What's the best way to reheat pizza & pizza residency at Dancing Gnome Brewery
Plus, Mediterra Coming to Lawrenceville, 100.7 Best Pizza Contest, and a Special Pizza Memory
Leftover pizza is a whole entity unto itself. When you think about it, it’s pizza in its corpse form. It’s a poorly preserved and aged creation fading away in a refrigerator. Its cheese hardens into an exterior carapace to protect it from the elements the best it can. But the leftover pizza is tarnished. It’s not whole.
Now you get to play necromancer and revive this pizza. You need to contact the pizza after life and guide the pizza’s soul back into the slice, bringing it back to life and ready for consumption. There’s a few ways to do this, each with their own cost to the pizzas humanity (pizzamanity?).
Eating Cold Pizza - Certain pizzas lend themselves to being devoured raw than others. Pizzas with loads of cheese do not thrive here. It’s like eating a wax triangle. Pizzas with light cheese do best. But eating cold pizza is like a zombie dining on brains. It’s a primal act best used out of desperation or when time doesn’t allow for the luxury of heat.
Microwaved Pizza - Full disclosure: I do not own a microwave. I haven’t shared a home with a microwave since 2012. I find the box transforms food into a grotesque caricature of what we imagined it to be. Using a microwave to reheat pizza is like wishing to bring a slice of pizza back to life via a monkey paw. Technically, yes, the pizza is warm, but at what cost? The pizza has developed slime that wasn’t there before. The crust is devoid of flavor. It’s somehow chewier and floppier than you remember. It’s not quite right.
I find microwave pizza horrifying. Would not recommend it, but if it’s all you got and you need something warm, sure go wild.
Stove Stop Skillet - For a while this was my go-to method of reheating pizza. By heating a small amount of oil in a skillet, placing the slice on top you get a nice crispy bottom. But what about the layer of cheese? Surely you can’t depend on the heat penetrating the crust to heat the cheese from the bottom. And you would be correct. By harnessing the power of heat and water to create steam you can revive the top layer of your pizza. Simply toss some water onto the skillet and add a cover, thirty seconds later your pizza is rejuvenated and ready for consumption. The crust is crunchy, the bit of oil infused into the pizza adds much needed vitality. It’s a pleasant reheating method.
Oven / Broiler - This is a very solid way to heat up pizza. You toss the pizza in the oven, maybe broil it for a minute and you get a pizza that’s a little dry, but certainly edible. Unlike the skillet, you’re not infusing it with any extra liquid or oil so it didn’t perk up. Get’s the job done with minimal mess.
Air Fried - Air fryers have grown in popularity as the go-to method for heating any creation. The air fryer conjures a blazing hot tornado that breathes life into whatever you put into it. You put pizza into this box, five minutes later it teaming with life. Did someone swap this with pizza from a local pizzeria? It’s unusually fresh and pleasant. Not too dry, bubbling with excitement. Pizza from an air fryer is new. A complete reboot of the ecosystem with very few flaws.
If you are often eating leftover pizza it might be worth while to invest in an air fryer only to restore life to pizza. Like a horrid invention made by Nikola Tesla.
Blue Sparrow Opens up Pizza Shop at Dancing Gnome
Full disclosure: I’m drinking a can of Lustra as I type this. I love Dancing Gnome and I love pizza, so I’m particularly excited that Blue Sparrow has opened their pizza residency at the Dancing Gnome Brewery in Sharpsburg. Here’s a snapshot of their opening week menu via my dad.
Excited to try some of their pizza. You can order ahead for pickup online here.
Two Pizza Memories & Two Resolutions from Amazing Journalist Rossilynne Skena Culgan
I first met Rossilynne when she was at The Incline and interviewed me about their Pittsburgh Pizza Bracket. That content has unfortunately been scrubbed from the internet, but Rossilynne is a tremendous force of wit and writing. She even wrote 100 Things to Do in Pittsburgh Before You Die. She’s very accomplished and I’m so honored to have her contribute to this newsletter!
I have two favorite pizza memories from 2022 — and two pizza resolutions for 2023! First was convincing my co-workers at Time Out New York to dress up in wacky NYC-themed Halloween costumes. One even agreed to dress up as Dollar Slice Pizza Activist protesting the price hike in dollar slices. We definitely got some looks while photographing this costume along the street but it was worth it (and yes, we took the pizza back to the office).
The second memory strikes a more somber chord. My uncle and family visited NYC last summer, and we had a blast dining on my beloved Sofia Pizza Shoppe’s massive, pillowy upside down square-cut pizza. We didn’t know then that my uncle was very sick; he ended up dying several months later.
I’m so happy to have that memory of eating delicious take-out pizza together on what ended up being his last visit to NYC. In his honor, I resolve to have even more pizza dinners with my loved ones to make cherished memories over dough, sauce, and cheese.
My second resolution is to try more of the pizza shops on my to-visit list — Di Fara, Paulie Gee’s, and Scarr’s, to name a few.
Star 100.7’s Pizza Contest is Looking for Entrants
Early in my pizza career I was hungry for recognition. I needed to be validated. I needed to judge. Why couldn’t I help to crown the best pizza in the city? Well, nine years ago I got a chance to drive out to the outskirts of pizza to eat 16 different slices of pizza at 7am. It was an insane experience, but also the pinnacle moment of being a pizza journalist.
Anyways, they’re looking for entrants for their annual competition which is happening this February 10th. If you’re a pizza maker definitely enter the contest!
Here’s a video of my experience. Pizza Parma won that year. Wow, incredible.
Mediterra is Opening in Lawrenceville
Opening in the old B52 location, Mediterra will be setting up their newest location in Mediterra. If you’re a fan of Kevin Konn (like I am) this is huge news. He helps make their pizza and will be an awesome roman style addition to Butler St.
Thanks for reading! I hope you have found something to enjoy in this amazing pizza newsletter.
Thanks and pizza ya later!
-Dan Tallarico, Pizza Journalist