We Had a Good Pizza Going
Getting back to the basics through the art of pizza making.
Feeling down in the dumps? Glum? Distraught? Tough election loss. As we stand on the precipitous of a perilous and uncertain four years that could erase rights of friends, family and loved ones it’s tough to write about pizza. Does pizza really matter right now?
If you’re asking me, a pizza journalist, yeah pizza is important. No matter what state the world is in, pizza matters. It’s my tether that keeps me grounded. The conduit I use to explore the world, convene with friends and make connections. Pizza is a gateway to enhancing my life. When I feel like things might be slipping away I look to get back to the fundamentals. While I haven’t had much time lately to explore new pizzas or interview pizza makers, I did make time to host a backyard pizza party.
The whole pizza-making venture is daunting. This is a three day process and all the way from mixing yeast, water, oil, flour and salt together to getting the pizzas in the oven, a lot can happen. Things can go wrong at any juncture, damaging the pizza and compromising its integrity. For most at-home bakes I use this recipe from the Roberta’s Cookbook. The book is here if you’re interested.
I’ve explored more complicated recipes, but I find the Roberta’s recipe is high enough quality without becoming labor intensive. It’s easy to double or triple to make six decent balls of dough.
Two days later it’s time to party and stretch the dough. This is the fun part. It’s part performance, part skill challenge. The dough changes throughout the night starting off a little on the cooler side. By the third or fourth dough ball they’ve heated up enough where they stretch easily while holding their form, but that doesn’t guarantee you won’t find the dreaded hole every now and then.
When that hole does form, and they will form, it’s important not to panic. As Charlie stretched the dough the dough drooped down like melting ice cream and a whole tore in the middle. Charlie was distraught thinking the pizza was ruined. But while it seemed like it was the end of the pizza, the whole could be repaired.
Pizza making use to be a lonely activity, but lately Charlie works as my assistant who is eager to get her hands dirty. She is getting better at stretching the dough, adding sauce and cheese. Maybe a pizza prodigy? Would be interesting to see a 4.5 year old open up their own pizza shop. Or at the very least a mobile pizza oven.
In the video above pizza pal Dan Bailey makes a cameo and expresses his favorite thing about pizza is that it brings people together. Pizza inspires gathering, an amazing phenomenon most foods dream of doing. But pizza has that power no matter if it’s greasy sponges from Domino’s or a hand-tossed artisan pizza from a local shop.
The pizza is truly an after through to the whole event. Maybe the pizza is good, maybe it’s bad, but what matters is that there are people at your table chatting about their day between pizzas coming out of the oven. It’s a pleasant reminder of the power of food, community and coming together to make a difference.
After making five pizzas the crew begged me to stop making pizzas. While the slices were small, the pizza was mighty. Even clouds will fill you up if you eat enough of them and the pizza was doing just that.
Cleaning up that night it was a pleasure to see a disaster zone of cheese boards, empty cans, pizza slices from various pies with various toppings. Something happened here. Who can say if the pizza changed everyone for the better? But because we shared pizza we have been changed. And fed.
When the excitement of the pizza part is over, there’s a malaise that sets in. Will we ever achieve those highs again? It seems daunting to get back to that state of exuberance. All the work, cleaning everything up, starting from scratch. But that’s why we focus on the fundamentals. The boring, hard stuff is the most important. To keep the momentum going and create another utopian pizza event, you have to start at the beginning. Take on one aspect of the journey at a time. Call the crew, pick a date, buy new ingredients, carefully measure them out, make the dough. It may seem like an impossible journey, but every pizza party starts with the same mixture of flour, water, salt, oil and yeast.
Wow what a week. Will be working on a couple more journalistic pieces in the near future, life has gotten a bit busy. In light of the recent election it’s quite possible many public services will be facing cuts of some sort in the future. If you are inclined to lend a hand why not consider donating to the local library, one of my favorite places to hang out with Charlie. Or even Planned Parenthood that offers up an amazing assortment of services.
Okay, wild stuff, pizza ya later!
-Dan Tallarico, Pizza Journalist
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Very enjoyable read!