FREE THE PIZZA - How To Make Great Pizza In Your Home Oven
  • Home
  • About
    • Press
    • Work With Blaine
  • Pizza Memories
  • Free Sample
  • Blog
  • Pizza Tools
    • Modernist Pizza
    • Peter Reinhart's Detroit Pizza
    • Serhan's Ooni Pizza Ovens
  • Contact
  • NEWSLETTER
  • Video
  • Slice Out Hunger Donations For Los Angeles Wildfire
  • Home
  • About
    • Press
    • Work With Blaine
  • Pizza Memories
  • Free Sample
  • Blog
  • Pizza Tools
    • Modernist Pizza
    • Peter Reinhart's Detroit Pizza
    • Serhan's Ooni Pizza Ovens
  • Contact
  • NEWSLETTER
  • Video
  • Slice Out Hunger Donations For Los Angeles Wildfire

​Saturday Afternoon Pizza Posts 

The Homemade Pizza Blog At Free The Pizza

For a free sample of the Free The Pizza book, click here

A great recipe for homemade pizza is just a road map--you still have to deal with bumps along the way.

3/1/2025

0 Comments

 
road map with a pizza pin drop

Have you been hoping to make pizza? Do you live and die by the recipe as written? I have some troubling news. It may make you recede to a corner, assume the fetal position and rock: pizza recipes are a moving target. Pizza recipes do not always work as you hope. You may get frustrated. You will make mistakes. You will cry—unless you are like me and you lack tear ducts and are genetically stoic.  
 
If you want to learn to make great pizza, a recipe is a good guide to help get you started. But it’s a guide only.
 
Pizza is practice. Learning to make great pizza as a matter of routine means you have to be willing to make decisions—and mistakes.
 
You also get to own those mistakes. That’s the bad news. The good news is, those mistakes are usually edible and enjoyable enough.


Read More
0 Comments

Why pretend this style of pizza is a misbegotten disaster? You know if you were drunk, you’d fall on it face first.

2/8/2025

0 Comments

 
close-up of a slice of pan pizza with red bell pepper beneath American cheese

​Please forgive the inflammatory nature of the headline and its oblique connection to making great pizza at home. The pizza in question is closer than you know.
 
Today, I was reading a pizza magazine called (oddly) Pizza Today.
 
The article was about the evolution of traditional American pizza styles. It included some of the usual suspects, like Detroit pizza and Philly tomato pie.

There are also some styles that you
’ve never heard of—and which likely haven’t even been heard of by the people who eat them all the time. See also: Ohio Valley Pizza and New England Beach Pizza. 

Read More
0 Comments

The secret pro tip for great homemade pizza: unleashing the beast in your home oven...

2/1/2025

0 Comments

 
closeup of pepperon pizza with a small dog and question marks

​I pay attention to the pizza cooking questions over at the Troll Haven known as Quora. People occasionally ask about pizza, I answer, and maybe win a fan or sell a copy or two of Free The Pizza! But more important? I help prevent people from making pizza at home that's so bad they’ll quit before they’ve started.
 
If you’ve never heard of Quora, well, it’s a social site where people ask questions and impatient know-it-alls answer them with scorn and derision.
 
And then, there’s me. I hide my scorn and derision behind a smiling façade of self-serving servitude. (Oh, who am I kidding? I'm a total ham about this homemade pizza thing.)
 
Last week, a six-year old question popped up in my feed, and I thought, What the heck? I’ll answer it anyway. Somebody will see it.
 
Nope. Not just somebody.
 
Since I answered it five days ago, 17,000 people have seen it. Over 130 have upvoted it, and a couple dozen have commented.

Read More
0 Comments

New York Pizza Love: The bio-chemistry and immigrant history of an epic American success story

11/29/2024

0 Comments

 
Sliced whole cheese pizza and a big apple logo

If you love New York pizza, and want to make a pizza you can love, it requires having more than just an oven. It helps to have chemistry and context.
 
That’s why your Saturday Afternoon Pizza Post is a day early. It’s Black Friday, and there’s a lot of pizza oven lust going on out there.
 
To alleviate the pain of pizza-oven big-sale FOMO, it seemed it might be useful and fun to share some of the context. I’ve always believed context helps us be better pizzamakers. Knowing why you’re doing what you’re doing is so much more satisfying than mere blind doing.

Read More
0 Comments

Mastering homemade pizza means goodbye delivery, hello pizza love!

11/23/2024

0 Comments

 
Giant pepperoni pizza rising over a suburban house

This past Thursday, we were having lunch in New Orleans. And you know what that means: Day drinking!
 
We were in one of the town’s more famous dive bars. Inside, it’s small and dark and perpetually 9pm until you pay the tab and step out the door and go back into the sunlight which taunts you for your weekday misdeeds featuring alcohol involvement.
 
Our bartender was an endless font of wisdom on everything, from stride piano (his professional specialty when he’s not tending bar), to the regional brewery scene, to sandwich preparation formats and techniques.
 
I asked him if there’s any pizza in New Orleans that he likes. I asked because it's a very, very foodie town, but not really a pizza town. However, pizza is on the upswing. 

Read More
0 Comments

Hello, Halloween: Here's a simple, flavor-bomb, anti-vampire pizza you can make at home.

10/18/2024

0 Comments

 
extreme closeup of chopped fresh garlic on a pizza

What’s an anti-vampire pizza? Please allow me to answer your question with a question: Do you enjoy garlic?
 
This is an easy-to-make pizza. (Recipe follows at the end of this post.)
 
This pizza also sounds very minimalist--enough so that people will say, “That doesn’t sound very interesting."
 
And that’s the beauty of it: nobody sees this pizza coming.

When it arrives, they're awestruck at how crazy flavorful it is and their heads spin like Linda Blair's in The Exorcist on meth. (Is that so wrong? It's Halloween!) 

Read More
0 Comments

Forget the pepperoni. What “crazy” local flavor on pizza best represents your hometown?

8/17/2024

0 Comments

 
pizza with shrimp and andouille, garnished with cilantro

Are you at all creative and experimental in the kitchen? If so, it doesn’t take long for you to start thinking about what interesting new pizzas you want to create.
 
There’s a game to play here. I’m not sure you’ll want to play along. There is danger ahead.
 
Have you ever considered a pizza with roast pork, or gravied ground beef, or shrimp, or fresh corn, or lobster or oysters?
 
Do those possibilities make you wonder what the hell is wrong with me?
 
Would you believe they’re not my ideas? (Well, not most of them.)
 
Would understanding where these pizza ideas come from lead you to a “crazy-idea pizza” of your own that represents your own stomping grounds? You might be surprised. 

Read More
0 Comments

Making your first actual pizza: did your head explode?

7/27/2024

0 Comments

 
person's head exploding with color around a homemade pizza

​What was it like the first time you made an actual pizza?

 
We’re not talking a Thomas’s English Muffin pizza, or a Chef Boyardee pizza kit-in-a-box pizza. No Boboli-and-Ragu pizza.
 
We’re talking a from-scratch, kneading-the-dough-yourself pizza baked in your home oven that came out and surprised you by tap dancing on your tongue.
 
What did that pizza taste like?
 
How did it make you feel?
 
Did it change your world even a smidge?

Read More
0 Comments

What is COVID pizza, does it taste good, why is it not round, and other practical nonsense from inside an episode of Omicron variant delirium...

6/15/2024

0 Comments

 
section of a cheese pizza

​What exactly is a COVID pizza? I think you’re looking at it in the photo above.

 
As some people I know might say, “Dude, that cheese pizza is righteous!”
 
OK, maybe so—until you see the whole thing.
 
You’ll get to see it in just a moment.

Read More
0 Comments

How developing a few simple home pizza-making habits can turn you into an anytime pizza-producing superhero.

5/25/2024

0 Comments

 
Superhero pulling away his shirt to reveal pizza

There are people who will never be able to make a pizza. They won't even try. Some folks will try it once, and decide it’s not for them.

​And then there are people who seem to be able to produce a fresh, hot, savory, tangy, cheesy, mind-bending home-baked pizza whenever they want—to the point where the conversation goes something like this:

​“What do you want to eat? I can grill a chicken, make linguine in white clam sauce, or bake a sausage and mushroom pizza.”

 
How do they do this?

Read More
0 Comments

The shrimp & garlic pizza is easy to make, a pleasure to eat, and turns you into a homemade pizza superhero.

5/17/2024

0 Comments

 
shrimp and garlic pizza with cilantro garnish

“It was one of those moments where you say, ‘This is a perfect bite.’”
 
That’s an actual quote from someone eating this pizza--one of my harshest critics, in fact.
 
If you’re already making homemade pizza at any level, the pizza she’s talking about is easy to assemble, nobody sees it coming, and people love it.

 
Welcome to the unexpected--The Land of Shrimp & Garlic Pizza.
 
We’re going to talk about:
 
1) how to make it,
 
2) what goes on it, and
 
3) how to handle it so it amazes your friends and family and makes you a homemade pizza superhero.

Read More
0 Comments

Want your homemade pizza to be round? Here's the stupidest advice you've been waiting for: Just make it round. It's that simple.

4/27/2024

0 Comments

 
round pizza in calipers

Will your pizza go round in circles, and will your guests fly high like a bird up in the sky--all because your homemade pizza is finally round?
 
Apologies to Billy Preston.

But maybe that song is a good alternative to having this conversation. Here, see if this is better for you than making round pizza: 
https://youtu.be/U5-bJkoLWMY?si=2npbZpF_VbER_Ey6.​

Read More
0 Comments

​A pizza-making fantasy camp that's as real as you can get--because the actual stars are you and the microbes.

4/13/2024

0 Comments

 
Woman making a fantasy pizza

Scott always seems to be halfway to an enthusiastic grin. He's also pretty clear about his enthusiasm for this new gig. “When they asked me if I want to teach a class with Peter, there's a no-brainer. That's like a dream situation.” 
 
Peter, who also exhibits an enviable level of preternatural happiness, says, “I think there are people that just have a passion for it, and they have the means and the time to be able to do this, and there are folks who just want to gobble up knowledge and experience.”
 
NEWSFLASH: Two of the nicest guys in the entire pizza ecosystem are getting together and teaching a 3-day course in pizza dough at the world-famous Pizza University, based in that garden spot of pizza, Beltsville, Maryland.
 
And now you’re asking yourself the right question: In what bizarre world of homemade pizza would you be thinking, “Hey, I should travel to that greater Baltimore school for pizzeria operators and take that 3-day course about mixing together water, flour, salt and yeast?”

Read More
0 Comments

​Are you hesitating on that homemade pizza? Just ask a question, put your ear up to the pizza, and listen...

3/2/2024

0 Comments

 
Man afraid of homemade pizza

Getting ready to make that first pizza can be daunting. So can making the second, the third—heck, it’s pizza anxiety and it can be debilitating. I’ve known people who can’t start any new kitchen project with a process because they’re freaked out by the possibility of making mistakes.
 
And pizza is one of those kitchen projects with a process that inspires with fear. Fear of the unknown. Fear of making mistakes. Fear of handling dough. Fear of ending up with a freeform calzone.

​
How can you mitigate the fear? To some degree, it’s merely about preparing well and then just making it so.
 
Right now, there’s a loaf of rye bread cooling in my kitchen. You know how many times I’ve made rye bread?

Read More
0 Comments

Consider this not an exhortation, but gentle encouragement: you’ll find more joy in making homemade pizza when using a scale.

1/27/2024

0 Comments

 
giant pizza in a kitchen scale

​I haven’t offered a simple kitchen tip in a while, so here it comes. Get ready for the ensuing mayhem.
 
If you’ve spent any time around here, you’ve heard me say it: Scales are not necessary for making pizza. I’ve said as much to pizza pros, who instantly label me a scoffer and a misanthropist. So be it.
 
Among American home cooks, there’s a clear and resonant hatred of the dreaded kitchen scale. I have a theory for why this is. It’s related to a less-than-stellar education system.

Read More
0 Comments

If it's a homemade pizza, can you really say it's New Haven style, is it authentic, or is it just an insult to the gods of "apizza"?

1/20/2024

1 Comment

 
Homemade New Haven-style pizza

How daring are you, and are you ready for a crazy pizza challenge that sounds easier than it might really be?

 
Would you like to try making a polarizing form of pizza using a barely tested dough?
 
First, a short tale, and then some details. (And know those details are all reflected in the pizza in the photo above, which is an actual Free The Pizza Production developed using the methods in question.)

Read More
1 Comment

OK. So the guy owns five pizza ovens. Do you trust him when he says, "Don't buy a pizza oven?" (Probably. Even the NY Times called him a pizza influencer.)

1/11/2024

0 Comments

 
Serhan Ayhan holding a pizza

​Last week, the conversation was pizza inspiration that knows no sane boundaries. And that’s fine. It’s so much better than the tyranny of “Pepperoni or nothing!”
 
This week, part 2 of our conversation with Serhan Ayhan puts the spotlight on the truth about ovens and the things that matter more. (Flour, anybody?)
 
And perhaps the most important thing you need for making pizza is free. In fact, it’s impossible to buy…

Read More
0 Comments

New England-style Greek pizza? Tangerines? Corn? Chex mix? Here's a homemade pizza adventure like you've never seen...

1/6/2024

0 Comments

 
Serhan Ayhan poses with a homemade pizza
If you like making pizza, and you want to push the boundaries a little, it’s fun being inspired by other people’s pizzas.

For me, it’s usually the easy-to-find pizzas of high-profile pros like Dan Richer, Chris Bianco or Nancy Silverton.

But there’s a pizza amateur who is may be the single most inspiring pizzamaker I’ve ever witnessed. Serhan Ayhan and I met in Atlantic City at the Pizza & Pasta Northeast (PPNE) trade show. Serhan was there not as a pizzeria pro (though he’s been one), but as an enthusiastic pizza amateur. 

By day, Serhan works in financial due diligence with a famous multinational investment bank. You may have seen him and his wife in the New York Times’ Real Estate section in a feature called “The Hunt.” The two stories there detail their hunt for a new home—including an oven big enough to accommodate his pizza peel. (We've all been there, right?)

Read More
0 Comments

Year-End Lists Part 2: After my best pizza in Portland was a lucky find, I’m finally approaching the "best pizza" lists with a skeptical eye.

12/27/2023

0 Comments

 
pizza list crumpled with trash

Last week, I talked about hitting five of the top-rated pizza joints in Pizza City USA (AKA Portland, Oregon)—except…
 
Pizzeria number 5 was a last-minute substitution based on a Google search for the closest pizza joint.
 
I’d never heard of it, never saw it on any list—and it was the biggest surprise of my two-day pizza expedition.
 
So, after years of regarding them with suspicion, I’m officially skeptical of the best pizza lists.

Read More
0 Comments

Here now, the crazy secret ingredients to killer homemade pizza: Time & Patience! (Plus two more unexpected tips, all from pizza guru Peter Reinhart.)

10/27/2023

0 Comments

 
Peter Reinhart eating pizza

So I was talking with Peter Reinhart last week. He's the guy whose first pizza book 20 years ago got me making killer homemade pizza. And now, we sometimes talk about pizza because he's an incredibly nice guy and it’s one of his favorite things to do.
 
I said to Peter, “If you were talking to a newbie pizza maker, somebody who maybe hasn't even touched dough yet, what would you say are the three most important tips you can provide before diving into this?”
 
When he was done speaking, I told him that I’ve said something similar, though without nearly the same eloquence or authority. That’s why he’s a James Beard Award-winner and a professor at world-famous Johnson & Wales and I’m a semi-professional geek with a blog. So here now, I share Prof. Reinhart's insights with you and embellish them with some of my own geeky nonsense. 

Read More
0 Comments
<<Previous

    Author

    Blaine 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

    March 2025
    February 2025
    January 2025
    December 2024
    November 2024
    October 2024
    September 2024
    August 2024
    July 2024
    June 2024
    May 2024
    April 2024
    March 2024
    February 2024
    January 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019

    Categories

    All
    Accidental Calzone
    Altoona Pizza
    American Pizza
    Anchovy
    Anchovy Pizza
    Andris Lagsdin
    Apizza
    Artisan Pizza
    Asian Fusion Pizza
    Authentic Pizza
    Award-winning Pizzerias
    Bacon Pizza
    Baking
    Baking Steel
    Bechamel
    Best Cheese For Pizza
    Best Pizza
    Best Pizza Lists
    Bianco
    Bianco Dinapoli
    Books
    Boring
    California Pizza
    California Pizza Kitchen
    Calzone
    Celebrity Chef
    Char
    Cheese
    Cheese Graters
    Cheese Pizza
    Cheese Snob
    Chicago Style
    Chicken Pizza
    Chickpea Pizza
    Chilis
    Chopped Champion
    Chop Shop Park City
    Christmas Pizza
    Clam Chowder Pizza
    Cooking Pizza
    Costco
    Courage
    Covid Pizza
    Cpk
    Creative Pizza
    Dan Richer
    Delivery
    Detroit Pizza
    Dianne Jacob
    Diastatic Malt
    Dough
    Duck
    Easy Homemade Bread
    Easy Homemade Pizza
    Family
    Fancy
    Fast Dough
    Fast Pizza
    Fear
    Fermentation
    Fire
    First Field
    Food Craving
    Food Snobbery
    Free Pizza
    Fresh Mozzarella
    Fruit On Pizza
    Garlic Pizza
    Gift Pizza
    Gluten Free
    Gluten Free Pizza
    Great Homemade Pizza
    Greek Pizza
    Hawaiian
    Healthy Pizza
    Historic Pizzerias
    Homemade Pizza
    Homemade Pizza Dough
    Homemade Pizza Sauce
    Hometown Pizza
    Hot Dogs On Pizza
    Hot Pepper Pizza
    How To Make Pizza
    Indoor Pizza Oven
    Ingredients
    Inventing Pizza
    Italian Cooking
    Jersey Fresh
    Jersey Tomato Pie
    Kinds Of Pizza
    Kitchen Safety
    Kitchen Scale
    Kneading Dough
    Kristian Tapaninaho
    Launching Pizza
    Leftover Pizza Dough
    Legacy Pizzerias
    Low Moisture Mozzarella
    Making Pizza Round
    Marcella Hazan
    Margherita
    Marinara
    Meatloaf
    Meatloaf Pizza
    Meat Pizza
    Mezzaluna
    Mise En Place
    Mississippi Pizza
    Mistakes
    Mobile Pizza Business
    Modernist Pizza
    Modernist Pizza Review
    Mormon Pizza
    Mozzarella
    Neapolitan
    Neapolitan Pizza
    Neo Neapolitan
    Neo-Neapolitan
    New England Pizza
    New Haven Pizza
    New Jersey Pizza
    New York Pizza
    No Knead
    Obituary
    Onions
    Ooni
    Outdoor Pizza Oven
    Oven Temp
    Paris
    Park City Pizza
    Parmesan
    Parmigiano Reggiano
    Patience
    Pepperoni
    Pepperoni Pizza
    Peppers
    Peter Reinhart
    Pi Day
    Pineapple On Pizza
    Pizza Around The World
    Pizza Book
    Pizza Charity
    Pizza Cheese
    Pizza Christmas Gifts
    Pizza Classes
    Pizza Competition
    Pizza Cookbooks
    Pizza Crust Pot Pie
    Pizza Cutter
    Pizza-dough
    Pizza Dough Bread
    Pizza-fear
    Pizza-flour
    Pizza-gifts
    Pizza-habits
    Pizza Hacks
    Pizza-hate
    Pizza Holiday Gifts
    Pizza-hut
    Pizza-in-strange-places
    Pizza-joy
    Pizza-lust
    Pizza-margherita
    Pizza-marinara
    Pizza-memories
    Pizza Mistakes
    Pizza-mistakes
    Pizza Not Politics
    Pizza-oven
    Pizza-ovens
    Pizza-party
    Pizza-patience
    Pizza-peel
    Pizza-peeps
    Pizza-pi
    Pizza-pi-vi
    Pizza Politics
    Pizza Quest
    Pizza Questions
    Pizza Recipes
    Pizza Satire
    Pizza Sauce
    Pizza Secret
    Pizza Steel
    Pizza Stone
    Pizza Stuck
    Pizza Styles
    Pizza Think
    Pizza Today
    Pizza Tomatoes
    Pizza Toppings
    Pizza Trends
    Pizza University
    Pizzeria
    Poetry
    Politics
    Portland Pizza
    Premium Ingredients
    Prep
    Proofing Dough
    Pulled Pork Pizza
    Recipes
    Reinhart
    Rocbox
    Rock & Roll
    Rolling Dough
    Rush
    San Marzano Tomatoes
    Sausage
    Scott's Pizza Tours
    Scott Wiener
    Secret Ingredient
    Secret Pizza
    Serhan Ayhan
    Settebello
    Shrimp Pizza
    Slice Out Hunger
    Soup And Pizza
    Sourdough
    Sourdough Pizza
    Spicy Pizza
    Steel
    Stretching
    Stretching Pizza Dough
    Stromboli
    Styles Of Pizza
    Thanksgiving
    The Joy Of Pizza
    The Zen Of Pizza
    Time
    Timing
    Tips
    Tomatoes
    Tomato Pie
    Tools
    Too Wet
    Trenton Tomato Pie
    Tribecca Allie
    Vampires
    Vegetarian Pizza
    Virgin Islands
    VPN
    Weighing Ingredients
    Wet Dough
    Wet Pizza
    White Clam Pizza
    White Pizza
    Why Pizza
    Wine
    Wood
    Wood Fired Pizza
    Wood-fired Pizza
    Yeast

    RSS Feed

Privacy Policy
Terms Of Service
© Copyright 2021-2025. All rights reserved.
As a ShareASale Affiliate and an Amazon Associate, we earn a small percentage from qualifying Amazon purchases at no additional cost to you.
When you click those links to Amazon (and a few other sites we work with), and you buy something, you are helping this website stay afloat, and you're helping us have many more glorious photographs of impressive ​pizza.