 The following is an edited rerun of a story from December 2022. This is an odd little story. Well, the story isn’t exactly a story. The narrative thread isn’t exactly contiguous. And the place it goes isn’t anything either you or I are anticipating.
We’ve been driving through the Mississippi Delta, land of cotton and hot tamales. (Didn’t know the hot tamale is a Mississippi invention, didja? That’s a whole other story about ethnic food reinvention...) We've made it into the North Mississippi hill country, and the town here is Sardis, population between 1,700 and 2,000, depending upon whom you believe. I’m talking to an award-winning, nationally recognized pizzaiolo about ovens—or rather, how pizza is not about the oven, but about understanding pizza. You might find yourself gleaning some tips about making pizza at home.
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 John T. Edge sent me an email, and I don’t even know the guy. He’s actually sent me several emails if you count all his patient replies to my ongoing inane questions about pizza in Mississippi. Like, “Do you have any idea why Mississippians are so enamored of squirting French dressing all over their pizza?” (He does not have any idea. This dynamic is apparently not even a blip on his radar.) But really, to whom else can one pose such questions? Nobody writes about the history of Southern cuisine with even a scant semblance of insight the way James Beard Award-winning John T. Edge writes about it. And he has a new book coming out, and you might like an autographed copy.  We’re making a movie about pizza Margherita. Really. We’ve been developing this project for a couple of months. It started as a silly road trip while my wife was out of town and unable to object. It has snowballed into a documentary short involving various pizza luminaries. And my wife, the award-winning Fabulous Honey Parker of V-Life and Careful-ish fame, is the Executive Producer. (She is invaluable.) We also just enlisted our Director of Photography, a 40-year filmmaking veteran with a killer track record. And we now have shoot dates lined up with some famous peeps In that pizza mecca known as (DRUM ROLL)... North Mississippi.  It’s early. The gray light of pre-dawn beckons. I could and should do a brisk, 30-minute walk through the neighborhood. I step out into the near-dark on the back porch and stare down the stump-tail cat that’s been hanging around the yard. He splits. There’s a wet blat of a flop drop of rain onto my scalp. The sky is getting ready to open. Inside! Quickly! To the leftovers! I’m often up at 5 AM, though not usually eating breakfast until the birds are singing songs of cheap and easy availability. Sometimes, however, you just gotta be and do in a dark kitchen, rain be damned. A crunchy, savory, cheesy pizza pleasure: Easy to make. Easy to love. No special equipment required.8/23/2025  How would you like to test a deceptively simple pan pizza recipe from my forthcoming book, The Lazy Way To Pizza? It is truly easy fantastic-ish. A little backstory. You may have heard this before, but like the song says: “It’s an old tale from way back when and we’re gonna sing it, we’re gonna sing it again.” Have you ever lost a pizza to time? No, this is not the Proustian question about whether you remember a shell-shaped pizza fed to you by your invalid aunt long ago in an Italian galaxy far, far away. This is about missing a real pizza, right here, right now. And when it comes to making this pizza, the pizza that I'm talking about missing, it may be the ultimate lazy person‘s pizza.  Random Slice Wednesday is made for mayhem like this. We’re not just talking mess in the kitchen. We’re talking spectacular splatter, abstract-expressionist-in-brown, action-painting art mess. You see, I was busy being “smart.” A couple of years ago I shocked my wife by bringing a cordless power drill into the kitchen. It was all about the peanut butter.  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.  The Saturday Afternoon Pizza Post is taking a break this week. We are on the road and making things happen. By the time this missive hits your inbox, the Fabulous Honey Parker and I will be seated at what is ostensibly the best pizzeria in the nation. There will be a full report on that experience and whether you need to drop everything right away and buy a plane ticket to points east. In the meantime, just a little pizza tip: if you’ve never tried the cheese known as Stracciatella, give it a shot. I’ve been chasing Stracciatella for months. I can’t find it in the grocery desert I call home.  There’s a guy they call Tugboat Dave. Every few weeks, I see a post of his on social media. It says something like, “Knuckle Dragger Pizzeria is open for business!” And there’s a photo of several pizzas on the galley table aboard a tugboat—and they look really good. I assumed Dave had his cook making these pizzas. It took me months to realize that Tugboat Dave was making these pizzas himself. This oceangoing tugboat captain is making pizza for his crew. I also know he doesn’t have a pizza oven. But I guarantee that he has a simple ingredient that all successful home pizza cooks have: belief.  It’s frustrating when a foodie food trend makes me look like some kind of Gianni Come Lately trying to influence my homemade pizza friends into doing silly things. And by some measures, mortadella is silly. It’s Oscar Mayer bologna dotted with inexplicable white chunks, right? Who would ever think about putting it on a pizza? The truth: mortadella is a high-end Italian delicacy. And in some ways, imported mortadella is the Absinthe of charcuterie: banned from US import for no good reason beyond a lame excuse. There was an outbreak of African swine fever in Italy in 1967. It took almost 40 years for mortadella import normalcy to return. And now, there’s a mortadella renaissance happening in the US, fueled by celebrity chefdom. But that’s not my deal. I’m talking mortadella because it’s a good idea that you might want to try, too. Mortadella is really tasty on pizza.  Oven mystique attracts novice pizzamakers like a candle flame attracts moths wearing little chef hats. There are big, wood-fired Neapolitan-style ovens for "authentic wood-fired flavor." Little pellet-fired ovens “make a pizza in a minute!” Gas-fired outdoor ovens. Gas-grill oven inserts. Countertop electric ovens. Somebody just told me how excited he was to be replacing his standard electric range with a gas range for the improved pizza making potential. Really? Pizza oven manufacturers often sell the romance of fuel, speed, ease, authenticity or convenience. Home pizza makers perceive all kinds of sexy options for pizza-oven nirvana. Here’s the unsexy reality about all this: At the very beginning, your homemade pizza success is not about buying another oven—it’s about understanding the oven you’ve bought, even if it’s the oven that came with your house.  It’s his favorite pizza. His wife loves it, too. For years, they’ve been telling me I have to go there. And after always driving past the joint at times when it’s closed or when there’s no time to stop—we had the window. Mission Control finally allowed that we could get there without being hurled out of Earth’s orbit on an irreversible course bound for the Galilean moons of Jupiter. So we exited I-95 into Central New Jersey, drove into town, parked the car, walked inside, sat in the booth, ordered the world-famous pizza, and we waited. Then it arrived. How was that pizza? After all, That Famous Pizza Guy gave it one of his highest scores ever. Well, it was surprising. It was a letdown. It was unexpected joy. It was great. We loved it. It was an emotional roller coaster ride that demonstrates the real problem with The Best Pizza: there is no such thing and there’s a good chance you will always be disappointed—at least for a moment.  I’m riding up in the hotel elevator with a woman who’s carrying a flat, white box that says, “Stoner’s Pizza Joint.” I ask her if the pizza was any good. She smiles. “I don’t know. I haven’t tried it yet. I just had it delivered.” I mistakenly assumed she was coming from dinner with her leftovers. And I say, “Well, it might be pretty good. Who knows pizza better than a stoner?” She laughs. “Exactly what I thought!” What I don’t say is that Stoner’s is a franchise operation with about 50 outlets nationwide, mainly in the east. I’m guessing the pizza is probably good but not great. It's been steaming inside that box for a while, so it's probably soggy. I don’t eat much delivery pizza. I have a simple system and can make a far better pizza at home with minimal hassle. But...why would I piss on her pizza? It’s so antisocial--and so social normal.  You are here at Free The Pizza because you buck trends and fly in the face of convention. And from the reviews and emails I receive, it’s clear that you are on board with the whole low-level kitchen iconoclast thing that goes on here. You are a special human being. How does one not love this homemade pizza thing? All kinds of pizza lovers gravitate here. Male and female, working pros and retirees, hippies and military officers, artists and musicians, airline pilots and architects. From New Hampshire to Hawaii and uncountable places in between, there is one common denominator: You are a Pizza Independent.  Leftover dough. It happens. For whatever reason, you decide to not freeze it. Or maybe it is frozen, and it’s in there with the pot pies and the tots, not getting any younger. What to do? (We won’t ask why you’re not just making dozens of random pizzas as happens in this house.) The one word solution: Panuozzo. Spellcheck doesn’t like it. You’re wondering how to pronounce it. Ready? “Panu-oˈdzːzo.” But really, let’s just call it “sandwich sorcery” and move on. This glorious sandwich bread is a simple trick that can turn you into King Earl Of Sandwich. It’s quick. It’s easy. It makes you look like a magician. You want this.  [RANDOM SLICE WEDNESDAYS appears whenever I feel like it--as long as it's a Wednesday. I realize this is two Wednesdays in a row now. Please don't get used to it.]
I was reading something this morning, and it seemed like a good idea for Random Slice Wednesday. It’s from a book I’m writing. I’d planned on publishing the book about 8 weeks ago because hey—it would be such a quick and easy one. (Still writing it.) The book is about an easy and controversial way of making pizza. The passage regards a controversy with sauce, as my own method is controversial in Pizza World. I am one of those heretics known to [GASP!] cook my sauce. Pizza snobs regard me with disdain. I don’t care. You don’t have to care, either. You also don’t have to follow their rules.  AI can't make this pizza. But you can. It's simple, you're essential, and it costs under three bucks. Welcome back to Cheap The Pizza! Yes, finally! This is for you, my pizza-newbie friend. (Or maybe for you, you forever-curious experienced pizzamaker.) All this madness began because there are people who insist eating out is cheaper than cooking at home. To that, I say, “Poppycock, codswallop and claptrap!” I say you can make a pizza with an ingredients cost of under three bucks—and I’ll show you how. In the "Cheap The Pizza" intro two weeks ago, I described the ignition point: my ire was piqued by the ridiculousness of some claims around eating-out economics. Last week in How To Part I, we talked about the recipe for the dough. Today, we’re going to tweak that recipe, make a sauce, and bake a pizza. But first, we’re going to ask the age-old question: Why are we even doing this?  Wednesday is Hump Day, where we slide down the remainder of the work week into weekend pizza. Wednesday in the North End of Boston is Prince Spaghetti Day (right, Anthony?). And Wednesday here along the Pizza Coast is Random Pizza Post Day. What does that even mean? I’ll tell you at the end. First, let’s get to the bidness. Last week, I received an email from a reader in Portugal who claimed to have, quote, a stupid question: “I can put the pizza onto the steel or stone using the peel, but how do you use the peel to get it back off once it's baked? I mean, you can't slide it under the pizza because the wood is too thick. (I told you it was a stupid question, but then, I don't cook any more than I have to.)" 
Welcome to Free The Pizza's "Cheap The Pizza, Part II." The pizza in the picture above? I did it “all wrong.” Still looks pretty good, right? Tasted pretty good, too. To recap last week’s rant: it’s crazy that there are “thought leaders” claiming it’s cheaper to eat out than to cook at home. My counter example: pizza. If you’re interested, you can make a 12-inch pizza at home with an ingredients cost of under $3.00--literally, about $2.50. That pizza, hot and fresh from your home oven, tastes better than one from your local joint that charges $14.00. It’s also easy to make, and I promised to show you how. BONUS: If you’re an experienced home pizzamaker, this is an interesting exercise and it's fun. (I’ve been doing this all week long. I’m having a blast. It doesn’t get old.) Today is about two things: 1.) an overview of the process, and 2.) a simple pizza dough that requires no kneading and demands only a few minutes of hands-on time. Next week, we’re baking the pizza on an upside-down cast-iron skillet in my home oven.  Careful. I might be on a harangue. I’ve stumbled onto nonsense and horse hockey. I got angry. You’re gonna laugh. There’s a new myth thriving in Social Baloney Land. Ready? “It’s cheaper to eat out than it is to cook meals at home.” As the trolls like to say when speaking webernet-ese, BWAHAHAHA! I am now launching a counterattack on this pernicious gift of dirt gargle. Ready? I guarantee you can make a 12-inch homemade pizza for under three bucks. |
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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