I do like the NY style. What is a starter, and how do you Start (sorry for the pun). Secondly, your stone arangement. Do you put the stone directly under the broiler with just enough clearance to slide the pie in, or further down.
You can find quite a few posts on starters if you do an advanced search from the home page. A starter is essentially a wild yeast also known as sourdough. If you are courageous, you can try to make one yourself, you may be successful you may not, there is really know way of knowing as alot rely's on the environment that it's exposed to. It's a little complicated to explain so your best bet it to buy a book & read up on it. I did what most members who use a sourdough starter did & that is to buy a proven culture & activate it. Many people, including myself, purchased the cultures from
www.sourdo.com. Dr.Ed Wood's book, "Classic Sourdoughs" is very good & has alot of good information. Some cultures come with activation instructions, so you don't have to get the book if you don't want to. For pizza, the Italian cultures that he sells are amazing & you get 2 different ones. Dr. Wood is also very good at responding to emails if you have any questions.
To answer your second question, I place my stone on the very to shelf just under the broiler. My oven is equipped with an infrared radiation broiler, similar to that of a salamander, so the charring happen quite fast, so you have to keep a constant eye on it, it's not a good idea to walk away, usually takes about 45 seconds.
