 Last week, I unleashed upon you a white pizza with clams and bacon. The response has been all kinds of enthusiastic. I had a different response from Peter Reinhart, whose recipe I’d adapted by adding bacon. (He offered a hearty endorsement of the added pork product, by the way. Should you wish to see the original blog post, it is here.) In his reply to my post, Peter said, “I don't know where the aversion to cheese and seafood started.” As often happens (since I’m a contrarian), I’d already been thinking about that fish and dairy “prohibition” for some time. And it suddenly seemed like the right time to blast that seafood and cheese nonsense out of the water.
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 In a fit of pizza panic (which doesn’t happen a lot these days), we produced this pizza that--wow--blew off their socks. We had this pizza yesterday, and will be having it again tomorrow. It's that good. And you should try making this one yourself. As soon as possible, in fact. It requires a little more prep than most pizzas. It’s also a white pizza, which can create pushback among the red-sauce diehards. Ignore that. If you have anything even vaguely resembling an adventurous spirit for food, this is an herby, peppery, savory, salty delight. And there’s bacon involved.  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?”  Last week’s anti-political rant about the Detroit pizza served to reporters on Air Force One got me thinking: how many people even understand the thrill that is Detroit-style pizza? It’s easy to make, comes with an element of crunchy, caramelized high like none other, and it’s a total surprise how much people love it. I’ve made over 1,000 round, flat pizzas recognizable as some evolution of Neapolitan tradition. And people love them. One guy I know says my pizza has ruined him for any other. But the few dozen Detroit-style pizzas I’ve made are the ones that make people’s heads snap around in surprise.  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. 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… |
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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