Pizza is a a Lifelong Pursuit

My church is going crazy these days. Unlike the major news outlets, which will be gone from Haiti in a week, we are engaged in a long-term effort, and because of the earthquake, it’s going to be ramped up. All sorts of stuff is happening. They even have me writing copy for them.

Trinity Broadcasting is all over this, and our church is going to be their main resource in the Haiti campaign. I suppose that makes sense, since most of the people who attend are Haitian. On top of that, our pastor has hooked up with Friend Ships Unlimited, and they have a boat on the way from Lake Charles. It’s going to dock in the Port of Miami and go back and forth between Miami and Port au Prince. The people making this stuff happen are working late hours and going without sleep. It’s pretty impressive.

The services this weekend were largely aimed at Haiti. The Saturday service was converted to a time of prayer, and we heard a lot about the crisis in the other services. Attendance was heavy.

One of the church’s pastors–an older gentleman of Haitian descent–was in Port au Prince when the earthquake came. He spoke to us. He said the ground shook for four or five minutes. Ordinarily, he would have been some distance out of town–he only goes to Port au Prince when he’s on the way back to Miami–but on this occasion he was in Port au Prince a day earlier than usual.

He said he was in a hotel, on the second story, when it hit. The ground moved vertically as well as horizontally. He had to hold onto a doorframe. When it was over, he went out in the short street where the hotel was located, and six people were already dead. One was a little girl whose head had been severed. He also found a woman whose hand had been amputated when her fallen ceiling pinned her wrist against her refrigerator door. She was trapped for six hours like that. The hand was severed, but the arm was still trapped. She had to stand and wait while rescuers freed her.

The neighborhood was white with concrete dust. It must have been like 911.

When the quake was over, no one at church knew whether this man was alive or dead. He managed to hitch a ride to Miami on a military flight, and he arrived in the sanctuary without notice, much to everyone’s relief.

We work with Mission of Hope. They have a big campus outside Port au Prince. It was far enough to be spared significant damage. I suppose now it will be bursting with people who need help.

I don’t know all that much about our involvement, because I have never participated in it. I guess that will change. I don’t know what they’ll want me to do.

There are tons of good charities working on this. I doubt it matters which one you help, as long as they check out. If you want to find out about our organization, you can find it at this link.

I still don’t know what’s going on with their plan to put me to work in their cafe. I hope they follow through on their plan to get a pizza oven. I don’t know if it’s practical, though. I rarely eat anything more complicated than cheese pizza, but most people want a lot of toppings, and that makes the whole business much more complex and bothersome.

My flour education never stops. This weekend, I learned some people use flour made from durum wheat, which is the same stuff used to make coarse semolina. You can’t get fine semolina flour around here, as far as I know. Whole Foods doesn’t have it. I’d like to try it. I’ve also learned that Gordon Food Supply sells a brand of flour that’s very high in gluten. That would be fun to try, although if I don’t like it, I’m stuck with a huge bag of useless flour. I’m sure it would be great, but these days, I tend to lean toward low-gluten flour, and by that I mean 3 grams per “serving,” as defined on the label.

I had read that Caputo 00 flour was low in gluten, and I repeated it, but this weekend I found an “expert” website bearing a claim that 00 flour is actually high in gluten. I don’t know what to believe. I guess I could look for a Caputo label, online.

Man, I love the Internet. Apparently, it’s 11.5% gluten, which is high.

I had read that it was low in gluten, and that the things that made it special were its purity and the fineness of the grind, but apparently I was deceived. I don’t like it in pizza, so it doesn’t matter, but I don’t like being wrong, either.

You can get flour that’s 14% gluten. That must be interesting. Sometimes when I make pizza, I add gluten with a spoon, so it’s not like you’re limited to what you get in the bag. Gluten is easy to buy, and it beats working yourself to death trying to find the ultimate flour.

Costco cheese continues to exceed expectations. I have learned that a lot of the things I do to make pizza work are actually necessary only to compensate for bad cheese.

I put white vinegar in my sauce. It turns out the reason I need that is that most cheese has no flavor. With Costco cheese, I can reduce it or omit it. I also add olive oil to my sauce. I didn’t think it had much effect on the cheese, but it does. If I go over a tablespoon in two ounces (weighed as it comes from the can) of Super Dolce sauce, the oil rises up into the cheese and makes the pie too oily. This doesn’t happen with Gordon Food Supply Primo Gusto cheese, but it’s a problem with Costco mozzarella, so I have to drop the olive oil down to a teaspoon or two. It’s good to be able to reduce the olive oil, because the oil I have degrades the taste of the sauce a little. Oil oxidizes in the bottle before you buy it, and I think that gives the sauce a slight cardboard taste. Mike says the answer is lighter, cheaper olive oil, but if the olive oil is reduced, I don’t have to worry about it.

Someone advised me to add cheddar to my cheese. This pumps up the fat content and adds sourness, which you need. Works great with Primo Gusto, but there is no need to do it with Costco cheese. It might be nice to cut it with a good provolone or scamorza, however.

Mike advised me to underlay the mozzarella with grated Romano. Again, it depends on the mozzarella.

I’ve noticed that Costco cheese has a smoky smell. I was afraid I had gotten something on the bag, but it turns out the smell comes from the cheese. I guess it has a fragrance because it’s quality cheese.

I have read that Gordon Food Service will special-order Grande Cheese, but you have to buy a whole 30-pound case. I don’t think it’s worth it. I know it’s fantastic cheese, but things are going so well now, what’s the point?

I may run up to GFS and get more sauce to freeze. I plan to make more frozen dough portions. They don’t save time, because it takes a couple of hours to turn frozen dough into a pie. But they do minimize the mess and the work. If you can plan a meal three hours ahead, frozen dough will work for you. If you have to have pizza faster than that, because you can’t anticipate the need, forget it.

You’re better off planning ahead and freezing dough or refrigerating it for a day, because the flavor and texture will improve a little as the dough sits. If I could manage to make sourdough portions, I’d be in paradise. You can’t do that on the spur of the moment. Freezing and sourdough crust go together naturally. I should order some starter.

I could also freeze dough for garlic rolls, although I don’t know if I’d ever use it. A small pizza is a reasonable meal. It won’t make you fat. Add two garlic rolls, and you’re way over budget. Maybe on rare occasions I could fix myself three or four rolls, but it’s risky.

Freezing entire pizzas would be great, but you need a very big vacuum sealer. I don’t see it happening.

The major breakthrough that made all this possible was the decision to use the food processor to knead dough. If I had to use my hands or a mixer, I would never have been willing to make pizza often enough to learn anything. The food processor turns it into a three-minute job, from kneading the dough to putting the food processor parts in the dishwasher. The actual kneading is a little over a minute, and the dough is perfect.

Sooner or later I need to get my Sicilian working. I never found a steel pan I liked. Maybe the best thing is to use a big cast iron skillet. If I dedicate one to pizza, I’ll be able to develop a finish that will assure stick-free crusts. I can make excellent thick-crust pizzas just by using more dough in my regular recipe, but I like the pan-baked crusts they make in New York. They’re a little oily and very crunchy on the outside. My thick crusts are plain old pizza crusts. Wonderful, but not Sicilian. Ordinary pizza crust is like baked bread, which must be why you have to use a stone. A stone lets the crust dry as it bakes. Sicilian is sort of fried on the bottom.

This stuff never ends. But it’s okay. I remember a time when my pizza was disgusting. Now it’s always great; the only issue is whether it has the precise characteristics I imagine before I make it.