Mastering homemade pizza means goodbye delivery, hello pizza love!

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. 

He said, “Honestly, we don’t go out for pizza much because we make pizza at home, and what my wife makes is so good, well…”
 
Seems it’s not just me. I’m hearing this sentiment a lot more lately. If you put in the practice and have the patience, pizza is a food where you can do better at home than the pros do in the pizza joints.
 
Let’s be clear: I’m not saying that if you buy my book, you’ll be making better pizza than Chris Bianco or Dan Richer. Suggesting that is just a little bit of crazy. And if you live in Phoenix or North Jersey and have the time and the budget, Pizzeria Bianco or Razza are a worthy investment.
 
But the vast pizza landscape in North America is cratered with commodity pizza joints.
 
 
For various reasons related to time, budget, scale and inclination, you can make a far more interesting pizza than your average commercial pizza joint.
 
Among your biggest friends when making pizza are time and space. (Not outer space. The space in your refrigerator.)
 
I was once talking with the owner of a successful small chain of pizzerias. The owner mentioned that, at middle age, eating pizza had become a problem. There were digestive issues with bread.
 
I said, “Try a three-day ferment on your pizza dough. You might find out that you can better handle a fermented dough. And it’ll taste better, too.”
 
This pizza pro was aghast. “Three days?! I can’t do that. I’d go broke!”
 
Clearly, this was taken as a suggestion to change the processes at the pizza joint. Hardly. I was talking about just taking home a ball of dough and letting it sit in the fridge.
 
 
But the owner's comment gives you an idea of pizzeria operations and limitations.
 
For a lot of them, best practices are predicated not on the best tasting product, but on the bottom line.
 
As home pizzamakers, we get to do things like let the dough ferment for 72 hours. Most of us can find room in the fridge for four dough balls. But doing that commercially for 400 dough balls every day? That’s expensive. (We're not necessarily talking selling 400 pizzas a day but storing 400 dough balls a day for fermentation.) 
 
 
It’s not expensive for you or me to take the time and space required to make a better pizza dough.
 
And at the end of the day, dough is where magic happens.
 
If we can get the dough right and nail down the crust, we’re going a long, long way to winning pizza fame at home.
 
Another thing you and I get to do is develop a signature style and flavor profile.
 
I’ve learned to make Neapolitan-style pizza, New York-style pizza, Jersey tomato pie, neo-Neapolitan pizza, Detroit-style pan pizza, no-knead pizza, and I’ve just started dabbling in a quesadilla-like pizza-adjacent style called focaccia di Recco.
 
 
Unfortunately, my favorite pizza style to make at home makes me sound pretentious, but I don’t know what else to call it: Artisan Style.
 
“Ooh, well lah-dee-dah! Aren’t we the queen of the ball? Mr. Artisan-Style Pizzamaker! What next? Are we going to start throwing our clogs into the conveyor ovens to thwart fast-food delivery pizza?”
 
I’m neither a pizza snob nor a pizza Luddite.
 
But I am crafting something by hand. I’ve also developed my skills over years of practice. Those two qualities add up to artisanry defined. 
 
And another thing about at-home pizza artisanry: even from the day you begin practicing it, you’re able to make a credible pizza.
 
 
The very first pizza I made using best practices blew me away.
 
I thought, "Did I really make this?"

My wife took a bite of that first pizza, and she had a Proustian moment where she was whisked back to a long-lost pizza of her youth. It was with her brother and sister in a place called Vitale’s, the pizza remains indelible, but the recipe for that pizza died with the pizzaiolo.
 
Calling my pizza Artisan Style means I really have no idea what style it is exactly—other than my own distinctive style.
 
The other thing that making our own pizza allows us to do is experiment with toppings. That leads to “specialty” pies that you can’t find other places.
 
 
New Haven is famous for its white clam pizza.
 
And those clams of fame made me wonder why you never hear anyone talking about a shrimp pizza.
 
Certainly, someone must be making one somewhere in North America. There are crustacean-laden “fisherman pizzas” all around coastal Italy and France.
 
But most Americans I know hear “shrimp pizza” or even "clam pizza" and think, “That’s weird!”
 
However, when I put a fresh, hot, shrimp and garlic pizza down on the table in front of a guest, any trepidation is displaced by delight as soon as they take a bite.
 
 
I’ve also developed a recipe for a red clam pizza with bacon.
 
It's pretty good. Amateur Artisan Tip: once you've par-cooked the bacon, par-cook the shrimp in the bacon fat. You're welcome. 

Living in Cajun country now, I’ve used several uniquely Cajun ingredients on pizza: shrimp, crayfish, andouille, alligator sausage, boudin, smoked hog jowl, Tasso, and even etouffée and maque choux.
 
I often hear people say, “I never would have thought to put THAT on a pizza.” That’s a fair thing to hear from someone who doesn’t really cook at all, much less make pizza.
 
But if you do cook, and you like getting at all cheffy, after awhile you start to come up with ideas for pizza that would even freak out a line cook at that haven of offbeat pies, California Pizza Kitchen.
 
Your pizza will also taste better than CPK because your fermented dough from high-grade flour will make a far superior crust.
 
 
A cautionary note: if you’re brand new to this, for your first pizza or two, NO TOPPINGS.
 
I say this because it really helps to understand the properties of your blank canvas before applying the paint, so to speak.
 
I state this caution in my book, and people I know often ignore it. I see photos of first pizzas laden with meats and swimming in vegetables.
 
If you don’t know your baseline pizza, you’re going to miss out. Resist the urge. Hold off on the toppings. Bonus: you will develop a new appreciation for a plain cheese pizza.
 
It’s highly likely you've never eaten a cheese pizza as good as the one you’re going to make when you begin your pizza journey.
 
 
Making great pizza at home means saving yourself time and money and heartache by always having a great pizza when you want it.
 
And when you go out for pizza, you do it because it’s either convenient, or it’s special, or you’re curious.
 
You’ll find that your homemade pizza gives you a new perspective. You’ll wonder why you’d eat pizza out if making it at home is an option.
 
Especially when you make pizza for friends, you’ll feel like you’ve given something back to people you like.
 
 
It’s fun hearing people say things like, “You’ve ruined me for all other pizzas” and, “I wake up thinking about that pizza.”
 
You’ll find yourself seeking out pizzerias as inspiration. For years I’d dabbled in New Jersey tomato pie. It was OK.
 
But when I finally had the real deal in greater Trenton, it was fantastic.
 
It also gave me a new goal. Now having a baseline for authentic Jersey tomato pie, I was very quickly able to replicate that pizza and discover that it’s a crowd pleaser.
 
 
At the end of the day, pizza is a social food—but you’ll enjoy flying solo.
 
You'll discover that pizza-for-one is a guilty pleasure. By eating pizza alone, you’ll get to focus on the minutiae.

You can experiment, sit there with no distractions, and wonder, "What fresh hell have I wrought?"
 
You can savor the pizza, study it, examine the flavors, the crumb, the crust, everything that makes that pizza work—or not work.
 
You’ll zoom in on the tiniest elements.
 
You’ll zoom out to see the pizza landscape.
 
If you’re hardcore, you can take notes.
​
 
Yes, it might seem self-indulgent and antisocial.
 
But really, it’s research.
 
You’ll become a better cook generally. And maybe even a better person. (I think I have. But what do I really know about me?)
 
It’s all about making better pizza for the people you know and enjoy and love.
 
Pizza is for people. 

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MAKING PIZZA AT HOME YET? You'll find all the simple steps to homemade pizza magic right inside my weird and award-winning pizzamaker’s manual, Free The Pizza: A Simple System For Making Great Pizza Whenever You Want With The Oven You Already Have. If you’re just beginning your pizza-making journey, this book is a convenient place to start because it doesn’t force you to make any decisions beyond making a pizza. It’s simply a step-by-step guide for getting from zero to pizza and amazing your friends and family. And really, yourself as well. That first fabulous pizza is a glorious moment. And you'll have your own story of "My First Pizza." Learn more right here. ​ ​ ​