk about homemade pizza now. You eat a lot of pizza out, what inspires you to make pizza at home?

While I am certainly no master on the topic, I really like the fact that the dough is a living thing all the way until the inside of the dough reaches 130°F. Something about the feel of the dough during different stages of the process is very zen-like for me. There is some kind of a dance going on that I don't always understand, but I've come to realize a good pizza maker can be a lot like a good wine maker. Your job is maybe more about being a steward and letting the finished product express itself more so than working so hard to put your own stamp on the product.

Pizzablogger's Chernobyl Pie and a prayer said for the rest of his basil that it doesn't meet the same fate.

Where are you with your personal pizza making? Besides the occasional nuclear meltdown, what have been your biggest challenges?

Craig, I've re-lapsed into struggling to make the pizza round for crying out loud!

For a while, I've had very little time for pizza making, so having time to really get a particular formula and process nailed down is a big challenge. Particularly because when I do have time, it is not a consistent schedule so I have to wing it with regards to salt and yeast amounts. I've got some of the know-how and desire needed to make a really good pizza, but I simply have not been able to put in the make-table time to deserve being able to consistently make great pizza.

The other great challenge is my cooking environment. With limited time, a lot of it has been spent trying to get my oven dialed in. With not enough time to devote to getting my oven set-up more consistent and not enough time to make pizzas... well it adds up to kinda blah pizza-ing at times.

I can hear Ian MacKaye on Sob Story saying "boo-fucking-hoo" right now. Enough of the self-pity session.

No shit. I thought I was going to have to slap you there for a second. Tell us something surprising about your dough.

I don't know. It does like to proof next to the radio while the Ramones Rocket to Russia is playing.

Besides serenading their dough, what would you recommend that a newbie do to jump start his home pizza making?

Get out and try great pizza if you have some nearby or have the wherewithal to travel for some. Having a benchmark of excellent pizza is important to serve as a signpost for your pizza making progress. Become a member of pizzamaking.com and please go buy a scale.

Pizzablogger's picture perfect square pie crumb

Where are the most important places to focus if someone wants to take their game to the next level?

The crust. The bake. The crust.

I think I hear Bill Clinton saying "It's the crust, stupid." What have you learned from observing and talking to the pros that you have been able to successfully employ at home?

More of a mental thing... to try and relax a little and to realize that even the most skilled pizza makers mention that even they sometimes don't know why the dough may be off from time to time. Learning that has helped tremendously. I've broken more than one item in frustration over a pizza disaster at home before. Now I'm able to laugh about it.

We know you know pizza, but few folks know about your extensive knowledge of wine. Tell us a little about your interest in wine.

I'm not sure how extensive it is, but my interest in wine is like many things. I wasn't just interested in drinking it, which is the best part, but in learning how it is made and the impact different regions have on grapes. That led me into reading a lot on the topic, studying and then out of curiosity to improve my knowledge sitting for the first exam of the Court of Master Sommeliers, which I passed. I was one class away from being a Certified Sommelier, but I don't drink enough to be ready for it.

I'll pick up your slack. Heck, I'm into my second bottle as we speak. We might need to call this "My Drunk Interview" if we don't finish up soon. So, what are you drinking right now?

Too much beer and limoncello! Like beer, my tastes in wine run all over the map, from whites to reds of various styles and countries. But more often than not I always drink a little more Chianti Classicos, Rhônes (both white and red), and Mosel Rieslings than others. But if I could afford it, I would not argue with being sentenced to drink good Red Burgundy or Chateauneuf du Pape for the rest of my life.

You taught me how to make limoncello—it's your fault I drink too much of it too. How about your go-to pizza wines? What should I be drinking?

So many good wines. But Chianti Classico, Gragnano, Sardinian Cannonau, and Aglianico are favorite choices of mine. You really summed it up best already...drink what you like!

I know you don't want to, but I said we'd get back to this. Lots of folks want to know if you are considering a pizza career. A good friend of yours who has a pretty popular place in Greenpoint wanted me to ask you when you plan to open up a place in Baltimore?

Maybe you should ask him.

I should ask Paulie if you are considering a pizza career? You have to do better than that.

Well, since we've looked at a couple of spaces in Baltimore together, he may be able to answer this question as well as I could.

The neighborhood I'm clocked in on is one of my favorites in Charm City and it needs a good pizzeria. A space with a lot of character is just waiting to become the neighborhood pizza joint and the owner seems excited about our idea as well. Nothing has been set in stone and nothing signed yet, so there is still a lot of work to do. At the same time the initial groundwork has been laid. If the stars align, by this time next year a Stefano Ferrara oven may be wooing pizza goers with her fiery dance in Baltimore.

Time will tell and that's all I'm saying for now.

I think we may have just broken some news here. I'm guessing folks might have a few more questions about this, but I'll leave that for the comments. We've covered a lot of ground here today, so all things considered, what about pizza gives you the most joy and happiness?

Sharing pizzas with friends, family and other pizza enthusiasts. Pizza is a table leveler....it's at a price point that is accessible to most people and most people, regardless of financial means, enjoy eating it. It's a great way to bring people of multiple demographics to the same table and just relax without too much pretense.

Very well put. Enough about you; what does Mrs. Pizzablogger think of your obsession? Is baby Pizzablogger eating pizza yet?

Burned out 1000%, but she is a soldier. Baby Pizzablogger has nibbled on my crust a few times and wants more when it's given to him. So I got that going for me.

I completely understand how important an understanding wife is to a pizza obsessive. Thanks again, Kelly for the generous amount of time you've given for this interview. I'd ask who you'd like to see interviewed next, but since you'll be the one doing it, who do you plan to interview next?

Omid and Scott123 [from pizzamaking.com]

I know those guys pretty well; that might be almost as tough as squeezing an interview out of you.

Peek even deeper into Pizzablogger's head—additional questions and answers from this interview can be found at Pizzamaking.com.

From The Mailbag: Thanks Miss Ellie, Love Hambone

Tue, 15 May 2012 10:00:00 -0500

[Photographs: J. Kenji Lopez-Alt]

We opened up the Serious Eats Mailbag this monday to find a package addressed to Official Serious Eats Mascot and Chief Financial Officer Hambone (a.k.a. Jamón). Inside the box was the most darling pizza-shaped dog toy, complete with squeaker in the crust. The toy came to us from long time Slice'r dhorst's dog Miss Ellie, whose friend Tammy Johnson seems to be a master at creating cute things out of cloth over at Fessenden Hill Creations.

Here's the note:

Dear Hambone,

A while ago I saw a picture of you looking longingly at a slice of pizza that Kenji was eating. I know just how you feel.

Sometimes the pizza bones are so good that my mom (dhorst) forgets to share. Sometimes she makes pizza for her friends at work and leaving me with the smell of pizza in the air and not a pizza bone in sight.

She felt bad for me and asked a good friend of hers, Tammy Johnson of Fessenden Hill Creations to make some pizza slices for me. They even have a squeaker in the crust!

Well, here's a slice for you to chew on the next time Kenji doesn't feel like sharing a bone with you. Maybe he can come up with some pizza flavored spray in The Food Lab to spray on your slice.

Woof! Miss Ellie

Thanks Miss Ellie and Dhorst! I'll get to work on that pizza spray, though I think Jamón might have a tough time wresting that pizza slice from Yuba's iron jaws.

My Pie Monday: BEC, Sicilia-NY, Gluten-Free Pizza, and More!

Mon, 14 May 2012 17:00:00 -0500

VIEW SLIDESHOW: My Pie Monday: BEC, Sicilia-NY, Gluten-Free Pizza, and More!

This edition of My Pie Monday is a real mashup! We have Slice'rs making pies from other Slicer's, like dmcavanagh's rendition of Thezaman's Youngstown Sicilian from last week. There are Slice'rs making famous pies, like Norma's Cherry Jones, and Slice'rs turning two famous pies into one, a la Dhorst! Oh, and jimmyg throws a pie varietal mashup in the mix with his hybridized Sicilian-NY pie. Nice one! Both Thezaman and Bierebeer take a ride on the gluten free crust train—very apropos after the Domino's and Don Antonio coverage from Adam Kuban last week. BKMatt gets nostalgia with a bacon, egg, and cheese pizza in honor of the suburban breakfast sandwiches of his youth. Pizzabinge adds a little sweetness to his pie with a touch of honey, TXCraig1 dresses his Margherita up with some "extra stuff," and amusebouche1 fires up a "Four Seasons" pie. This week also includes Imwalkin's "best taste of the year," a mushroom, spinach, and herb pie from Hogeltboglet, and a first time submission from JEL! Awesome pies, everyone!

To add your pie to next Monday's gallery take a snapshot of a pie you made recently, describe your cooking method (in 80 words or fewer), and follow these instructions to get it to Slice HQ by Thursday at 8PM EST. Be sure to let us know your Slice/Serious Eats screen name.

Want to see more awesome homemade pizza photos from previous weeks? They're right here »

About the author: Meredith Smith is the Slice editor. You can follow her on Twitter: @mertsmith.

Video Reheat: Deep-Fried Pizza at Brooklyn's Chip Shop

Mon, 14 May 2012 16:00:00 -0500

Since Meredith is asking about fried pizza in this week's poll, I figured I'd throw this old slice in the oven for a reheat. Here's how deep-fried pizza slices are done at the Chip Shop on Brooklyn's Atlantic Avenue. Please forgive the crap quality. This was made way back in 2006.

Daily Slice: Pizza Rosa at Palermo, Los Angeles

Mon, 14 May 2012 13:00:00 -0500

Daily Slice gives a quick snapshot each weekday of a different slice or pie that the folks at the Serious Eats empire have enjoyed lately.

[Photographs: Kelly Bone]

It's easy to dismiss Los Angeles' pizza heritage. Before Mozza, before CPK, before delivery chains, red leather booth Italian joints were baking enticing pizzas throughout the Hollywood area. The best of which (and they are few) have endured to this day.

Palermo Restaurant, in Los Angeles' Los Feliz neighborhood, is one of the better examples of local pizza history. The current location, which opened in 1979 after a three year stint on Hillhurst Avenue, offers standard red sauce Italian dishes; all of which are not worth consideration. Only one item is a must have: the Pizza Rosa (med $11.25/large $16.45).

The essence of the Pizza Rosa far surpasses its straightforward ingredients. Enveloped under a light sheen of grease and a white blanket of bold and briny feta, nutty Parmigiano and stringy mozzarella set the flavor stage. Rich tomatoes keep everything supple and sweet on the thick, oily focaccia-like base. This pizza is as bready as it looks, but the crust balances the salty, sharp sweetness of the toppings.

When this combination is done by anyone else, it's simply not a Pizza Rosa. You know what I mean. It is unique in the same sense that only your grandmother can make perfect matzoh ball soup, or when you know the secret ingredient of your favorite this or that, but it's just not the same when you make it at home. Such is the nature of the Palermo's Pizza Rosa. Its allure continuously draws in locals (and draws back Los Feliz expats like me) for a thick slice of Los Angeles history.

Palermo Ristorante Italiano

1858 North Vermont Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90027 (map)
323-663-1178; palermorestaurant.net

About the author: After nearly a decade in Brooklyn, Kelly Bone landed back in Los Angeles where she writes The Vegetarian Foodie. She spends the rest of her time designing office cubicles... you might be sitting in one right now! Follow her on Twitter at @TheVegFoodie

Poll: Fried Pizza, Way or No Way?

Mon, 14 May 2012 09:45:00 -0500

The montanara at La Montanara. [Photograph: Sam Bowman]

Here on Slice we've been following the fried pizza phenomenon taking hold in New York with great interest. And why not?! Pizza fritta is delicious; thin and crisp on the outside, light and airy on the inside. We've looked into the southern Italian roots of the montanara, and then tried it at Forcella in Brooklyn, Don Antonio in midtown, and La Montanara on the Lower East Side. And then we learned how to make it by watching master pizzaiolo Antonio Startita, we followed along step-by-step with Giulio Adriani, and we even developed a method for making it at home. You could call it an obsession. Now it's time to get your read on this style...

About the author: Meredith Smith is the Slice editor. You can follow her on Twitter: @mertsmith.

This Week in Pizza

Sun, 13 May 2012 10:00:00 -0500

Das Racist's Himanshu Suri talks pizza [Slice Harvester]
Paul Wahlberg opening pizzeria called GRADI [Eater Boston]
More pizza with Steve in his WFO [Norma]
Edan MacQuaid on Neapolitan pizza and his new joint [Eater DC]
Sacco Pizza, NYC [NYPP]
Whatever happened to Jeff Varasano? [Pizzamaking]
Video: Jeff Varasano on different styles of pizza
NYC Vegan Pizza Tour [Scott's Pizza Journal]

'The best pizza is the one that you like, not the one I tell you to like'

Fri, 11 May 2012 18:00:00 -0500

[Photo: Norman Hathaway]

Over on Eater, a great interview with Chris Bianco, considered one of the best pizzamakers in the U.S.:

And what kind of pizza did you want to make?
I was entranced by the wood-burning oven and had just come back from Naples and all that shit, but I honestly felt that for me, my objective wasn't to do Neapolitan pizza exactly like it was done there. It was to use that as a reference, something I respected immensely, but I think the most Italian or Neapolitan thing you can do is look around your surroundings and your demographic and then figure out what that means. When I'm in Naples, I want ripe tomatoes and flour from Abbruzzo or wherever it comes from, but when I came back I wasn't going to do that exactly.
I love the fire, the artisanal components, and I just wanted to bring integrity to it without following too many rules. You know, I always tell people, "The best pizza is the one that you like, not the one I tell you to like." Mine isn't better or worse. We can be on best of lists and people can talk about snipping the basil 30 seconds before they put it on the pie, but the only thing that really matters is that primal reaction when you put it in front of someone and they say, "This is fucking delicious." Nothing else matters.

Worth the click-through, folks.

Daily Slice: Cold Cheese at Little Vincent's Pizza, Huntington

Fri, 11 May 2012 14:30:00 -0500

Editor's Note: Here we have the first of many reviews to come from Long Island native, Josh Wigler. He'll be giving us the lowdown on all the saucy, cheesy, crusty stuff out Long Island way. Let's give him a Slice warm welcome! —MS

[Photographs: Nick Fiore]

At Little Vincent's Pizza in Huntington, the cold cheese is king.

It's a slice that's not much different from the basic oven-cooked plain that Little V's pumps out regularly, with one key difference: the mountain of cold, shredded mozzarella that coats the slice. The newly added cheese melts immediately where it makes contact with the hot, browned mozzarella beneath. But the pile is high, and as a result, there's a contingent of cold cheese that refuses to melt. What you get is a pizza with fresh new layers of tangy cheese both hot and cold; a slice that is decidedly not for the lactose intolerant.

The cold cheese slice is heavy in every sense of the word, but Little V's New York-style pizza is more than sturdy enough to handle the weight. It's damn good pizza, too. Little V's plain slice is already fantastic on its own: herby tomato sauce that isn't overly sweet, browned mozzarella that pumps the brakes a few stops short of burnt, and crust with a serious crunch. Add to that a heavy-handed dusting of cold cheese, and the game is forever changed.

Make no mistake: this is a slice designed for the late night crowd, an ever-present population in the post-midnight haze of the Huntington bar scene. Like moths to a flame, so too do beer-guzzlers flock to Little Vincent's to scale the fabled cold cheese mountain. But space is limited, with just a few booths and a less-than-spacious bar to Little V's name. Either be willing to stand, or have a quick ride to your closest available friends' house at the ready—once the original pizza goes room-temp, the concept of cold cheese loses its point. Eat as fresh and fast as humanly possible, or don't eat at all. The plain slice is more than fine in a pinch.

Little Vincent's

329 New York Avenue, Huntington, NY (map)
631-423-9620; Little Vincent's on Facebook

About the author: Josh Wigler keeps the wheels spinning at MTV Movies Blog, fueled by pop culture lust and an unhealthy appetite for pizza. (Easy on the toppings, serve at room temperature, and add some bleu cheese dressing for crust-dipping—yes, he's one of those.) Follow him on Twitter @roundhoward.