You’ll Never Guess

PIZZA!

It’s on my mind again today. Yesterday I bought 8 quarter-sheet baking pans at Gordon Food Supply, and today I have to season them with olive oil and lard.

I was trying to decide how many pans we needed, and I was afraid they’d cheap out, so I bought enough to give us a total of ten. If they choke when they see the receipt, I’ll chip in. I don’t care. It has to be done.

When I make a Sicilian, I let the dough sit in the pan for a minimum of 15 minutes. Longer is better. Half an hour is about right, unless you can wait an hour for the loftiest pizza in the universe.

It takes six minutes to bake a pie. That means the turnover time for a pan is about 40 minutes. I can realistically cope with two pies at once, tops. That means I can bake something like two pies every eight minutes, so my pans will last around 40 minutes, and after that, I have to recycle. If I have ten pans, I can refill them as I go, and the circle of production should be sort of close to seamless.

If I used half-sheet pans, life would be simpler, but the big pies are more treacherous to handle, and I don’t want any extra challenges right now. When I’m ready to move up, the seventy dollars we spent on the smaller pans won’t really matter.

The seasoning works better than Teflon. Not even a close call. It’s like a layer of hard wax with oil on top. The dough has nothing to hold onto. But you have to get a few layers onto the pans before it will work.

I store my pans inside my refrigerated prep table, because I know if I don’t, some “helpful” person will come in and clean them for Jesus. It will happen, if there is any way possible. That’s human nature.

As noted previously, I just found a pizzeria for sale for $33,000, in a dynamite location. I know why it went out of business. It’s about two blocks from Steve’s, which is a pretty good pizzeria in North Miami. People rave about Steve’s because they don’t know any better. I give it a B+, which is a very good grade for Miami. They don’t scare me, however.

The place that closed is called Keystone Pizza, which is funny, because people refer to Jesus as the keystone. It’s not funny that they closed. That has to be heartbreaking for the owners. But I didn’t really mean “funny.” I meant “weird.”

Mike is eating his liver. I told him about this place. He says he has to stay in DC for another year and a half (or until the ice melts), because his son is dug in there. I don’t see why this matters. Once a week, you Fedex the boy a box of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and you give him an allowance to pay for laundry. Problem solved. But Mike can be very obstinate, even when presented with a brilliant solution like this.

Today I have to get out in the garage and fabricate something to move pizzas with. My small peel won’t be here until next week. This might be a good excuse to weld, although the end product would be more like a weapon than a pizza peel. I guess I could go to the hardware store and pick up a small sheet of aluminum. I may have a piece of steel somewhere.

I can’t wait to see how things go on Sunday. We’re only going to produce 40 slices, which is what I would call super-cautious, but it’s better to sell out than end up with an embarrassing surplus. Always leave them wanting more.

It’s nice to have something this important to work on.