I admit, I’ve been reading a lot about haiku lately. And in a moment I laughed aloud because of Haiku as pizza See what I did there? If so, you’ve been paying attention. We love that! BTW, the pizza haiku contest post is here should you need to reference it.
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 You’ve done it now: You played pizza haiku, and you created a monster. As a result, Monster Pizza Haiku is coming. There will be prizes and a pizza haiku book. To say I did not expect y’all to embrace last week’s haiku challenge like this is an understatement of syllabic proportions.  We’re doing something weird today, and maybe inadvisable—especially for a site dedicated to all things pizza. I started something last week, and I’ve found it addictive. And it might be regarded as irrelevant to pizzamaking. I say it couldn’t be more relevant to pizzamaking because, like pizza eating, it’s addictive. It’s fun. When you do it right, there’s a little dopamine rush. If we get enough participation in this, I’ll even turn it into a contest with actual, valuable prizes. Ready? Two words: Pizza haiku.  Today we have a kind of refrigerator pizza. That’s what happens when you have a fridge full of stuff that’s crying, “Use me!” and in that mix of stuff there happens to be pizza dough. For The Fabulous Honey Parker and I, this pizza was inspired by a simple combo we learned to love in Los Angeles. We were in our local dive bar. It happened that we could see the cook at the end of the bar, eating a pizza that wasn’t on the menu: pepperoni and jalapeño. We asked the bartender if the guy would make that pizza for us, and she said, “Sure!”  As Dorothy Parker used to say whenever her doorbell rang, “What fresh hell can this be?” Of course, she never had pizza delivery. The fresh hell here is a pile o' pizzas my friends never saw coming. Adjusting expectations is important. It’s part of adapting and surviving for a life filled with better flavors. Last night, I made pizza for friends who were expecting my usual--a kind of NeoNeapolitan style that might be referred to as New York 2.0. It's arguably a pretty traditional style of pizza. What they got last night was not that.  Today we’re going Greek. I’ve seen Chirstopher Nolan's The Odyssey. I’ve been struggling with the same question as everyone else who’s not busy falling for the manufactured scandals about the film: Where’s the pizza?
In fact, to borrow from famed Odyssey translator Emily Wilson, who wrote a review of the film for the London Review of Books, “The food looks horrible.” (Addressing other issues of thematic import, she also asks where’s the sex? She says nothing of pizza. You and I may be alone in this question.) How to do pizza improvisation if you hate following a recipe--when to do it for no-fail fun.7/25/2026  Let’s assume love to improvise in the kitchen. Pizza dough doesn’t allow improvisation, right? I’d say that depends: How thoughtful is your improvisation? Of course, if you’re talking about pizza toppings, improv can be king—and sometimes it’s even comedy.  It has been a crazy week for Free The Pizza. With any luck, fans of FTP will consider themselves the eventual winners of the pizza media madness that’s been embroiling the brand over the last few days. We’re making a movie, selling the new book which reached #1 on Amazon in Pizza Baking, and we had a big event at a local venue, including free pizza, sold-out books and cooking hilarity involving the Fabulous Honey Parker. This lonely, leftover pizza dough turned into the best hotdog bun ever--and how you can do it, too.7/11/2026  Blech! The dreaded summertime cold. It ruins everything—especially your Independence Day celebrations when you’re supposed drive your Chevy to the levee to get hot dogs and apple pie. (And if you understand that wacked-out nonsense mashup, you’re either the correct generation, an astute youngster, or both.) On July 3, when it was clear I was coming down with a raging cold, I had no plans. The Fabulous Honey Parker was with her father in the Garden State. And since I felt myself circling the drain, I cancelled all plans for being social. Then I spoke to Honey. “We’re going to have hot dogs!” And suddenly, I was jealous.  It’s Independence Day. I was going to give you a long and rambling and vaguely contentious screed on the state of independence in this great nation of ours as it pertains to pizza, the universe and everything.
And then I realized there’s a heat wave and my friends are all draped across rattan furniture, clutching sweaty glasses of fruit- and alcohol-infused coolants with perhaps a sprig of mint, and they have zero interest in reading anything of the sort that I'd planned. All they wanna do is sweat and perhaps die blissfully. With maybe a hotdog in between. So instead, I just made you a pizza that, on the face of it, sounds really wrong: Tomato, goat cheese, and blueberries.  Yesterday, I made a fresh tomato pie using the basic recipe from Lazy Way to Pizza. I did everything by the book. It was easy. I served a slice to the Fabulous Honey Parker. She sat there, eating her wedge of crunchy pan pizza adorned with marinated fresh tomatoes. She said, “I almost wish you’d never made this pizza.” "Really?" I asked her why. “Because I think I might like it better than your traditional pizza, and I don’t want that to happen.” Well, there ya go. No-knead, all crunch: a simple, astonishing pan pizza anyone can master with The Lazy Way to Pizza…6/20/2026  I have a problem, and that problem involves you. You just aren’t aware of it. And really, why should you be? We all live our lives on a need-to-know basis. Until your life involves making pizza with me, you and I do not have much of an overlap in the Venn diagram. Anyway, here’s my problem: When I write a book, I want the book to be a) entertaining and b) useful. If I can solve that problem, and my book keeps you along for the ride, you’re more likely to find what I’ve done to be useful and exciting. Useful because you made a pizza. Exciting because it’s a pizza you want to make again and again and again.  I don’t know about you, but I’m exhausted from the last four weeks and all the tomatoes. There is also no such thing as cheese pizza in a can. But Dole UK did once make "Hawaiian Pizza in a Can" for April Fool’s Day. And pizza has been available in US Army rations as an MRE. I guess that makes it cheese pizza in a pouch. Whatever.  You know you need the tomatoes upon pizza. You can feel it. You’ve been reading about it for a month. During this spontaneous time of unofficial tomato celebration, what if you’re lusting for the Fresh Tomato Pie—but you don’t make pizza yet? Or you do, but you don’t have the time to make pizza? Or you are utterly uninterested in making a really good, artisan-style dough that ferments for 72 hours because you just want that pizza right now? Welcome to Free The Pizza. Hear me now and believe me later: You may rue the day you arrived here.  Does it seem unfair that people who don’t make pizza at home do not get to enjoy the tomato madness that we are embracing here? Here we are on the third episode of tomato mania. This was never supposed to be a series. But what began as Tomato Ridiculous Part I and then accidental Part II has given way to accidental Total Tomato Madness because the Tomato On Pizza Lovers are coming out of the woodwork.  I’ve done something ridiculous, and I’ve decided to save you from it. Last week, I promised you a recipe for tomato pie. After telling you that, I began experimenting with a pizza we are calling Tomato Ridiculous. Today’s recipe is not that. Today’s recipe is better. It will cause you to hear angels sing. But first, a brief tale of ambitious obsession gone stupid. Following that, an easy recipe giving the nod to one of American pizza’s legacy pizzerias with a glorious and simple celebration of tomato goodness.  The magic of tomato season is coming. What kind of tomato pie do you want to make? And who is going to rain upon your parade? (It is, after all pizza, and people have opinions.) As if pizza isn’t already enough of a danger zone. All the arguments flying about and pineapple opinions weaponized for fractious battles of pointless judgment. Enter the Tomato Pie Zone and you quickly learn that it's a dark and uncertain journey of ambiguity and confusion. Let’s open the blinds and shed some light upon the juicy and radiant red orbs of summer. The fresh tomato can be a beacon of inspiration for your own way along the rocky coastline of pizza land. Want to be an intrepid explorer in the ocean of tomatoes off the coast of pizza? Let’s dive in!  I’ve been looking at a photo of a remarkable pizza on the cover of a big, national pizza-trade journal. The pizza is captivating. It is artful. It is effortless in its beauty. The rim of the crust is crazily blistered with golden bubbles of delight. The pizza is resplendent with tiny tomatoes, prosciutto, mushrooms and micro greens. And the single most stupefyingly joy-inducing part of this pizza's appearance? Flowers. They are tiny notes of glory punctuating the pizza with yellow, violet, white, purple, lavender, the palest of blue, even the orange of an Aperol spritz on a sunny day.  As you know if you’ve been here for any length of time, one of my refrains is: Pizza is not recipes. Pizza is process. That simple thought is essential to understanding what it takes to make a great pizza at home. Well, I’ve just been upstaged by a quick-thinking kitchen pro with a Masters in Business Administration, a PhD in natural medicine, and an affinity for pizza.  I got up at 4:30 this morning to make you a pizza. OK, that’s a lie. I got up at 4:30 this morning and began the process of making you a pizza so I could write this questionable Pizza Post. This is happening because I’m all fired up from last week’s convo regarding the way acid can change everything. (On a pizza, that is.) And therein, I proposed the silly idea of taking one pizza you already enjoy and elevating it with one acidic element. So of course, I became so obsessed I had to try it out. Remember our motto: I try these things so you don’t have to. Is this pizza going to be any good—and will I screw it up with even more stuff? |
AuthorBlaine Parker is the award-winning author of the bestselling, unusual and amusing how-to pizza book, Free The Pizza. Also known as The Pizza Geek and "Hey, Pizza Man!", Blaine is fanatical about the idea that true, pro-quality pizza can be made at home. His home. Your home. Anyone's home. After 20 years of honing his craft and making pizza in standard consumer ovens across the nation, he's sharing what he's learned with home cooks like you. Are you ready to pizza? Archives
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