spent the better part of the last few months doing nothing of any
great significance ... I made a pilgrimmage to some of the highest
rated pizza joints in NYC and compared them to the highest rated in
Buenos Aires ... home to many Italian immigrants (too cheap to go to
Europe) ... and did a fair bit of reading about pizza. Cuz that's
what my "to do list" looks like right now. And although I enjoyed
this "work" immensely ... I can't say that I found what I considered
to be the crazy best pizza ever. I mean ... I had some good pizza,
but it was just about the same good-ness as the pizza we have here.
Certainly there's some nice touches that can happen ... wood fired
oven ... super hot gas fired oven ... fresh basil ... nice olive
oil ... honey crust, fresh mozzarella, ... etc ... it's not rocket
surgery for the most part. And since the quality of the ingredients
is kinda more important than anything ... and since you're rarely
going to find good ingredients or the kind of creative combinations
that you can do yourself at the local pizza joint (same 10 ingredients
from Sysco at all of them except for Pizza Mondo) ... you might as
well make it yourself.
So today I was like ... I must have pizza ... and I looked at the
cupboard ... and pulled out a bowl ... to start on the crust ... and
then I was like, fuckit I'm going to Cibelli's. I was done w/ my
slice (and it was a solid B+) before I even got home. Instant
gratification.
Now ... pizza at home isn't difficult at all ... you prep some yeast
w/ hot water and a pinch of sugar ... then you add olive oil and flour
and honey ... roll it out on a floured board ... knead for a couple
minutes ... cover it and let it rise (30 min) ... punch it down and
let it rise again (30 more) ... and you're ready. But ... even that
can be agonizingly too much work for your ADD addled attention span,
and you get covered in flour ... and it's a big mess.
I hear you out there ... saying "just make an afternoon of it and make
several crusts and you can freeze them" (I hear you Bryan Swett) ...
and that's all good and true. But I'm just not even that patient
sometimes. And I have a better idea. As it turns out ... you can BUY
pre-made pizza dough from Cibelli's!
2 lousy bucks for an 18" pizza crust dough ... just roll it out and
top it. Or cut it in half and roll it out and top it and save the
rest. With the ingredients you want ... with the cheese u want ...
with your own sauce (and please DO make your own sauce cuz that's
key ... u must use fresh tomatoes). Or no cheese. And you don't have
to deal with pockmarked teenagers to get your pizza (sorry teenagers)
and you don't have to leave the house and you can have this whenever
you want. Even at 4am when all the pansy-ass pizza merchants in this
town are asleep in their beddy-bye's.
So yeah ... $10 gets you enough dough (that you can freeze for later)
for 10 personal pizzas and you never have to deal w/ the flour-y
mess. I highly recommend this option. Cibelli's crust is basic but
good and you can modify it however you want and go nuts. Let them
mess w/ the flour ... they have machines that knead that shit for
them. And you can concentrate on the other variables.
Of course I'm still gonna buy cooked pizza but it's way rewarding to
make your own ... it's way cheaper and you get to control the
ingredients ... so you don't have to eat that questionable sausage and
the plastic tomatoes and bland factory mozzarella, nawmean? That's
word.
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