Errand Turns up Cheese & Pan

I’ll be working on pizza storage today. I just got back from Gordon Food Service. Horror of horrors: they were out of Super Dolce sauce. I got a can of Saporito, in case the change was permanent. Saporito is very good; I just like Super Dolce a little better.

I looked around for steel pans for Sicilian pizza. I found a couple on Ebay, and I made an offer. It looks like the gold standard is a cold-rolled steel pan with a wire that runs around the perimeter under the lip for reinforcement. They’re expensive on the web, but Ebay has them much lower. While I was at GFS, I noticed they had steel cookie sheets for seven bucks, so I picked one up.

It seems like it’s a bad idea to wash anything that goes in the oven with a pizza. I don’t wash my screens. It would make them stick. I’m going to season the steel pans and leave it at that. I’ve seen steel Sicilian pans in pizzerias, and they’re never washed. Right now I have the GFS pan in the oven with olive oil. It looks like it may be stainless, in which case I am not sure seasoning it is possible.

I was annoyed to see that light olive oil is no bargain. I hit a grocery on the way home, and their price was $8.25 for 25 ounces. You would think extra virgin would cost more. GFS has a 50/50 blend of olive oil and some other oil. It’s cheap, and it’s probably a great choice, since street pizzerias use cheap ingredients. I’m thinking the smart move is good oil for the rolls and bad oil for the pizza.

GFS didn’t have loaves or bags of provolone. I picked up some slices. I’ll see how it blends with Costco cheese. No store I went to today had any interesting cheese. I can always hit Laurenzo’s market the next time I’m in the north end of town.

Mike and I should open a pizzeria. Seriously. Find a tiny store in a good location near South Miami and start baking. We’d be rich in five years. There is still no really good pizza here. An okay place opened near me a while back, but the location stinks, and we would be a lot better than an okay place. And we could put my cheesecake on the menu. Fat women would stampede the store like enraged buffalo.

GFS has Gold Medal “All Trumps” flour for $22.50/50 pounds. Not all that cheap, really. If I bought ten five-pound bags at the grocery, it would be 50% more expensive, so it’s not nearly as impressive as GFS’s other buys. I still want to try it, though. I’m incorrigible. They also had a brand called “Golden Tiger,” slightly cheaper. Can it be that the Chinese are expanding from tools to flour? It’s probably really good, until the lead and melamine kill you.

I ran by Whole Foods Market because I read that they sell sourdough starter. No dice. I looked for other stuff, such as cheese that might be useful. I think the cheapest cheese I saw was $11.99 per pound. Nothing in that store interests me. I think you have to be a complete moron to shop there. I couldn’t find anything I wanted. Not even an impulse buy. Every so often, when I want something unusual, it turns out they have it, but shopping there on a daily basis is like emptying your wallet directly into the toilet.

Super-organic natural food usually tastes funky. Am I the only one who notices? The store smells “off.” The beverages always have an odd aftertaste. The faux junk food tastes like real junk food that has a disease. The peanut butter is like sand and Crisco. The only good stuff is the normal food, like croissants and fresh seafood and so on. But why would you go to Whole Foods and pay twice as much, if it’s something you can get at a real grocery for less?

Am I too excited about good, cheap food? I can’t help myself. I’ll spend a hundred bucks learning how to make a two-dollar pizza.

Here’s a great Youtube find:

I’ve never seen pizza with cheese under the sauce, but I’m sure it’s great. This joint is in New Jersey, so if the pizza wasn’t good, they would be out of business. It’s not like Miami, where bad pizza can put your kids through college.

Here’s another good one:

Didn’t they both refer to San Marzano tomatoes? I should check those out.

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From the Stanislaus Foods website:

ALTA CUCINA® “NATURALE” STYLE PLUM TOMATOES

The closest thing to Old Italy in America! Favored by restaurateurs serving the classical dishes of Italy’s urban “ristoranti,” Alta Cucina® “Naturale” Style Plum Tomatoes are Stanislaus’ answer to true San Marzanos, which are no longer available except at exorbitant prices.

Today, true San Marzanos are generally unavailable because small Italian farmers have consolidated and turned to mechanized commercial tomato varieties rather than the hand-harvested San Marzano. Although lax enforcement has allowed some Italian packers to get away with mislabeling tomatoes as “San Marzano” (when in fact they are not), in truth, the treasured San Marzano tomato has all but disappeared.

And that’s why we created Alta Cucina® “Naturale” Style Plum Tomatoes! Each can of Alta Cucina® is full to the brim with sweet, tender, ultra-premium plum tomatoes in “Naturale” style juice—packed from select tomato varieties chosen by Stanislaus for their fresh fragrance, exquisite flavor, and delicate “melt-in-your-mouth” texture.

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Here’s a place that sells steel Sicilian pizza pans: CLICK.