 The amazing thing is a book. What’s inside? A brief history of pizza. A single recommended dough recipe. An explanation about how to bake pizza in your home oven.
If you’ve read Free The Pizza!, that description might sound familiar. But, it’s obviously not my book. In fact, it’s the complete opposite of my book. It’s also a stunning example of why I wrote my book in the first place: there's a lot of pizza information out there. Not everyone needs that much intel at the beginning. But if you’re the right person, you may demand this book. I’ve just received and started reading Modernist Pizza. If you don’t know about this pizza epic, it is extraordinary. Weighing more than 30 pounds (including the 7 pounds of ink required to print it), Nathan Mhyrvold and Francisco Migoya’s masterpiece is a great idea—IF you know what you’re getting into. I thought I did.
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 FAIR WARNING: This is probably the only homemade pizza story you'll ever read that involves the British Monarchy, men's fashion, fine dining, Netflix and sex. Proceed at your own discretion.
In social media pizza groups, it doesn't take long to notice who’s making the great looking homemade pizzas. One of those pizza people is Kevin Godbee. His pies quickly catch your attention. His pizzas look really good, and he is relentless about producing them. It was also impressive when Kevin asked for my New York-style pizza dough recipe. It was still in the early stages, and I told him as much. Almost immediately, he began sharing with me his tweaks to it. There was even a spreadsheet. Then, when Kevin posted photos of his pizzas inspired by the Netflix series Chef’s Table: Pizza, I thought, People need to know about this guy. He should be an inspiration for the home pizzamaker.  Real bakers think I’m a heretic. And, of course, the online pizza people are right there with the real bakers. They’ll jump right in and say, “Don’t listen to him! He’s wrong!” Well, like I say at the very beginning of Free The Pizza!, I have no professional training. I don’t know what I’m talking about.
Here’s what I do know: after 20 years and more than 1,000 pizzas, I’ve figured out some things. And one of those things is that weighing the ingredients isn’t some kind of silver bullet. And I don’t think, as a beginner, you should a) have to buy a kitchen scale, and b) be lulled into complacency by watching the numbers.  Don’t hate me because it’s French. Mise en place is a phrase that’s used in kitchens around the world. Mise en place can change your game in more ways than you imagine. And as a bonus, mise en place also refers to something you never expected. It involves psychology and is going to mess with your head in a good way. I promise.
If you don’t know mise en place, here’s a rough phonetic pronunciation that will probably get me into trouble with my high-school French teacher (she was an American chauvinist for France who had no sense of humor and always wore double-knit slacks): you say it “meez on plass.” Or, as the pros say in pro kitchen slang, “Meez.” Like, “How’s your mis?” Or, “Is your mis ready?” Contrary to popular myth, it has nothing to do with Les Mis-erables.  There’s a problem with Pizza Social. (In case you don’t know, Pizza Social is the social mediasphere where self-appointed experts dogpile on to tell you that you’re doing it wrong with your pizza.)
Example: You post a photo and say, “This is my first pizza! It’s not round. But it tastes great. Yay, me!” Reply: “It’s not round!" "That cornicione is too big!" "What’s your percentage?" "Your dough hydration is too low! You need to be at least 65% hydration! More water!” You’re a beginning pizza maker. You have no idea what this means. You’re just happy you made something that tasted great. Step one: solved!  People’s heads are exploding. Just a few pictures on Facebook, and some simple remarks peppered with snark, and…WOW! Who knew that a New York-style pizza could cause such a stir? It’s like people are seeing fire for the first time. And here’s the irony: if you read Free The Pizza! (sub-title: A Simple System For Making Great Pizza At Home Using The Oven You Already Have), you have the potential to make a pizza that’s far more interesting than a New York Slice.  Introspection is good, right? But I probably spend way too much time having thoughtful internal debate about things like, “Is it possible to make a banh mi pizza?” Or, “Is there a place for leftover shrimp and andouille gumbo on a pizza, or will it require a spoon?” “What about a deconstructed clam chowder pizza?” I haven’t done the banh mi pizza yet. But I have tried the other two, and I can say they were moderately successful. But there’s a man whose pizzas are over-the-top inspiring. They make me consider pushing the limits of what “belongs” on a pizza. A Little Book About Pizza Saves This Guy A Bunch Of Money And Gives Him Something To Do With His Son8/12/2022  “Okay my first outing with the oven, the pizza steel and Blaine’s book. It was AWESOME! Thank you! So much easier than making pizza on my Big Green Egg, and saved me a fortune from buying a wood pizza oven!”
That is the email I woke up to one morning earlier this week. A gentleman named Frank sent it through the Free The Pizza website, along with a photograph of one of his pizzas. It's the photograph at the top of this post. (That's prosciutto under all that arugula, in case you're interested.)  The Free The Pizza Summer Tour 2022 has been bringing pizza to the people around the Eastern seaboard. We’re presently in Cape Cod, where a friend we’ll call JD requested one of my signature pizzas: shrimp and garlic. I’ve known JD for well over a decade. I know some things about him. And I know that he hasn’t asked for some other toppings on that pizza that he would enjoy. For instance: he loves overtly spicy food that can tear the head off of mere mortals, causing pizza sauce to gush from the open neck hole. With that intel, it felt like time to introduce JD to Pizza De Los Camarones Al Diablo: Pizza Of The Devil Shrimp. (Yes, it’s a Spanish name. It sounds more dangerous than its Italian counterpart, and is also more friendly to the American tongue.)  The reason I'm sharing my answer to a question on Quora is because it's going crazy there, and maybe you need to see it. The question was, "Why does homemade pizza never taste the same as pizza from a restaurant? Am I missing some secret ingredient or method?" I read the answers people had given this person, and I was appalled. It was a parade of negativity and ignorance. Only a couple of voices offered something worthy, and those answers were incomplete. So, I wrote the following...
You can make homemade pizza that tastes fantastic. My homemade pizza tastes better than a lot of pizza restaurants. (That’s one of the reasons why, after 20 years of doing it, I’ve written a book about how to do it.) It also seems most of the answers to this question are from people who apparently never make pizza at home, and know only why they can’t make pizza at home. Even a chef told you it’s not possible. If it’s not possible, explain this photo: |
AuthorBlaine Parker is the award-winning author of the new, 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, professional-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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