3.13.2008

The One Where I Stop Worrying About Pizza

I’ve been reading a lot about pizza lately – lots of bloggers (For the Love of Food and Lobster Squad, as examples) are experimenting with it and trying to make the perfect pie. But I don’t know – I just feel awfully uninspired to give it a go again and again. Why? Because I have tasted, to me anyway, the perfect pizza. Crust, toppings, everything. And it’s at Grazie in Scottsdale, Arizona. People who have even tasted the best in Italy (alas, not me) swear by Grazie. I’ve tried time and time again to replicate their crispy, thin, light-as-air, charred-in-all-the-right-places crust. I’ve made about a dozen attempts. All failures.

My friend Steve makes a stellar pizza. I won’t say that it’s not as good as Grazie’s…it’s just very different. The glorious, and most important, thing about Steve’s pizza is that it is a flavor explosion. He has perfected the right mix of herbs and toppings, and there are several flavors in there you can’t identify but desperately wish you could. I’ve tried another dozen times to make his pizza too. All failures. And that’s after sitting in his kitchen, watching his every move like a hawk!

I’m out. Especially since I bought Nigella Express and discovered using naan for pizza crust. It’s damn near Grazie’s crust. No more rolling out pizza dough and failing over and over again. I’ll stick with my naan and pine away for Grazie and Steve, thank you.

Note: Is this ever going to turn back into a children’s literature blog? I don’t know any more than you do. Stay tuned…

4 comments:

amy cray said...

this gives me ANOTHER place to take you- gaia pizza in berkeley. maybe you should just move in with me.

lobstersquad said...

Hi Laura: I haven´t tried Nigella´s naan pizza yet, because naan isn´t all that easy to find here, but I´m glad to know it works, thanks.

Nicole said...

Oh! That sounds good! I love Nigella. I will have to try it. Trader Joes has a pretty good naan and it is in the frozen section so it can be handy at any time. Thanks for a great blog. I love your name/title. Pinot and Prose. It just rolls off the tongue so eloquently!

Unknown said...

Amy, I would LOVE to move in with you, you know that. But I'm not done with NYC yet...

Lobstersquad, I love your blog. You might not have naan available in Madrid...but, you know, you're in Madrid! You already have artichokes and tomatoes coming to you in your organic box...while I'm still roasting turnips in the frozen tundra of NYC!

I used to buy already prepared pizza dough at Whole Foods, but I would work that stuff for 30 minutes and still never get it thinner than half-inch. It was more like pizza focaccia...which is not a compliment.