You Can Keep It

I am still wondering about my future in blogging. I feel like I’m not doing much good when I blog about important things. On the other hand, blogging about trivial things is still a good way to pass the time on the rare occasions when I get bored.

Today I did something very unimportant. I made Sicilian pizza again. This time, I put cheese on half of the rim of the pizza so it would melt and burn against the pan. It was very nice. I may cheese the entire rim of the next pie.

I tried Bridgford thick pepperoni. I usually use Hormel pepperoni, which is thinner. I don’t have easy access to high-end pepperoni here.

The Bridgford was good, but it seemed to taste too much like salt and not enough like pepperoni.

This pizza got beaten up a lot while I was handling it. I removed it from the pan and set it on my steel to see if it would improve the crust, and I made a mess. It didn’t improve it, so I won’t have to do that again.

I dropped a slice of pepperoni and some cheese on the hot steel. No problem. I scooped it up and dropped it back on the pie. It made it better. The fact that the pizza was manhandled didn’t hurt it at all as a dish.

Someone suggested I buy a whole Bridgford pepperoni, wrap it, and leave it in the produce drawer of my fridge for a few weeks. Supposedly, aging improves it.

I have realized pizza can’t get significantly better than what I make now. That’s how good it is. I have started experimenting with variations just for the sake of variety. I’m making 3/4 height pies. I may make a 1/4 height pie. I would just reduce my original dough recipe by 75%.

My pies are darker than they used to be. I kept seeing videos of charred pies on the web, and they got to me. Now I’m starting to like them.

So where is the best pizza in America? Youtube personalities seem to think it’s in New Haven, Connecticut, home of Yale University. I have not been to New Haven. When I was in college, people said it was a dangerous ghetto.

New Haven drew a lot of Italian immigrants. Supposedly, a New Haven company recruited them in Italy and helped them move. They went straight from the docks to the company’s plant. Eventually, some of them decided cooking was better than industrial work. This is the legend, anyway. They started making big, thin, well-done pies similar to New York pizza.

In New Haven, people are forced to call pizza “apizza,” which is Neapolitan slang for “la pizza.” They pronounce it “ahbeets.” I can certainly understand why the local Italians would pronounce it that way, but everyone else should be permitted to pronounce it correctly.

There are three big-name places in New Haven: Sally’s Apizza, Modern Apizza, and Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napolitana. People argue about which is the best. They originally used coal-fired ovens, but Modern uses precious oil. Must stink to be them under Joe Biden. They bake their pies at somewhere around 1000°, whereas New York pizzerias run about half that hot.

People swoon over their pizza, and they wait in line. Pizza “experts” rave about these places.

I have been curious about “apizza,” but I knew I would never go to New Haven. I wondered if I could learn to make New Haven pies.

My friend Mike is driving to Florida right now. He sold his house up north, and he will be staying with me for a while. I have been calling him to help him kill time on the road. Today I called and told him he should have stopped in New Haven on the way.

He said he had been to Frank Pepe’s Massachusetts location about 5 times. I was surprised. I asked him how the pizza was. He said it was very good, but not amazing. He said his pizza and mine are better.

If Frank Pepe’s is merely very good, then apizza is a hollow legend. Mike knows a good pizza when he eats, or bakes, one.

I went to a pizza forum and told everyone what Mike had said, and people there seemed to agree. Their lack of awe is evident in the scarcity of forum posts asking for help making New Haven pizza. If it were really that good, people would be trying to replicate it. They work hard to make Chicago pizza, New York pizza, Detroit pizza, and Neapolitan pizza, but New Haven doesn’t get significant attention.

This experience reminds me of something I already knew: people who can’t make pizza have lower standards than people who can.

Mike and I once toured Miami, trying slices at various places that were highly regarded, and none of them could sit beside our own pies. I think it would have been different had we been unable to make pizza. We would have been dependent on professionals, and they would have seemed like miracle workers to us. Having made extremely good pizzas for a long time, we were not easily impressed during our tour.

I don’t plan to try to make apizza. Mike says my pizza is better, and I know he’s right, because his opinion can be trusted. I don’t need to go to New Haven and find out what I’m missing.

The more pizza I make, the more confidence I have in my ability. Today on a forum, I stood up to a guy who sells steel pizza pans. These pans are all over New York City. They’re used to bake Sicilian. They’re heavy and expensive.

He was pushing his pans, as well as a small plastic spatula for scraping pizzas out of them. Other people were suggesting ridiculous ideas like paint scrapers.

I put up a post saying I didn’t understand why people used steel pans. I said I used seasoned aluminum quarter sheets. I have tried steel, and it doesn’t brown pizza well. It also rusts, and small steel pans are square, which is stupid, because it reduces the number of edge pieces you get. No one wants an inner slice.

I also posted a photo of a tool I made to get pizzas out of pans. I’ll post photos here. I made one of these over a decade ago when I was stupidly making pizzas for the inept and corrupt people at Trinity Church in Miami. I make the mistake of leaving it in the church kitchen when I left, and I’m sure it has never been used since. Their pizza operation ceased permanently the minute I left, even though I had taught people how to make it.

The tool was cut from a tray for 14″ round pies. I cut it on the table saw, and then I ground the corners off, sanded the edges, and bent it using a Moxon wood vise.

Unlike a tiny spatula, this thing will lift an entire 9.5″ by 13″ pizza without bending or tearing it. It’s fantastic. I own one of the only two in the world.

It’s amazing that experienced pizza people would suggest terrible tools like scrapers and spatulas. It’s amazing no one could figure out a better way. Meanwhile, a hobbyist who makes pizzas in a home oven made the perfect tool for $5.75.

The guy who sells pans came back and said something about how I needed to try steel pans, so I posted a photo of the ones I have, sitting in a cupboard behind some cake pans I never use. I let him know they appeared to be exactly what he sold: American Metal Spinning pans with wire in the rims.

I said they appeared on the web for $28 each, which was ridiculous, since aluminum quarter sheets sell for around 5 dollars on restaurant supply sites. Aluminum is a lot more expensive than steel. I put up a photo of one of my Sicilian crusts.

I know what I’m doing. Sometimes you have to admit you know what you’re doing. My Sicilian is as good as anyone’s pizza, or AHBEETS, anywhere. The pan guy should have kept quiet, but of course, he’s trying to make a living. You can’t blame him for trying, even though his product is pretty much worthless.

A law school friend of mine moved to Hollywood and became a Fox executive. She told me people there kept saying this: “No one in this town knows what they’re doing.” They meant they were all winging it, pretending to be sure of themselves. The same thing is true in most fields. It’s true in the pizza game.

I make great Sicilian. I made a fantastic tool for moving it around. I chose the best pans.

Deal with it!