Holiday Pizza Gift Guide!
What to get the pizza lover (or yourself??) this holiday. An exhaustive list of all pizza related gifts.
Well if it isn’t the holiday season. A time to celebrate the year, hang fun lights and reminisce about the good times and amazing future. And what a future we have ahead of us. So many more days to eat pizza. Nights to eat pizza. Opportunites to host pizza parties, break pizza slices with loved ones. To me, the holidays mean pizza. On Christmas Day I’m typically over extending myself by hosting my daughter’s birthday and making trays of Sicilian pizza.
That’s the holidays for ya! Now, let’s talk about gifts. We are here to celebrate each other. And if your love language is gifts this is your chance to thrive. My love language? I guess it’s being the person that points out there’s a rogue string of mozzarella hanging from your lip or a sprig of basil lodged between your teeth. So, informing? Which might explain why I host this newsletter…
Pizza Gift Card
No stocking is complete without a gift certificate to a local pizza shop. Most any place in the area has them available. It’s an awesome way to support the local shops and give the gift of pizza. Honestly, where I’m at in my life right now this is the only gift I think I want.
Here’s a few spots to grab giftcards:
Aside: During my research I found out Driftwood Oven now delivers their pizza via Uber Eats. Looks like the markup is around $5 a pie, not awful if you’re in an incredibly dire pinch.
An Exotic Pizza Package
Through the magic of dry ice and vacuum sealing you can have pizza sent to your dear friend or family member. Gold Belly has an overwhelming amount of options, but if you are looking for something more exotic than a NY Slice I can’t recommend Pequods enough. The pizza is reminiscent of Pizza Hut pan’s pizza. It’s thick, crunchy, oily. Probably travels very well!
I’ve sent a few people Taglia di Napoli. Pretty affordable at scale and heat up nicely.
Pizza Equipment for the At Home Pizzaiolo
There’s no shortage of equipment a pizzaiolo needs to make pizza at home. Each month I find myself yearning for something else - an apron, another pizza tray, another utensil to manipulate the pizza in some way.
I’ll recommend a few things here.
For pans, you gotta go Lloyd. Lloyd pans have served me well on my pizza journey. I highly recommend their Detroit Pizza pan.
For cutting the pizza, I use a Boska pizza cutter. It slices pizza flawlessly and looks good doing it. Easy to clean, nice to hold. Perfect companion.
If you want a pizza oven for your home I can’t recommend the Ooni enough. I got one of these in May and fire it up a few times a month. There’s a small learning curve, but once you figure it out it’s very easy to use. Check out the Ooni here.
Pizza Literature
The next best thing to eating pizza is reading about pizza. My pizza library is vast and far from complete, but there’s a few gems I got back to. Not to mention a couple of new books on my radar.
Pizza Bible - This is a must for any pizza enthusiasts. I give two away each year, minimum. The Pizza Bible has helped me understand the science behind pizza, what makes it so great, and which variables you can augment to tweak your recipe.
Pizza: History, Recipes, Stories, People, Places, Love - This book crams in everything thematically related to the aura of pizza into a single package. It’s en extensive look into how pizza has engrained itself in our lives.
The Joy of Pizza - This book popped up on my radar after talking to Sean of Slice of New York Pizza. Since reading this book Sean’s pizza game has been upgraded considerably. The rubric in here is a guiding light bringing him home to pizza nirvana. If you’re trying to make the perfect pizza, this book may hold the secrets.
Pittsburgh Pizza Guidebook (Digital) - Should I have gotten my act together and printed more of my books for the holiday season? Sure. What’s stopping me? I think I want to revisit the book and add in some more spots, enhance the sections and make it fairly robust. Maybe if there’s interest it’s something I’ll spin up next year. There’s nothing stopping you from printing out the PDF at your local library.
Thanks for reading! Hope this helps. There’s no shortage of cool pizza things out there so if there’s something I missed send it my way!
Thanks and pizza ya later!
-Dan Tallarico, Pizza Journalist