August 12, 2007

Pizzaioli Genoa

As I've said before to anyone who has cared to listen (namely, my cat) if I ever get sick and tired of writing (or the more likely culprit of the publishing business), I'm going to open my own little pizza shop.

Go ahead, laugh if you want. Call me a fool. A dipshit. A dirty wop goomba. Lay it on! Because I don't care.

Here's why:

The pursuit of the perfect pizza is as noble a pursuit as that of the pursuit to write a great novel.

There I said it. Pizza making is an art form. It takes months or even years of trial and error to perfect it. It's part science, part hard work, part art, and all passion. And just because abominations like Pizza Hut, Domino's, and Papa Johns have sullied its name with their bland grease and cheese-injected pies, doesn't mean that pizza can't be beautiful.

Besides, slop like this is NOT pizza:

Sometime in the very near future, executives at Domino's are going to have the following conversation:

"Guys, Pizza Hut is kicking our ass with this cheesy bites nonsense. We need to get more goddamn cheese onto our pizzas."

"But how! How I ask you!"

"We've already gone too far! Too far I say!"

"This is madness!"

"Everybody settle down! I have an idea. Instead of using dough..."

"I see where you're going with this."

"We'll use a huge round slice of cheese!"

"Brilliant!"

"But what do we put on top of the giant slice of cheese?"

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"I think so...but I'm scared!"

"Don't be! We'll put MORE CHEESE on top of the cheese! Hell, we'll put more cheese underneath the cheese as well! Then we'll deep fry the whole thing!"

"Now that's what I call a pizza!"

"An all cheese pizza? We'll be gods among men!"

Message to pizza chains: the point of pizza is not to cram as much processed cheese down people's throats. The point is finding a perfect balance between dough, sauce, and cheese!

Places like DiFara, Totonno's, and Una Pizza Napoletana in New York, and Pizza Bianca in Phoneix, are among the lone beacons of light in this country, showing us what pizza is like in Naples, and how it should be everywhere.

Last week I started experimenting with making my own pies from scratch. In the past I'd always by my dough from a local pizza place or the grocery store, but no more! From now on I'm starting with flour, water, salt, and yeast and not stopping until I get pizza perfection.

My first attempt was a bit of a disaster. Transferring the dough from my granite work surface to the pizza peel and into the oven was a huge pain in the ass. The dough got stuck to the peel, and I had to push it off, and some of the mozzarella flew off in the process. That cheese landed on the nuclear hot stone and started burning, which made everything smoky. Then the fire alarm went off. I also burned my hand on the oven door at some point. I cursed quite a bit. Oh, it was also 90+ degrees out that night, so with the oven cranked all the way up, and no A/C, the kitchen felt about 175 degrees. So I was sweating like a pig the whole time.

The resulting pizza was was too charred and mangled to even be called a pizza. But it tasted OK. Sort of. But did I give up after this failure? No! And that is the key. Not just to pizza, but to life.

Today was my second attempt, and I learned a little from my mistakes. This is what came out of the oven this time.

Not bad. Not great either, but pretty good. Especially for a second attempt. I was especially happy with what was on top of the pizza.

Namely...

But the dough isn't where I want it to be. Still too gummy and not enough flavor. Next time I'm moving on to using a sourdough starter like the big boys use.

Like with anything worth pursuing, you're going to make a ton of mistakes on the road to a perfect pizza. It's the same way with writing novels. Foop! was nowhere near a perfect book. But is it good? I think so. Was it worth writing and is it worth consuming? Yes. Will I write better books? Hell yes. Will I make better pizzas? Oh hell yes.

Will I continue to burn myself and smoke up the kitchen and curse a lot and doubt myself and have people tear apart my books along the way? Yes.

But will I give up? Not a chance.

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.chrisgenoa.com/cgi-bin/mt-tb.cgi/263