I didn’t see any rules about a deadline for posting! These were baked late Friday night, the 29th of November.
Peter broke the mold with his frozen pizza entry, and it got me thinking about how to define “signature.” There’s a pizza I’ve made only once before that’s my all-time favorite...it was a margherita with chili oil, shallots and green olives, and little spice and seasoning flares that I’ve discovered I really like in minute quantities and delicate arrangements. It was an early run of my hand mixed dough experiments and it was cooked in a WFO in less than a minute. I called it the Juliana, in honor of Patsy Grimaldi’s place. I only had occasion to make it that one time and it haunts me. That pizza is absolutely precious to me. It was the 1967 GTO of my pizza life.
These pizzas are not that pizza—these are early 90’s Honda Accords. They are beaters, daily drivers, commuters. They are meant to be used heavily and are relied on by middle and lower class people to get them where they need to go in this short, hectic life. There is nothing precious about them save for the beauty inherent in a common thing made well.
Almost 100% of my pizza making has taken place in a professional environment rather than at home, so when I started thinking beyond the meaning of a signature pizza as being that which I’d most like to be known or remembered for designing, I realized that my true signature is really my combination of speed, accuracy, engineering skill and attention to detail in a commercial pizza kitchen. I’m not a normal pizza cook; I am an exceptional pizza cook. And like any line cook who can pump out twenty perfectly cooked steaks to order, the pride I feel about my pizza making comes from having the experience, knowledge, and concern required to put out slice after slice after slice on a busy night and know that each and every one is a knockout for the customer who gets that paper plate slid across the bar top into their hungry, likely drunken fingers. They might not appreciate the perfectly stretched skin making the bottom crust of their slice crispy and substantial, but I put it there on purpose. They might not know how carefully I timed the reheat on their slice or understand my approach to salting (twice, lightly, with different salts) or seasoning (squeeze your chili flakes and use less of them at a time; you should smell but not see the oregano), but I read a lot of recipes and ate a lot of pizza on the path to developing these approaches and ratios. They probably don’t care about the difference between a 19.2 oz dough ball and a 19.4 oz dough ball, or whether the salt is at 2.8% or 3%, but I had the crunch of their slice in mind when I mixed and scaled my dough. I thought about all the little ways things could be different and I chose specifications for every aspect of the process that would lead to me being able to look at those last two dough balls, after midnight on a Friday, and say, “these are going to be really good pizzas.” There are a thousand little considerations adding up to this greasy moment of total cosmic satisfaction.
So here’s an example of what you can expect when I work in your pizza kitchen. A couple of 18” double pepperoni pies (seems it’s always double pepperoni these days) to round out the slice box as I transitioned into washing the last of my dishes and mopping the floors at the tail end of a busy weekend night. I don’t know how many pepperoni pizzas I’ve made in my career, but it’s a very large number. And while I will always prefer to make and eat a plain pie, there’s no doubt the pepperoni is an American classic, and it accounts for a shockingly high percentage of total food sales in most places I’ve worked. My signature is to treat each and every one like a museum GTO, even though it’s going to be run into the garage door by a 15-year old with their learner’s permit.
These were sold pretty fast after they came out of the oven and the scene at the bar was 8 large bearded men hunched over their plates, their previously raucous conversation completely halted, eyes unfocused and breathing heavily, becoming sober enough again after eating to begin the conversation about how they were all going to get home. I clocked out just after 1 a.m., another 10-hour shift in the bag, and “Peg” by Steely Dan was blasting from the DJ’s speakers. I walked home whistling “it’s your favorite foreign movie...” I love feeding people, I love early 90’s Honda Accords, and I really love that song. It was a great night.
