Father's Day Pizza Blowout
I want to introduce you to a few pizzas I made / ate over Father's Day.
This Saturday between noon and 7pm the ‘77 Club is collaborating with the Bunker Project to put on the Fruit of the Dirt event in Garfield. There will be a number of vendors, music, pizza and activities. More info on the event here. I interviewed them about Fruit of the Dirt a few weeks ago - read about that here.
Hi there!
This past weekend was Father’s Day. A weekend of indulgence for dads around the world. For some this means beer and grilling out. Overdosing on sitting in front of a television watching golf. Opening up peculiar and unique gifts made by children (Charlie gave me a paper bag full of Nat Geo Kid Animal Cards held by a plastic frog). Seeing big action movies in the theater. Shouting at the television. Classic dad stuff.
On the spectrum of dadness, I’m not sure where I sit. Should I embrace classic dad activities? Or forge my own journey? Be my own kind of dad. There is comfort in the well-worn trail of stereotypical dad stuff. A familiar playbook to pull from when you’re lost in the sea of life. If you’re unsure what to do there’s always yelling at the television.
But this isn’t a venue to pontificate on the Sad Dad trend. We are here to talk pizza. And my father’s day was filled to the brim with pizza. Let’s get into it!
Some of My Best Home Made Pizzas
On Saturday I made some pizzas in the backyard. I’ve been exercising my dough making muscles lately and recruiting Charlie to help. I use this Roberta’s pizza dough recipe for most of my pizza ventures. It strikes the right balance between effort and impact. Not too complicated. With a 24 hour rise you’ll end up with dough that’s easy to work and produces great crust.
The pizzas the Ooni spit out were some of my best in a while. The dough was airy, it browned nicely (with a handful of char), and the pizza night was free from incident. To accompany these pizzas we were making the famous tiki drink - the Jungle Bird. The Jungle Bird is a tiki drink that mixes rum, Campari and pineapple. Highly recommend for any backyard hangs.
With a surplus of pineapple from the drinks on hand, I had to add some pineapple to the pizza. There’s nothing more refreshing on a warm Spring night than biting into a vibrant tomato sauce with a mix of pineapple. Add some salty prosciutto and pickle peppers and you have one of the finest pizzas you can make. Look at this beauty.
The Triple P - Pineapple, Prosciutto and Pickled Pepper (Quad P?). This thing is a force of nature combining the best topping from their respective categories. The finest meat topping, vegetable and misc. In a twist of fate worthy of a Bob Dylan lyric, I had run out of cheese for the final pie. This is partly my fault as I recruited Charlie to help make a few pizzas and she took half a dozen mozzarella pearls straight to the dome. A cheese-less pie may be sacrilege to some, but the toppings came together to create a canopy of flavor over the crust.
Driftwood Oven Dad Fest
Making my own pizzas was one element of the Father’s Day Festivities. On Sunday the fam and a fellow family saw The Fantastic Mr. Fox at Rowhouse. A beloved film in the household. Afterwards we trekked down to Driftwood Oven for pizza.
I was planning this excursion for months. Last December Charlie received a trio of crocheted mushrooms from a friend. A mom mushroom, dad mushroom and baby mushroom. Since they arrive I would take dad mushroom aside and say, “Dad Mushroom - on father’s day you and I are going down to the pizza parlor to eat a large plain pizza.” For some reason this enraged Charlie. She hid Dad Mushroom from me, afraid of our alliance. If we teamed up we would be unstoppable. She couldn’t have that. You have to manifest your desires and put these thoughts out into the world. Me and Dad Mushroom had a shared dream and nothing could stop us from achieving it.
And achieve we did. Taking up two of the tables, we ordered two large pies. Look at this beauty.
A fresh round pizza from Driftwood Oven is crushable and refreshing. I’m confident I can crush a whole plain in fifteen minutes no problem. So airy, soft, delicate. It slides down the throat like a well oiled laundry chute. Mr. Mushroom did make an appearance and for a brief moment the two of us made our dreams a reality.
Mysterious Rise and Pie Pizza Truck on Butler St.
On our walk to Driftwood Oven we noticed a new pizza truck on the scene. It was parked in the lot of the empty convenience store, next to Nook. The truck had two Gozney ovens in it. I talked to the owner briefly and they seemed excited about their new venture. I didn’t have time to check them out, but look for more coverage in the future.
Wow what a pizza filled weekend. Hey, if you’re not crushing pizza 80% of the week what are you doing?
-Dan Tallarico, Pizza Journalist