 I’ve done something ridiculous, and I’ve decided to save you from it. Last week, I promised you a recipe for tomato pie. After telling you that, I began experimenting with a pizza we are calling Tomato Ridiculous. Today’s recipe is not that. Today’s recipe is better. It will cause you to hear angels sing. But first, a brief tale of ambitious obsession gone stupid. Following that, an easy recipe giving the nod to one of American pizza’s legacy pizzerias with a glorious and simple celebration of tomato goodness.
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 The magic of tomato season is coming. What kind of tomato pie do you want to make? And who is going to rain upon your parade? (It is, after all pizza, and people have opinions.) As if pizza isn’t already enough of a danger zone. All the arguments flying about and pineapple opinions weaponized for fractious battles of pointless judgment. Enter the Tomato Pie Zone and you quickly learn that it's a dark and uncertain journey of ambiguity and confusion. Let’s open the blinds and shed some light upon the juicy and radiant red orbs of summer. The fresh tomato can be a beacon of inspiration for your own way along the rocky coastline of pizza land. Want to be an intrepid explorer in the ocean of tomatoes off the coast of pizza? Let’s dive in!  I’ve been looking at a photo of a remarkable pizza on the cover of a big, national pizza-trade journal. The pizza is captivating. It is artful. It is effortless in its beauty. The rim of the crust is crazily blistered with golden bubbles of delight. The pizza is resplendent with tiny tomatoes, prosciutto, mushrooms and micro greens. And the single most stupefyingly joy-inducing part of this pizza's appearance? Flowers. They are tiny notes of glory punctuating the pizza with yellow, violet, white, purple, lavender, the palest of blue, even the orange of an Aperol spritz on a sunny day.  As you know if you’ve been here for any length of time, one of my refrains is: Pizza is not recipes. Pizza is process. That simple thought is essential to understanding what it takes to make a great pizza at home. Well, I’ve just been upstaged by a quick-thinking kitchen pro with a Masters in Business Administration, a PhD in natural medicine, and an affinity for pizza.  I got up at 4:30 this morning to make you a pizza. OK, that’s a lie. I got up at 4:30 this morning and began the process of making you a pizza so I could write this questionable Pizza Post. This is happening because I’m all fired up from last week’s convo regarding the way acid can change everything. (On a pizza, that is.) And therein, I proposed the silly idea of taking one pizza you already enjoy and elevating it with one acidic element. So of course, I became so obsessed I had to try it out. Remember our motto: I try these things so you don’t have to. Is this pizza going to be any good—and will I screw it up with even more stuff? Pucker up, babycakes: This stupidly simple ingredient makes for a mouthwatering pizza--literally.4/18/2026  So many scornful synonyms! Acrid! Bitter! Caustic! Unpleasant! Hard to believe that these words and more are all cranky substitutes for one of the most useful and overlooked ingredients for improving a homemade pizza. It seems like we rarely hear about it in connection with pizza making, and we should. It’s a monster killer in its own, unassuming little way.  The last couple of weeks, there’s been a lot of travel in my life. Let’s not bother to discuss the reasons why, other than to say that, at one point, Las Vegas and the world’s largest pizza trade show were involved. And as twisted a place as Las Vegas can seem, I’ve been to a much weirder and more wronger place: the pizza vending machine at the far end of Atlanta’s Hartsfield Jackson International Airport Concourse D. It is not quite the restaurant at the end of the universe. Nor was it the destination. It was blind luck. And it confirms my belief that our culture is either losing the war against the machines, or else going down a wormhole of collective madness. Nothing could better explain the experience. Not with optimism, anyway.  It happened in Vegas. I was at the world-famous International Pizza Expo at a pizza-making demo. The pizza was outrageous. It was a caramelized, crazy, crunchy, Detroit-style pizza with that deep, golden, crusty crown of cheese called frico, all of it topped with a fresh and fantastic looking Caesar salad that had been julienned just for the job. One of the guys at the table offered me a bite. I declined.  Should you be buying the domestic celebrity of canned tomatoes for your pizza sauce and other culinary quests? Yes, this is one of those burning questions you’ve never asked yourself. And you’re about to realize just how much you can suddenly care about tomatoes in a can. I was in Vegas earlier this week, where I had a great conversation with my favorite tomato canner. Does that sound odd? Of course it does. Everything about Vegas is odd, including the International Pizza Expo—the industry’s most epic of trade shows. But homemade pizza people color outside the norms.  Last week, I had a vegetarian at the table. Not a pescatarian. Not a covert, bacon-loving grazer. Nope. A full-fledged, non-vegan vegetable devotee. This was daunting. I was concerned. Around town, my pizza has a reputation. Strangers find out who I am and say, “Heyyyy, I’ve heard about you!” And you know what that means: recipe for potential disappointment. Now, I had to face the double whammy of potentially disappointing a non-omnivore whose standards for vegetarian fare were higher than my own because hey--I don't have one.  It’s 5am. The state of pizza in the world is keeping me awake. And yes, it’s far too early to be thinking about pizza or sweatpants. But here I am. Both ideas—both the sweatpants and the pizza—just kinda crashed together as I was up and about, grabbing something from the closet in the dark. Could there be a more American vision of sedentary comfort?  As promised in last week’s episode about the glories of soup on pizza, I’m bringing you a pizza that is a product of one of the nation’s leading food-fight Donnybrooks. We’re talking a hyperventilating madness of misbegotten rage—specifically about soup. Yes, soup. And not even soup on pizza, which will surely induce apoplexy. This bare-knuckle battle royal is over chowder (red versus white) and is about as gloriously inglorious as food fights get. Why are we even discussing this in Free The Pizza? After all, you’re here because you enjoy making pizza in your home oven.  If you’re a home pizzamaker who’s been wondering about how to raise the bar on your homemade pizzas in a new and exciting way, this is your lucky day. Right now, I’m eating not a pizza, but a homemade soup that is very specific and controversial. As if that's not madness enough, the leftovers will very soon will end up upon... You guessed it: a pizza. What is this degenerative homemade culinary evil of which I speak? I'm keeping it just a little bit secret for the moment. Let's call this installment one of the new series...  I came back from a workout mere moments ago, and just made breakfast from a leftover slice of this hot new pizza we’re about to discuss. And ya know what? It might have been even better the second time around. But I offer no empirical evidence to substantiate any such a claims. Ya just gotta make it and eat it yourself and let the angels (or the devils) dance upon your tongue. And oh my, there are so many reasons to turn away right now! Seriously. Save yourself. Do you hate lamb, cilantro, Somalia and Minneapolis? If so, this baby is your super trifecta of misbegotten pizzas.  Moneyback guarantee: this is the only online pizza screed you’ll ever read that invokes the name of Sir David John Brailsford CBE. Why must we mention a Commander Of The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in relation to our home-baked discs of cheese and tomato joy? Simple. Truth. You’re witnessing the launch of a new series called “The Free The Pizza Compendium Of Tiny Tips.”  Madness abounds. Not since the 1984 league championship game, when Ridley Scott put a muscular blonde in a track uniform to have her throw a sledgehammer into the face of Big Brother conformity, has there been so much fuss over so little. And while Free The Pizza! remains apolitical in the face of the madness, we still want to bring a pizza to the party. Once again, it's another exercise in "I do these things so you don’t have to—" and you get to join in if you want. I’ve researched the state of pizza in that magnificent and maligned stepchild of a US territory called Puerto Rico, and have devised a recipe for a simple pizza that fits the established Puerto Rican model like Bad Bunny in a dress. So that’s what we’re calling it.  Why do I write pizza books that have barely any recipes inside? That’s an easy one. And if you can be bothered to take the four minutes required to read this addled screed, there’s a big, money-saving offer at the end—but it requires the following context if you really want it to blow your sweatpants up around your head. Back in October, if you were here, I went on one of those high-minded Saturday-Afternoon screeds where I proposed that success in cooking means owning a recipe. If you read that one, you might have asked me, “Are you high?” Definitively and categorically, no. I think.  Everybody loves pizza. Right? Sure, some people can’t eat it. But I’d wager that despite whatever food allergy demon they’re suffering, they still wish they could eat pizza. But right now, in the best economy of the last century, budgets are tight and wallets are full of cobwebs. And there are probably folks who can’t afford a decent pizza. And let’s face it: a Screamin’ Sicilian might be OK for a frozen pizza, but it really isn’t the same thing as buying a decent pie made by a good local joint, much less an artisan pizzeria. So, what if the good local joint could be one’s own home, without any special training or equipment?  Last week, after my “Is it pizza?” exploration from the world of laminated pastry dough, I expected an onslaught of “Not a pizza!“ Quick recap: King Arthur's "Recipe of the Year" was a pizza made with a dough much like that for a croissant. Repeatedly rolled thin and layered with butter, the result is a flaky, croissant-like crust. I asked, "Is it pizza?" I penned a screed accordingly and invited you to respond with a full-blown essay for extra credit, but a simple positive or negative was sufficient. I was expecting a hailstorm of "Not!" But I received only one such reply. And that enthusiastic negation came from an anonymous source whose email handle is ZinRedHead. I have to admit to taking some joy in this. It feels more silly than serious. Thanks for playing, ZinRedHead.  You may already know that I am not the guy who hollers, “That’s not pizza!” Pizza can be rather broadly defined within specific parameters once you subscribe to the belief that pizza is bread with something on it. But yesterday, my favorite flour purveyor ended up in my face with a social post that quakes me to my core. (Sorry. I’m high on over-the-counter drugs. I’m fragile.) I thought, angst loves company so let’s see if anyone from my favorite flock of online friends is swimming in a similar pickle juice on this one. Ready? |
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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