Great homemade pizza is simple. Expensive toys and perfect recipes not required.

I was never interested in making a Neapolitan pizza. I know: heresy. Right?
 
When I began making pizza, I didn’t even really know what Neapolitan pizza was. I grew up on a Southern Connecticut version of New York-style pizza.
 
And one of my favorite pizzas was from the counter for Caruso’s Pizza in the old Grand Central Station. That was before they turned Grand Central into a food court surrounded by dozens of trains rushing for the suburbs.

Caruso’s used to sell a big juicy slice the size of your face. Late at night, we’d always rush to grab a slice before rushing to grab the last train home.
 
That slice was often accompanied by a big Coke cup filled with fizzy yellow beer. (I seem to recall, probably wrongly, that they had a tap bubbling with frosty-cold Rheingold.)
 
When I was itching to make my own pizza, I wanted to produce something resembling what I knew as pizza.
 
I knew only American pizza. There were some variations I didn’t understand, like Sicilian. And Chicago.
 
I also knew that the “brick oven pizza” that came out of the fire at Regina in Boston’s North End was different. I didn’t understand why. I just knew it was glorious.
 
 
My first step toward pizza was with Peter Reinhardt’s excellent book American Pie, and I did something I’d never done with a cookbook.
 
I read the whole thing. It was an education.
 
After doing that, I decided to pick one style of pizza and focus on making that style.
 
Since Peter’s book echoes the “perfect pizza” sentiment I’d so often heard regarding the epic New Haven pies that came from the legendary Sally’s and Pepe's, that was my focus: I’d attempt making New Haven-style pizza.
 
I followed Peter’s simple recipes and best advice.
 
For equipment, I started with a crappy, too-thin baking stone in an old, 1950s Wedgewood oven.
 
I repeat.
 
I followed simple recipes and advice.
 
I used an old home oven with an inferior baking stone. Nonetheless…
 
The resulting first pizza was glorious.
 
I didn’t weigh any ingredients. I didn’t have a temperature gun.
 
There was no climate control in my kitchen. I’d never heard of Baker’s percentages.
 
I used only a bowl, a set of measuring spoons, a measuring cup, and my bare hands.
 
And yes, the pizza was glorious.
 
 
For months and even years, I kept making that pizza, consistent and relentless.
 
I also now know that, while it was supposed to be New Haven-style pizza, it wasn’t.
 
It was my style of pizza.
 
It was merely informed by New Haven.
 
I still make a variation on that style now. I now also use scales and thermometers and baking steels. (Yes, plurals on each of those.)
 
My home oven now is brand new, which is fun of course. Despite more than 20 years of doing this, I’m learning a new procedure since the oven contains an electric broiler designed by Satan.
 
I also dabble in other pizza styles. There’s some legit NY-style pizza coming out of my oven. I’ve made Detroit-style pizzas (which are a surprising crowd pleaser), and I’m developing my own style of pan pizza for lazy people. (The book for that should be out in time for Christmas.)
 
 
People ask me if I miss the giant, wood-fired oven I had for many years.
 
And I do—sometimes. That oven was very romantic.
 
It was also utterly impractical.
 
People are always surprised to hear that. They’re puzzled that I make a lot more pizza now that I don’t have it.
 
After all, it’s the perfect oven. Right?
 
It’s hard for newbies to understand that pizza is not about a perfect oven. It’s not about a perfect fuel, a perfect dough formula, or a Neapolitan pizza thrown on a crust of gossamer wings that tastes as if it was made by the archangel himself.
 
Pizza is about the moment.
 
Pizza is about a simple craft using mundane ingredients.

Pizza is about transformation.
 
Pizza is about focus.

And...
 
 
Pizza is about showing up.
 
You might ask, “Showing up?“
 
I know people who want to make pizza and are afraid. They’re daunted.
 
They complicate everything using their imagination to the point where they become paralyzed.
 
I suspect that pizza is so pivotal for certain people, there’s a fear of not measuring up to memories and magnificent expectations.
 
And maybe, on some level, there’s an innate understanding that fresh pizza dough is alive.
 
Who really wants to be responsible for bringing a new life into the world and then killing it?
 

Birth, bake and enjoy!
 
It really is that simple. Sure, there are several steps involved.
 
But at the end of the day, all you have to do to make a pizza is just show up. Once the yeast get busy, the pizza dough almost makes itself.
 
Water, flower, salt and yeast don’t care how many toys you have and how worried you are about controlling their behavior. They’re still going to turn into pizza dough.
 
The rest is just practice.
 
You don’t need a pile of hardware. You don’t need a cavalcade of complications.
 
You don’t need all the deep science and illusions of control.  
 
You just need to show up.
 
 
Bring a steel. Bring a peel. That’s all the heat and control you really need.
 
Focus on the one style of pizza you want to make.
 
Use the correct yeast and flour.
 
Follow it through.
 
Use your hands.
 
Don’t lose sleep.
 
Pizza is about transforming mundane ingredients into joy.
 
And pizza is also about transforming you.
 
Just follow the simple dance steps in the diagram on the kitchen floor.
 
You’ll see.
 
Just keep it simple. You can always complicate it later.
 
I know. I’ve done it.
 
 
 
Special thanks for inspiration today goes to Patricia Ryan Madson, Stanford University lecturer emerita, for her stirring book, Improv Wisdom: Don’t Prepare, Just Show Up. The book contains only one direct reference to pizza, but there's a lot more hidden between the lines. I recommend at least downloading the free Kindle sample. 
 
And very special thanks, of course, to Peter Reinhart. The Fabulous Honey Parker and I just spent some time with Peter in Charlotte, NC where he’s the Distinguished Bread Head (not a real title) at Johnson and Wales University. He was an excellent host. We talked about life, the universe, and everything pizza with the unspoken yet ever-present theme of transformation. The pizza was great. So is his book, American Pie, among the many others he's written. Peter's wife Susan is lovely. She also makes killer brownies.

ABOVE: One of Susan Reinhart's brownies. Flourless with chocolate ganache and chocolate chips. Holy Mother of Pearl. 

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A lot of big-time professional artisan pizza makers once made their first pizza in a home oven just like yours. You can do it, too. My weird little award-winning book is one way to make it so. The book is about how to get from zero to pizza using the oven you already have. Besides learning to make great pizza, there’s not much else you can do with it. In fact, you can’t even use it to level a table leg if you buy the Kindle edition (which is less expensive than the print editions and has links to instructional videos and printable kitchen worksheets). To learn more about Free The Pizza: A Simple System For Making Great Pizza Whenever You Want With The Oven You Already Have, click here. ​