misterdevizzapizza said: gompers...good lookin' out, buddy. you and i are like red pepper flakes and parmesan cheese: we're always hanging out around a pie!
and hey, speaking of delicious pizza pies, last night i made myself a large plain! i varied my sauce recipe a little - usually i stick to a classic salsa semplice, just san marzano tomatoes, extra virgin olive oil, sea salt and fresh-cracked pepper. but last night, wanting to make use of some fresh basil from the italian market, i decided to try something different. i heated some olive oil in a sauce pan and added a couple of smashed garlic cloves. as they began to brown (but before they became burnt or bitter), i added about a half-glass of white wine - i happened to have an open bottle of pinot grigio friuli, but any dry white will do. i let the wine simmer for a minute or two, then reduced heat and added canned san marzano tomatoes, seasoning with salt, cracked black pepper and red pepper flakes. after the sauce cooked over low heat for about 10 minutes, i added torn leaves of fresh basil and used an immersion blender to further break down the ingredients, creating an only slightly-chunky final sauce. i removed the sauce pan from the heat and rolled out my dough (in this case, i worked with a frozen dough that had been defrosting in the refrigerator all day - true pizza fans plan ahead! my dough is made a couple times a month, using a blend of all-purpose and semolina flours. i get about 6 good-sized portions out of each batch, freezing them until the day of use). once my dough was rolled, it was a simple matter of assembly, and then into a 500-degree oven it went. minutes later...it was pizza time!
and that brings me to the issue at hand, pizza pals: the
slice count...last night, i ate exactly
4 slices! that's half a pie! quite a night, if i do say so myself. i wish you all could've been there. although, if you were there, i would've had to share my pie. and put on pants. and that's no way to eat devizzapizza. so, as always, get your own slice, and mangia tutto!!!!!
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Later that afternoon, Poster "
Sound" asked:
Mr. DevezaPizza,
What are your thoughts on folding a slice for quicker consumption? Taboo? Also, what's the deal with this Deep Dish phase we're goin through??!!! I mean come on...
Help me here.
misterdevizzapizza said: wow, pizza pals, you sure are "well done" today, if you know what i mean. extra slices, all around!
sound, you raise two very good questions, and i'm happy to share my thoughts...
on the subject of folding: this, to me, is an issue of old-world convention colliding with the new american paradigm. a slice of delicious pizza pie is, of course, a thing of beauty - to be treasured, to be honored, and to be handled with care and respect.
if i may briefly consider a tired metaphor, it can be said that a pizza pie is like a fine painting - a composition of delicate sauce, rich cheese, seasonings and toppings captured in balance atop a canvas of crust. and so the question becomes: would you feel comfortable folding a work of art? would you, pressed for time, unwilling to savor, let's say, titian's assumption of the virgin, impatient with its scale and focused instead on the minutiae of private mundanities, presume to remove it from the high altar of the frari, folding it in half to more quickly experience its immense glory? perhaps you would.
perhaps allegiance to the old forms is sanctimonious, outmoded. perhaps our modern (or post-modern, or post-post-modern) age demands the destruction of the canvas, recontextualizing the form as an artificial restriction, reimagining the possibilities of expression beyond its borders. perhaps we are witnessing the birth of a new pizza romanticism - a movement of self-celebration, of sensual rapture, of classicism rejected in favor of personal revelation.
of course, there is no answer, my pizza friends. no objective truth. will you raise high the pie of the past or rage against the slice? only you can decide. but please, whatever you do, save some of that delicious pizza pie for me!
on the subject of deep dish: it's funny you should ask, dear brother in pie, as i recently had a run-in with deep dish that i have come to appreciate as highly instructive. i was traveling east from texas, crossing the lower states on the way back to philadelphia. it was an all-night drive, myself and a few friends, pushing the limits of awareness in the rumpled luxury of a late-model conversion van.
the american south, as you surely know, is sorely deficient in top-tier pizza. yes, good pie can be found in some of the larger cities and bustling college towns, but as a general rule, the transcendent joy of a perfectly executed margherita can be elusive in the bible belt. pray for them, pizza friends. they know not what they miss.
we drove and drove and drove, talking, as we do, about the little things. a shared joke, unexpected insight, a quiet moment of appreciation as some song or another worked its way in through the charged night air. hours and miles passed until we realized...we were hungry! so simple a truth is rare.
and so, as the highway offered up proof of life beyond its boundaries, we exited toward the outskirts of some nameless town. we pulled into a gas station - the kind of massive one-stop bazaar so common along this country's highways. our van needed gas as much as we needed food, so we divided our responsibilities and busied ourselves with the tasks at hand - gas was pumped, garbage removed, legs stretched. i headed inside to use the bathroom, finding it down an ice-cold hallway that smelled of disinfectant. when i returned to the lobby of the station, i saw my friend shai standing at the counter of a 24-hour domino's.
and, before i continue, i know what you're thinking: "did mr. devezapizza just say domino's?" i did. it does not bring me joy. they are as much responsible for the degradation of the art of pizza making as anyone. but you know me well, pizza friends. i am loyal to my mission. i eat pizza. good pizza, great pizza, whenever possible. but in the absence of greatness, even bad pizza is better than no pizza at all. so, with hesitant joy, i joined shai at the counter.
"i already ordered," he said.
"sick. what'd you get?"
"just a large pie."
"awesome."
"can you wait here for it? i'm gonna go to the bathroom."
"totally. you pay yet?"
"yep."
and with that, he walked away. the minutes lurched by, and with them passed my reservations about the meal. i mean, i was about to have pizza! and, because it was so late, it was made to order. shai had seen the kid behind the counter assemble the thing just before i arrived. fresh hot pizza! there i was, starving, exhausted, between one day and the next...and i was about to have a delicious pizza pie! i was halfway lost in the dizzy joy of it all when, over the loudspeaker, i heard it.
"large deep dish."
it sounded like a car crash, like broken glass, like broken bones! i looked around the station. we were the only ones in the place, save the cashier. maybe this was his deep dish? it certainly couldn't be ours. but it was.
"large deep dish."
i leaned over the counter, facing the kid.
"hey, that pie. did my friend order that?"
"yeah, large deep dish."
he said it again. i was reeling. i took the pie - it was heavy like a dead cat. my heart was, too. shai is a good friend. it's his van, that we're in. and he goes into this god-forsaken place, this monument to bad taste, and he orders a deep dish? i trust him...me, mr. devezapizza...to get a pie, and this guy, he gets a deep dish!
i brought it back to the van, like a parent returning a disappointed teacher's note found stashed in last week's trash.
"i got our pizza," i said. "dude, shai, its a deep dish. you got a deep dish?"
"yeah, i just thought it would be more food."
"unreal." i turned to the rest of the guys. "this guy goes to get a pizza, and he comes up with a deep dish!"
we laughed. but i was sad. we pulled away from the station, back out onto the highway. the pizza sat on the center console between us, making the van air thick and sickly sweet.
"i guess i'm gonna have some 'za," i said, defeated.
I opened the box - the thing was ghastly, bloated, swollen like a normal pizza after an injury. i chose a slice, sliding it onto my plate. it was limp and left a trail like a slug. i lifted the plate to my face. there was no return. i took a bite...it was...sorta good! it lacked crunch of any kind, and the cheese was cheap and processed. but the sauce had a repectable tang, and it mostly did what pizza was supposed to do.
i ate three slices that night as we traveled through the darkness. each bite, each mile, each minute brought me a little bit closer to home, to the pizza i know and love. but this deep dish, which would become a running joke among my friends, was for a time a kind of souvenir - a document of another pizza place. i ate until i was full that night, and i don't regret a thing.
and so, the moral of the story (and the larger point of this post, i suppose) is simple: love for pizza can not be limited by orthodoxy or by rigid fundamentalism. pizza is like the life that it aims to enhance: unrestrained, unexpected, rich with variation and endlessly amazing. a real pizza lover must be open to possibility. and open to sharing a slice with me, your good friend in 'za...
mr. dp!
ps. seriously though, the guy ordered a deep dish!!!!
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And that's that, pizza friends! I've received a lot of really excellent pizza questions, and I'll be working non-stop to get answers posted as soon as possible (or as soon as I'm done eating delicious pizza pie). For now...keep voting for your favorite fake pizza place name...and most importantly, get out there and eat some 'za!
Yours, in sauce and cheese,
Mr. DP
