 The Saturday Afternoon Pizza Post is on hiatus this week. So instead of your normal, expected pizza nonsense philosophy or left-field how-to tip, we’re offering a simple cautionary note. Ready?
While eating the pizza you just made, don’t talk about other pizzas you’ve eaten. It’s a little like making love to one person while talking about making love to another. How well is that going to work out for anyone really?
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 This is a sad tale. To borrow from the Broadway musical Hadestown, “It's a sad tale. It's a tragedy. We're gonna sing it anyway.” The good news: It’s short. And no actual pizzas were harmed.
This tale of woe is also a cautionary note. Thumbtack it to your kitchen bulletin board. (Do people even still have those?) Maybe there should be a refrigerator magnet. And this is not just for the home pizzaiolo. It’s for home cooks everywhere. Beware the evil that lurks in your kitchen!  The Ongoing Modernist Pizza Review, ConclusionModernist Pizza Written by Nathan Myhrvold and Francisco Migoya Published by The Cooking Lab; First edition, October 19, 2021 Hardcover: 1708 pages, 32.7 pounds, 13.78 x 10.24 x 15.94 inches List Price: $425.00 Amazon discount price as of 05/03/23: $294.99 People have I asked me whether they should buy Modernist Pizza. That seems like a loaded question: Whether I have an opinion on whether you should buy a $450, three-volume pizza “cookbook” that weighs 32 pounds and comes in a stainless-steel case with a bright red finish.
The answer is simple: Yes. If you can even ask the question, you are a candidate. If you are someone who doesn’t automatically say, “$450 for a cookbook? That’s insane!”, then you may well be the right person for this epic work on pizza: the history, current state of the art, techniques and recipes. The people to whom I’ve unequivocally recommended this book are very smart people who have two things in common: They are adventurers and they love pizza.  NOTE: This is a long-ish read. (It also contains a word or two of profanity.) If you’d like to download it as a PDF and read on your device, you can find it here.
If you use a pizza steel, one of the reasons is Andris Lagsdin. He’s homemade pizza's Man Of Steel. Back when Nathan Mhyrvold and the team at Modernist Cuisine began experimenting with bread baking, they determined that the best baking surface was not stone, but steel--which changed Andris's life. Once upon a time, Andris was a culinary rockstar chef in Boston. He used to run the pizza program for celebrity chef Todd English at his restaurant, Figs in Charlestown. However, Andris also comes from a decades-old family steel business called Stoughton Steel. He grew up in steel fabrication, and had gone back to the business to help his father when he saw an opportunity.  The Ongoing Modernist Pizza Review, Volume 3, Chapter 14, "Serving And Storage"Modernist Pizza Written by Nathan Myhrvold and Francisco Migoya Published by The Cooking Lab; First edition, October 19, 2021 Hardcover: 1708 pages, 32.7 pounds, 13.78 x 10.24 x 15.94 inches List Price: $425.00 Amazon discount price as of 05/03/23: $294.99 “You’ve mixed and proofed, stretched and sauced, cheesed and baked. It’s the moment you’ve been waiting for, the moment where you’ve just pulled the pizza from the oven. What more can we tell you at this point? Just dig in, right?”
And so it begins: the end. The last chapter of Modernist Pizza. But knowing Mhyrvold & Migoya, you’re going to get the Modernistas’ take all the way through to serving and storing your pizza, which means (yes): They did experiments. How to vent steam from the bottom of the pizza is a conundrum. Steam makes the pizza soggy, so how do you prevent that? Can making great pizza at home make the world a better place--or at least improve your love life?5/6/2023  Last Thursday night while I was out, I had text and voicemail messages from a longtime friend and pizza-geek reader of this blog. There was some urgency involved. I got back to him at the end of the evening. He was a couple of hours behind me. (Like a Billy Joel character, this guy used to give them the standup routine in LA. But that was another life, yet he still lives there. Lucky him!)
It turns out my friend was doing something public that showcases the Free The Pizza book, and wanted to make sure I was OK with the exposure. Let’s see. Am I OK with someone wanting to promote my books for free with no strings attached? Um… Yep. But this friend, whom we’ll call David (because that is his name) got onto a pizza jag. He was deep into the idea of making pizzas and working with toppings and making it a part of his repertoire and feeding his friends and wooing the women in his bachelor life and, and, and…  The Ongoing Modernist Pizza Review, Volume 3, Chapter 13, "Flavor Themes"Modernist Pizza Written by Nathan Myhrvold and Francisco Migoya Published by The Cooking Lab; First edition, October 19, 2021 Hardcover: 1708 pages, 32.7 pounds, 13.78 x 10.24 x 15.94 inches List Price: $425.00 Amazon discount price as of 05/03/23: $294.99 “But what do we mean by a flavor theme? It’s a combination of sauce, cheese and toppings that would work on virtually any style of pizza.” Thus begins the discussion of what to put on the top of your pizza.
My wife has been after me to write a book about pizza toppings. She feels like that’s something the marketplace is missing. I’m not sure whether I agree with that. But the Modernistas could certainly write it. I hope they will. They’ve done the research and have the recipes. And it’s all here in Volume 3, Chapter 13, “Flavor Themes.” I admit, I’m excited by this. (Yes, my life has become very small.) |
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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