The Pizza Project.

alternative title – tips on gaining the quarantine 15.

Prior to COVID-19 I started getting interested in pizza. Some would call it obsessive. Even though I don’t proclaim myself a great cook. I do enjoy learning how to make a few dishes that can truly impress people.

To paraphrase filmmaker Robert Rodriguez – not knowing how to cook is like not knowing how to fuck. You’re going to do it your whole life, you may as well know how.

My first few attempts turned out pretty meh. As with most recipes – I start with the easiest version and slowly work my way up to more authentic versions. In this case I was simply using store bought sauce + a generic pizza dough in cast iron skillet.

Pretty quickly after that – I started making my own dough. 55% Hydration + Used a Pizza Stone. Though at this point  I was still using store bought sauce.

This was at the start of the pandemic – when the only place I could find bread flour was Costco. Unfortunately they only sold 50lb bags. At this point I was committed.

A few more weeks in – and I started layering a simple San Marzano tomato sauce. In hindsight, I probably should have done this much sooner. At this point I was as close to a neopolitan pizza as I could get without a true pizza oven. I probably should have stopped then and let good enough be good enough.

But naturally – I caved and ended up getting a pizza oven. I ended up getting an Ooni Fyra, which I immediately sold and replaced with the propane fueled Ooni Koda. While it is romantic to think about cooking a fire in a wood burning oven, experts agree that 60 seconds isn’t enough time to get any flavor out of the wood. Plus the propane oven was just so much cleaner/less fuss than the wood pellets. Below is literally the first pizza I made, so pardon the burnt edges.

At this point I started getting ads for real wood fired pizza ovens. Zuck – you know me all too well.

Since then – I’ve spent the past few months making pizzas. I’ve played around with increasing hydration levels (I now stick to ~60 -65% for the most part).

I decided that post-pandemic, I’m going to start a pop-up pizza stand at a farmers market. I’m still working on the details – but Moonlit Pizza is in the works.

Here’s are some photos from a little shoot we did.

So there’s a little snapshot of what I have been up to the past year.

Final thoughts:

• Pizza is good.
• If you’re in town – give me a shout and we’ll fire up the pizza oven.
• If you’re having a little party and want to have a pop-up neopolitan pizza stand, I’d be happy to do it.
• If somehow my doctor is reading this post, I promise I’ll start eating better.
• Pizza is really really good.