What Italian Angels Eat
January 31st, 2010While Waiting to Whack Satan
Last week, I made the best pizza I had ever eaten. Then a couple of days later, I made the best pizza I had ever eaten. Today, just to mix it up and avoid monotony, I did the following: I made the best pizza I have ever eaten.
I’m actually freaked out, it’s so good. Not only is this the best pizza I have ever eaten; I did not realize it was possible for pizza to be this good. I know I sound like a nut when I say this, but I am genuinely shaken.
Funniest part: the pizza was mangled. I was lazy when I detached it from the pan to put it on the stone, and I put a hole in it. Then when I took it off the stone, an entire side tore off. I stuck all the pieces on my serving pan and ate it anyway. The torn-up, crusty pieces may have been the best parts.
The crust…
I am trying to describe it. Airy. Hot. Yeasty. Crisp on the edges. Crunchy on the bottom. Perfectly browned. Full of the buttery taste of cheap olive oil.
It got a tiny bit soggy under the cheese, and that actually made it BETTER.
I altered my usual cheese bill a little. What a change. My cheese is now unbelievably stretchy. Just sour enough to be interesting. Bland enough to work with the sauce instead of fighting it. Highly resistant to browning, but nicely crunchy at the very edges.
The sauce…I got lazy and used the Cento San Marzano tomatoes suggested by reader HTRN, all by themselves. I drained off the puree to make the flavor stronger. I was afraid they would be too weak, but the buttery cheese and yeasty crust combined perfectly with the comparatively mild sauce. I’m sure Stanislaus would have been just as good, in its own way, but this was shocking.
Let’s see. A pie has 12 ounces of cheese in it. That’s about $1.75, at Costco prices. That is not excessive. I can put that in a pizza for two people and charge enough to cover the cost. Not only would people line up to buy this stuff; they would trade their children for it. I would. Trade other people’s children for this pizza, I mean. But then I would also trade them for a glass of water.
It’s so good, I am worried about posting the changes I made. No one will use them anyway, and they are suddenly starting to look like trade secrets.
Pizza is a wonderful thing. If you open an ordinary restaurant, you don’t have to make good food, but you have to do a lot of other things. You have to pick a good location. You have to be nice to customers. You have to have great service. With pizza, quality is all that matters. If it’s good, people will do whatever it takes to get it. They’ll rappel up a cliff, to the worst location on earth. You can slap them when they order and make them pay with Burmese currency. They won’t care.
I thought I would go crazy and eat the whole pie, but I quit. When food is this amazing, you have a burning desire to eat it, but once you have a reasonable amount, you’re so satisfied, you don’t have to keep cramming it in.
This has to be from God. HAS to be. I could not do this.
Now I have to go put Shout on my shirt.
January 31st, 2010 at 5:14 PM
hahaha – trade secret pizza sauce?
Dude, come on.
So, do you really think that with 330M people in the US someone is gonna locate in your geo area?
Why not go get a job making actual pizza for money?
-XC
January 31st, 2010 at 5:32 PM
A good sauce recipe would be a very legitimate trade secret. If good sauce were easy to formulate, Domino’s, Papa John’s, or Pizza Hut would have done it by now. And Papa John’s has a secret proprietary sauce, even though it tastes like rat puke.
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Actually, Domino’s did formulate a good sauce, about a thousand years ago. Then they started using crap instead.
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I didn’t post the most important changes I made. It’s not the sauce.
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Here’s a good reason not to go get a job making pizza: minimum wage. Here’s another: having to use someone else’s garbage recipe and ingredients. I’m not sure what the appeal is supposed to be. Just being close to pizza? I can do that here, only it’s good pizza. Why would you suggest a middle-aged lawyer go get a high school kid’s entry-level job?
January 31st, 2010 at 6:39 PM
Breads seem to benefit from a lighthanded neglect. I’ve seen it happen time and again.
February 1st, 2010 at 3:40 AM
I live just N. of Seattle and I like pizza. That said, I don’t even know if I’ve ever tasted really good pizza. I like Papa Murphy’s that I bring home and bake. It’s cheap, half a pie is a meal for me and my wife, the other half is tomorrow’s supper and it’s better the second day.
PIzza joints open and fail at the rate of about three a year within half a mile of me, The locations seem to be good, they’re usually busy, then all of a sudden they’ll be closed up, the windows all whited out, then three weeks later, they’re open again under a new silly name. The only thing the pies they offer seem to have in common is each has a minimum of six crappy toppings on it, one a weird tasting cheesy type topping product and one is always whole fresh garlic. gaacckk!
Oh, yeah there are five pizza locations that come and go like that, all within a half a mile radius.
Papa Murphy’s has been going now for six years with no sign of let-up. They screwed up a pizza for me two years ago by forgetting to put sauce on it. Best darn pizza I ever ate. Now I order it that way and tip the kids in the store five bucks. There’s five at a time working the store so I do it that way to even it out. My pizza is always perfect and has an extra half pound of cheese on it. Ti……..bribes work.
When I ask for a cheese pizza, anywhere but Papa Murphy’s they call the cops. If someone who knew how to make good pizza in restaurant quantities opened a joint here, he’d be able to retire in two years. Not only that, but we don’t have hurricanes, venomous anything, or insects the size of volkswagens, and almost everyone speaks English. Those who don’t, speak Ukrainian and are learning English. High temperatures come for two weeks in late August and are two digits, cold temps come in the mid two weeks of February and are also in two digits. Almost no snow, less rain than NY Effin’ City and there’s a rifle range 2 miles from my front door.
Gerry N.
February 1st, 2010 at 4:50 PM
Watch out for that pizza, Steve-O. Inspired by the Lord it may be, but it still will give you a major case of Fat-Ass if you overdo it. Just sayin’.
February 1st, 2010 at 5:04 PM
Covered that a day or two ago. It isn’t happening.
February 2nd, 2010 at 12:40 AM
Gerry N. there are good pizzas in the north of Seattle area. Just have to know where. Papa Murphy’s is safe. There is an Indian family that make pizza in Everett that is actually good. Romio’s is pretty good too.
February 4th, 2010 at 2:16 PM
There used to be a joint in north Seattle (or maybe Shoreline) called “Darn Good Pizza” that wasn’t, because they put too much stuff on the pie.
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Here in Portland there is an outstanding pizza joint called “Apizza Scholls.” You are limited to three items on the pizza, and only one of them can be meat. Do they take this too seriously? I don’t think so – more toppings = worse pizza in my experience. A simple thing done well. They are only open for dinner and there are lines out the door at all times. When they run out of ingredients at 8 or 9pm, they’re done.