Mmmmm, Pizza

Hah, I'm not gonna laugh at you because those pizzas are a "7" and a "9" on a scale of 10, while the others mentioned here don't even hit 5. In fact, the others are in the "don't ever eat unless desperate and no other food available" category.

Yes, I'm a pizza snob. Same with bread. Same with bagels.

Here you go:
http://pizzatherapy.com/bestpizza.htm

If all you software guys want to see how much effort an engineer goes to in order to not do without, check out this story:
http://www.varasanos.com/PizzaRecipe.htm

You can thank me later....:rolleyes:
 
craigiri said:
Hah, I'm not gonna laugh at you because those pizzas are a "7" and a "9" on a scale of 10, while the others mentioned here don't even hit 5. In fact, the others are in the "don't ever eat unless desperate and no other food available" category.

Yes, I'm a pizza snob. Same with bread. Same with bagels.

Here you go:
http://pizzatherapy.com/bestpizza.htm

If all you software guys want to see how much effort an engineer goes to in order to not do without, check out this story:
http://www.varasanos.com/PizzaRecipe.htm

You can thank me later....:rolleyes:
Click to expand...
That pizza look like it had been left out for too long and doesn't look fresh, not that it looks bad.

The site that lists the best pizza places per state is dead wrong for California because most of those pizza places are pretty average. The best Pizza's I've had out are from Bollini's in Montery Park and ones made by an italian grandmother at a farmers market in Santa Monica. Even Mama's Brick Oven pizza in Alhambra is better than most of the places on that list, and they're only about a 6-7.

And lets be honest, compared to Kim your tastes in pizza might be no different than a Pizza Hut pizza :).
 
The smaller pic in my post is Pepe's, which is famed far and wide...coal fired with hard coal:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Pepe_Pizzeria_Napoletana

The larger pic is top-secret (I have to wait too long), but a description will help your mouth water. Notice how high the crust has risen. This is because the bread (dough) is amazing. Notice the charred spots - that is often the sign of a very hot oven, wood burning in this case, with high temps. You simply cannot cook good pizza without very high temperatures. The owners are Italian and French and have traveled all over the world studying bread.

Basically, you cannot make good pizza in quantity. Even some of the top franchises with the new coal-fired pizzas are poor (IMHO) because they are formulaic. It takes love to make great pizza.

I once had a great one here:
http://www.delospizza.com/index.htm

And friends tell me this place is top shelf in Philly:
http://www.tacconellispizzeria.com/

I'm open to trying anything that people suggest - if it's in the area of CT, RI, MA or even NJ (I visit there).
 
dangonay said:
Pizza is like sex - even when it's bad it's still good. (can't take credit, but forgot who said it)
Click to expand...

:ROFLMAO:(y)

The only bad pizza I ever had was my 1st anchovy pizza. The thing not only had the worse after taste you could imagine, but a before and during taste. Like you could taste the moment it entered your mouth, before a single taste bud touched it. Such a strong fishy taste that I don't think they make fish oil that strong. :sick:

I've had 2 or 3 anchovy pizza's since then.

One being tasteless and not noticing it was even there. It was a prank... A friend had gotten me a slice to see my reaction and he was disappointed because there was none. I didn't taste anything at all. And kind of didn't believe him until he showed me the next slice.

The other one wasn't bad. Kind of liked it a little.

But needless to say, I don't make it a regular choice if I can help it.
 
The concept of deep dish pizza leaves me very uninspired! Never actually had it though truth be told... but to me a great pizza has a wonderful perfect balance of crust to topping.

Not a swimming pool holding back a tsunami of gooeey liquidy fillings ... bluergh!

I know they are very popular in some places however, so I will reserve final judgement until I try one.

Also very suspect of any opinion that begins with "you can't make good pizza unless..."

You can make good pizza under most circumstances so long as you are a good cook ;) Yes even my domestic craptacular-not-nearly hot enough oven produces pizzas of extremely high quality, because I know how to work it.

Doesn't mean I wouldn't love a wood fired or wood/gas fired pizza oven capable of well over 300C temps! - but I don't NEED it to make good pizza :)

Also coal... seriously... coal.. to cook with... gross!!! it would taint the entire food with petrochemicals! Charcoal sure, wood great, but hard coal is foul stuff I am sure it is even illegal to use it here for fires, least of all for cooking!
 
Kim said:
The concept of deep dish pizza leaves me very uninspired! Never actually had it though truth be told... but to me a great pizza has a wonderful perfect balance of crust to topping.

Not a swimming pool holding back a tsunami of gooeey liquidy fillings ... bluergh!

I know they are very popular in some places however, so I will reserve final judgement until I try one.

Also very suspect of any opinion that begins with "you can't make good pizza unless..."

You can make good pizza under most circumstances so long as you are a good cook ;) Yes even my domestic craptacular-not-nearly hot enough oven produces pizzas of extremely high quality, because I know how to work it.

Doesn't mean I wouldn't love a wood fired or wood/gas fired pizza oven capable of well over 300C temps! - but I don't NEED it to make good pizza :)

Also coal... seriously... coal.. to cook with... gross!!! it would taint the entire food with petrochemicals! Charcoal sure, wood great, but hard coal is foul stuff I am sure it is even illegal to use it here for fires, least of all for cooking!
Click to expand...

LOL - Liking the comment "Not a swimming pool holding back a tsunami of gooeey liquidy fillings ... bluergh!" :laugh: Here in the uk (not sure what they call it elsewhere) but here we refer those type of pizza's as "deep pan" and the only thing they are good for is slapping in people's faces you don't like, served whilst piping hot. :P

But yeah, some of those deep pans I've seen ordered by a few of my friends (I never touch takeaway foods) look like downright slopping gooey monstrosity's that look sickening. More irritating when people are trying to eat them in the way of them slurping the damn things into their mouths.

As you said and agree Kim there needs to be a fine balance not something that is 3-4 inches deep. *cringes*
 
Kim said:
The concept of deep dish pizza leaves me very uninspired! Never actually had it though truth be told... but to me a great pizza has a wonderful perfect balance of crust to topping.

Not a swimming pool holding back a tsunami of gooeey liquidy fillings ... bluergh!

I know they are very popular in some places however, so I will reserve final judgement until I try one.

Also very suspect of any opinion that begins with "you can't make good pizza unless..."

You can make good pizza under most circumstances so long as you are a good cook ;) Yes even my domestic craptacular-not-nearly hot enough oven produces pizzas of extremely high quality, because I know how to work it.

Doesn't mean I wouldn't love a wood fired or wood/gas fired pizza oven capable of well over 300C temps! - but I don't NEED it to make good pizza :)

Also coal... seriously... coal.. to cook with... gross!!! it would taint the entire food with petrochemicals! Charcoal sure, wood great, but hard coal is foul stuff I am sure it is even illegal to use it here for fires, least of all for cooking!
Click to expand...

I'd be interested in seeing how a baker, such as yourself, could make a pizza. That would be interesting indeed.
 
Shelley said:
But yeah, some of those deep pans I've seen ordered by a few of my friends (I never touch takeaway foods) look like downright slopping gooey monstrosity's that look sickening. More irritating when people are trying to eat them in the way of them slurping the damn things into their mouths.

As you said and agree Kim there needs to be a fine balance not something that is 3-4 inches deep. *cringes*
Click to expand...

Eww at the thought of someone trying to eat one of those, especially with their hands :o lol


Adam Howard said:
I'd be interested in seeing how a baker, such as yourself, could make a pizza. That would be interesting indeed.
Click to expand...

Well you will probably never get to experience my pizza first hand Adam - but if you click on the "Image Gallery" tab of my basic pizza dough recipe you can look at some pretty pictures of some of them! :D I make pizza every Friday (mostly)

http://yumforum.com/index/12/
 
Kim said:
Eww at the thought of someone trying to eat one of those, especially with their hands :eek: lol




Well you will probably never get to experience my pizza first hand Adam - but if you click on the "Image Gallery" tab of my basic pizza dough recipe you can look at some pretty pictures of some of them! :D I make pizza every Friday (mostly)

http://yumforum.com/index/12/
Click to expand...

HAHAHAHA now you have me started. Jeeeez i dunno why I'm posting this but this somehow popped into my weird brain when i thought of those gooey deep pan pizza's. ROFLMAO

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Kim said:
Also coal... seriously... coal.. to cook with... gross!!! it would taint the entire food with petrochemicals! Charcoal sure, wood great, but hard coal is foul stuff I am sure it is even illegal to use it here for fires, least of all for cooking!
Click to expand...
Hard Coal (anthracite) is mostly fixed carbon - think of it as wood charcoal. It is not "coal" as people in most of the country would imagine, that being soft bituminous coal with lots of gases, liquids, etc. in it.

It is mined only in a few areas as mother nature only made a small about of these "almost diamonds".

The key to cooking with hard coal is that it gets much hotter than a wood fire. Oh, and hard coal pollutes much less than wood, so as far as chemicals and compounds, it's somewhat better (I've been in the solid fuel industry for 30+ years - this is perhaps my one area of expertise!).

The main advantage of hard coal in commercial or other cooking is it's ability to easily maintain a 24/7 fire with an even heating (again, think charcoal). The most famous ovens/ranges of the modern era are the Aga's, which were all hard coal until recently, and were fired 24/7.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AGA_cooker

I'm sure you can make lots of decent stuff in the home oven. But to get the "italian seal of approval" you need a hot oven. I'd say anything which cooks longer than 5-6 minutes is suspect. The actual standard is somewhere about 3 minutes. Check out this link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pizza#Neapolitan
and a local place that meets the standards
http://blogs.providencejournal.com/...2012/09/neapolitan-pizza-on-federal-hill.html
"These pies are different from what we have come to expect of pizza. They are built on ingredients from the Province of Naples, Italy. They are cooked in tiled beehive ovens, very hot ovens that reach 1,100 degrees from wood fires. The pizza cooks in 45 seconds. The pies are smaller than most; and lightly topped because the focus is on the dough. "

"Anthracite : a hard natural coal of high luster differing from bituminous coal in containing little volatile matter and in burning very cleanly —called also hard coal"

So, yes, you can call anything pizza, but calling it Italian or Neopolitan or just like italy....not so much! In a pinch I'll eat most anything, but being as I want to maintain my weight (just under the border of getting too heavy!), I opt for the lower calorie and higher quality stuff.

Oh, the deep dish? We went to Chicago and tried it. It's somewhat tasty, but you can only eat one slice and it's not really pizza. It's closer to a cheese pie. I can't really compare it to real pizza, but let's put it this way - I've never willingly went to Pizza Uno's.

Did I mention that entire books could be written about pizza? Well, this post is almost one!
:LOL:
 
craigiri said:
Hard Coal (anthracite) is mostly fixed carbon -
I'm sure you can make lots of decent stuff in the home oven. But to get the "italian seal of approval" you need a hot oven. I'd say anything which cooks longer than 5-6 minutes is suspect. The actual standard is somewhere about 3 minutes. Check out this link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pizza#Neapolitan
and a local place that meets the standards
http://blogs.providencejournal.com/...2012/09/neapolitan-pizza-on-federal-hill.html
"These pies are different from what we have come to expect of pizza. They are built on ingredients from the Province of Naples, Italy. They are cooked in tiled beehive ovens, very hot ovens that reach 1,100 degrees from wood fires. The pizza cooks in 45 seconds. The pies are smaller than most; and lightly topped because the focus is on the dough. "

"Anthracite : a hard natural coal of high luster differing from bituminous coal in containing little volatile matter and in burning very cleanly —called also hard coal"

So, yes, you can call anything pizza, but calling it Italian or Neopolitan or just like italy....not so much! In a pinch I'll eat most anything, but being as I want to maintain my weight (just under the border of getting too heavy!), I opt for the lower calorie and higher quality stuff.

Oh, the deep dish? We went to Chicago and tried it. It's somewhat tasty, but you can only eat one slice and it's not really pizza. It's closer to a cheese pie. I can't really compare it to real pizza, but let's put it this way - I've never willingly went to Pizza Uno's.

Did I mention that entire books could be written about pizza? Well, this post is almost one!
:LOL:
Click to expand...

Not going to comment on the coal thing, as I know absolutely nothing about it, other than my husband working in the coal mining industry for a while, dirty disgusting stuff it is too, but it is not a cooking fuel here at all, or even a heating fuel and AGA stoves are almost exclusively wood fired in this country, can't comment about where you're from.

Pizza does not have to be some strictly Italian style to be to good, in fact I was talking to an Italian guy (who lives in Italy not here) and he made the comment that he was envious of the style of pizza that we have in this country, the different flavour combinations etc as it is absolutely NOT done in Italy to have anything but the very traditional flavours.

Yes of course the hotter the oven the quicker the cook the better the pizza - but that doesn't translate to "You can't get good pizza without... "

I can't wait to try pizza in Italy, and I am sure it will be amazing but I am not going to deny myself one of the best meals in the world on some ridiculous purist stance LOL

Having done a multitude of readings on the subject myself it seems that a lot of critics think of the perfect Italian pizza as a thin, crisp but not hard, lightly springy crust with a pure home made fresh tomato sauce bursting with flavour, some herbs like oregano or fresh basil, and a small amount of cheese - gorgeous!!! - but probably a tad boring after the first hundred dozen times you've had it!

Yes Pizza is an art and has had much written about it - with much passion, but like any art it is open to interpretation and the beauty is in the eye of the beholder, sadly we can't all line our walls with masterpieces, nor our bellies with Italian pizza in it's purest form.

If someone finds beauty in a Domino's that's no less valid than someone else finding it in a 3 inch high commercial tomato sauce swimming pool in a burnt crust. Personally I wouldn't eat either :p

My home made ones do me just fine! :D
 
I must admit that, of commercial pizzas, I used to like Dominos the best!

Reason was simple - it is not as greasy and calorie-laden as many.

Now, if you are a college student trying to jam the most calories for the $$, it may not win. But, as mentioned before, I try to watch my grease intake. Dominoes seems less fattening at first glance and is not overdone as Kim mentioned (no tidal waves of grease, cheese and sauce)...

I have considered buying one of those backyard pizza ovens - lots of them on the market now. But, realistically, getting all the proper ingredients in terms of the proper flour, etc. would make it take too much time.

Actually, some frozen pizzas are not too bad. It's expensive, though.
http://americanflatbread.com/

I went to their original location in Waitsfield VT (on the farm) and can affirm that it was top notch. It's wood fired and you can taste the woods (a custom mix!) in the cheese. That's a special meal.

Did I mention I am a pizza nut? :)

I'm vegetarian, so I can't be a meat or seafood gourmet, so I have to settle for being into Italian and Mexican stuff.
 
Ok, here's one with fresh local eggplant.
DSC00075.webp
 

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