100 Pizzas - 2020

For a long time now, I've been meaning to become a better cook. I have an obsession with pizza, and so finally I realized the answer was to start making pizza. I’ve homemade pizza for several years now, but always as sort of an afterthought. First we started getting Trader Joes premade dough, and we’d roll those out and load them up with whatever we felt like. So that was the extent of my experience in Pizza. A happy consumer of pies but a less than thoughtful producer of pies.

When the shelter in place hit in March 2020, Julie bought me a book called Pizza Camp, and I started to dream in Pizza. That is the origin story of this page. As of writing this intro I’ve made three pizzas from scratch that were actually pretty good. But I recognize there is so much to learn and so I set the goal of making 100 pies. Documenting helps keep me accountable, and serves as a place that I can reference later. This is an historical ledger basically of my path to pizza glory!

Current home setup: 14 inch round pizza stone. Bertazzoni Range, 15 inches deep. Mini Cuisinart Food Processor.

December 2020

52 - 57 - December 24th 2020

Christmas Eve Bake!

#52 - Hot n Honey w/Prosciutto & White Onion
#53 - Special Pie
#54 - Potato Pie
#55 - El Classico
#56 - El Classico Para Papa
#57 - Veggie

Best bake session since this thing started, which is appropriate because it was the last bake of the year. I made a special dough ball with Einkorn flour for my sister in law who has some gluten problems. This is apparently a very old grain so it works well for her. On top of that Special Pie was a half just red sauce half pepperoni. No cheese!

Here are three of the pies:

November 2020

48 - 51 - November 27th, 2020

Post Thanksgiving Leftovers Bake! One of the best things about pizza is you can pretty much put anything on top. So in an effort to minimize food waste we baked some Za with what we had in the fridge, as well as some old classics.

#48 - Leftovers Pizza
#49 - Potato Medly
#50 - El Classico
#51 - Carnitas w/Red Sauce

There's nothing better than pizza with family! I felt confident in this bake though I had some slight size issues with rolling out the dough. What should have been 12 inch pies were more like 9 inch. I'll chalk that up to a bit of rust and move on! We loved the Carnitas pie.

The pies:

October 2020

44 - 47 - October 3rd, 4th, 5th 2020

#44 - Hot Monte Cristo w/Brie
#45 - Hot Monte Cristo w/Brie
#46 - Accidental Calzone!
#47 - White Potato w/Red Onion

We did a 2x Hot n Honey Monte Cristo! Inspired by Pizzana in LA. White sauce, Jambon de Paris, Brie and topped with Franks hot Sauce.

I also managed to make my first Calzone! I completely messed up the transfer from peel to stone by being a bit timid, and ended up with a Monte Cristo Calzone. I also learned it’s okay to mess up.

Here are the pies:

September 2020

We laid off baking pizza for a short while, though we definitely ordered plenty of the stuff from others. See the photo below of a pie from my childhood favorite pizzeria Georgees. It's the quintessential divey pizza joint with simply extraordinary pizza.

August 2020

43 - August 26th 2020

Full Vegan

We had one more dough ball from the BBQ bake and put together this vegan pie again. Pretty simple one with red sauce, cherry tomatoes, and white onion. No fotos.

Here is the pie:

40 - 42 - August 22nd, 2020

#40 - Hot n Honey
#41 - Hot n Honey
#42 - Asparagus w/Red Sauce

BBQ bake off!! We had some socially distanced barbecued pizzas with our two close friends. I prepped the dough and then we tried two Hot n Honeys and one asparagus on their barbecue. It was very challenging to maintain / reach the temperature we wanted for a good bake. Ultimately the pizzas were yummy but I’m not going to rush to bake on a bbq again! We were too hungry to take more than one photo.

Here is a pie:

39 - August 2nd 2020

Vegan Bolognese & Mozzarella Pie

Before this project started, we had made a homemade pizza that basically tasted like delicious bolognese. We decided to pile on a bunch of vegan smart grounds from producer Lightlife into the tomato sauce we had made and were super pleased with the outcome at the time. It’s a really hearty pizza that is great for gloomy weather, and despite it being August, we finally revisited it! You see, San Francisco doesn’t have warm summers. So it was entirely appropriate—this time with a bit more skill and experience baking pies under our belt.

We used the rest of the sauce that we made earlier in the week and the rest of the belgioso fresh moz. We topped the pizza with the vegan smart grounds, thinly sliced white onions, and quartered cherry tomatoes. Julie chose to put some fresh arugula on one of her slices as well, which was a nice touch though I did not add greens to mine.

Here is the pie:

38 - August 1st 2020

Hot n Honey with Arugula

The Hot n Honey turned out so damn good we had to revisit. Though this was also a bake using the rest of our ingredients in the fridge. Meaning I had to throw a few slices of prosciutto on there to fill out the pie! I fumbled the transfer from the pizza peel to the pizza stone, so the shape was funky, but nobody is perfect, and it tasted divine anyway.

We finished this pizza with our Madhava honey, Crystal hot sauce, and some fresh arugula! Like the bake yesterday, this is proving to be our best pizza.

Here is the pie:

July 2020

36 & 37 - July 31st 2020

#36 - Hot n Honey
#37 - Vegan Pie

This was a great bake all around, and I am super happy with the progress we are making. One thing that I thought was missing from my bakes was the coloration of the melted cheese. In the great pizzas that inspired this project, the white mozzarella really pops. I simply was not getting that after a bake. I’ve learned that the way to get that is to have a possible organic, more yellow low moisture cheese. I say possibly organic because I’m not sure if that is what made the cheese I found yellow. I had never seen a yellow shredded moz, but I found one at this new grocery store around the corner. I am so excited about the discovery, and as you can see from the photos, there is that pop of white melted moz!

We made two pies for this bake, our version of a Hot n Honey pie as well as a vegan pie. I prepped the sauce a few hours before the bake and have been using a new process / recipe for the sauce. I picked up some San Marzano whole peeled canned tomatoes at the store. From three, I open the can and use a colander to get the tomatoes. I throw the tomatoes in a food processor with olive oil, a few cloves of garlic, fresh oregano, and salt to taste. For this sauce, I also added some Crystal hot sauce to help with the flavor profile we wanted. I prepped our new dough recipe with some new type 00 flour. The recipe yields five 340g dough balls. Turns out to be a great size, and we really love the way this dough turns out. I've been getting the oven to 500, and for both pizzas it’s about a 10 minute bake with a 2-3 minute broil.

Inspired by our neighborhood pizzeria, Lonbridge, who makes a delicious hot n honey, we set out to create our own. I topped this pie with Belgioso Fresh Moz and the yellow-colored low moisture blend I mentioned earlier from a producer called Rumiano. I added Columbus brand Copa and thin-sliced white onions. We finished the pizza with Madhava honey and a smattering of Crystal hot sauce. I am in love with this pizza.

Our second pie from the bake was the vegan pie I made for #35, only finished with asparagus instead of sprouts. So loads of sauce with thinly sliced cremini mushrooms, pepperoncinis, and a really light sprinkle of vegan moz. I really do like this pie, and again the juice from the pepperoncinis bring it all together nicely.

Somehow the song, The Glory by Kanye West, came into my head as I started the prep, and we started one helluva radio station based on that track. Julie made Mojitos.

35 - July 6th 2020

I made a Vegan Pie!! I don’t really like eating pizza back to back. It makes me feel a bit gross, honestly. I think it’s the volume of cheese. But I had a few dough balls ready to go from the mix yesterday, so I set out to make a vegan pie! And you know what, it might be my second favorite behind the classic pep.

I used what I had in the fridge. I loaded up the tomato sauce from yesterday (like covered the pie), used more baby bella mushroom, pepperoncinis, and basil leaves. We also have some vegan mozzarella, and I very lightly sprinkled some on the pie. A light sprinkle was entirely intentional because the ‘cheese’ melts in a funny way and can be overwhelming in larger quantities.

The pepperoncinis added such a lovely heat to the pizza after the bake. It’s a combo I love—baked pepperoncinis melting into the sauce and bread. I finished the pie with broccoli sprouts (new favorite food) and olive oil. I am absolutely going to make this pizza (or a similar vegan pie) again.

No music during this bake.

Here are two photos of the pie (one before the sprouts, and one after):

33 & 34 - July 5th 2020

#33 - Asparagus & Mushroom
#34 - Pepperoni

Dad's Birthday Pies!! Today was my Dad's birthday, and what better way to celebrate him then gobble down some tasty pizza. I had some new flour for this bake and am super pleased with the results. We used Caputo Type 00, and as many folks will tell you, it’s the best.

For this bake, we made an Asparagus & Mushroom Pie and a Classic Pep. As usual, at this point, we made our tomato sauce fresh with San Marzano tomatoes, and I like to go a little heavy with the crushed garlic I add in. I also added some red pepper flakes and oregano. We did not make the dough the evening before as we were struck in the morning with the urge to eat homemade pie! So I prepped the dough in the morning and let it proof for about six hours before getting to the bake.

For the Asparagus pie, I sliced the heads of asparagus in half and tossed them in olive oil and a bit of pepper. I sliced and lightly sauteed oyster and baby bella mushrooms. When the pie came out, we finished with chives and olive oil—what a yummy pizza. Our first taste of the new crust, and we loved it!

The pepperoni stole the show. This was hands down the best pizza I’ve made. That has to do really with the quality of the bake and the crust—absolutely delicious stuff. The juices from the Gusto Pork Pepperoni blends so nicely with cheese and bread. I was super pleased with this one!

Really the only thing left wanting was the cheese. We only had whole foods shredded moz in the fridge, so I used that and sprinkled a bit of whole foods Italian Blend cheese as well. So there was no fresh moz. We did use a yummy goat milk finishing cheese for both pies.

I had an urge to revisit The Arctic Monkeys and found they released a really neat brooding lounge-style album called Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino in 2018. I just looped that. It was rad.

Here is the pie:

June 2020

32 - June 19th 2020

We took the second dough ball from the yield earlier this week and decided to use up a few ingredients in the fridge for toppings. We ended up with a sauteed mushroom and red onion Pepperoni pie. I thought the bake was really nice and I diced up the Gusto pepperonis to try and better spread the grease.

I loved the way this pizza came out with the blend of flavors and texture and I thought the bake was really solid. We had a little bit of dough left, like 85g worth and so Julie made a nice dessert calzone with peanut butter, chocolate chips, and honey. I definitely want to bake that again.

Here is the pie:

31 - June 17th 2020

Julie was craving a straight up pepperoni pizza pie! I’m still trying to get the crust consistency I want and so I decided to use 400g of dough from the yield. My thinking was that I’d be able to bake a slightly thinner pie. I’m still off by just a bit and ultimately this dough is great but it’s just not the flavor I want moving forward so we are going to try other options. As for the toppings I should have added a few more slices of pep to the pie. They shrink in the bake! I used Gusto Pepperonis from Whole Foods which I’ve used before. I called this pie a grease monster when it came out. A ton of moisture as you can see in the photo.

As for the sauce, we made a new batch with a can of Muir Glen Tomato Puree. I wanted to try and get a slightly thicker sauce and I think this was a solid attempt. I’ve been aggressive with my addition of garlic into the sauce and crushed up a full head of garlic (about 12 cloves). It’s not overly garlicky for me though, and I simply love the flavor when it comes through. We are making good pizzas now and I am feeling pretty comfortable in the prep and the bake. I look forward to changing up the ingredients and getting closer to the crust I want.

Here is what went on each pie:
85g Belfiore Fior di Latte (fresh moz)
Eye balled amount of whole foods shredded moz (I need a better second cheese)

Here is the pie:

24 - 30 - June 8th 2020

#24 - Pepperoni
#25 - Pepperoni with Sliced Red Onion and Green Peppers
#26 - Gluten Free Pizza
#27 - Mortadella and Ricotta Cream
#28 - Almond Pesto with Fresh Basil
#29 - Almond Pesto with Pepperoni
#30 - Margherita with Tomato

The worldwide protests for George Floyd, Police reformation, and BLM are still in full swing. I am still humbling baking pies, but I want to think of more ways that this project, or other projects can help support those who have faced systemic oppression their entire lives. Change is coming.

As for my time with my family at my parents home in Pennsylvania, that is coming to an end. I am headed back to San Francisco by way of Seattle and am looking forward to finding my focus again as I push on with projects and work. Greg and I had over 2000 grams of flour left and we decided to use it all to produce 8 dough balls. We doubled the recipe and each worked to make 4 dough balls. We also set out to revisit a gluten free crust. Gluten free is hard!

Greg had gone through the motions of properly activating the yeast for his, and it was interesting how the two batches were different. Essentially Gregs were quite light and airy and mine were slightly more compact. I believe we still have a ways to go before we find our dough. We made some really interesting pies this bake, perhaps my favorite was the Mortadella. If we revisit this one, we will want to get a much more thin mortadella. We only had access to the packaged kind.

We prepped three sauces. Another standard tomatoe, this time with a can of Cento San Marzano whole peeled tomatoes that I hand crushed. Not my favorite way of building the sauce, I will plan to continue to find crushed. We also made an almond pesto that included a bunch of raw almonds, 4 fresh tomatoes, 6 cloves of pressed garlic, and some salt and pepper to taste all combined in a processor. We also made a ricotta cream sauce which included 480g of ricotta, 480g of heavy cream, loads of fresh crushed black pepper (100 turns), and head of pressed garlic.

We used the almond pesto sauce twice. Once with our almond pesto pizza which was basically our standard cheese blend with fresh basil to finish. We felt the almond pesto needed a bit more of a punch so we used it as a base for a pepperoni at the end of the night and I enjoyed this combination.

Once again we had Hot Chip radio playing, which is probably one of my favorite stations to bake to.

Here are a few of the pies:

16 - 23 - June 2nd 2020

#16 & #17 - Pepperoni
#18 & #19 - Gluten Free Asparagus
#20 & #21 - Asparagus and Fresh Garlic Cream
#22 & #23 - Mushroom

For this bake, I was fortunate to be back home with my family, making pizzas with my brother. This project started as a conversation we had over the phone nearly two months ago. So I am deeply grateful to have had the privilege of exercising our creativity together in person. We started this bake at a time when the groundswell of justice for George Floyd was overflowing through cities across the US. People my age, demanding justice and change.

I can’t help but think that for too long we’ve had people in power whose mind set and willingness to realize actual change has been hindered by the age old adage: “We do it this way because this is how it’s always been done.” That mindset coupled with systemic racism has made real progress impossible. My generation is the one to start asking “why?” And that “why” is hugely important to me. I recognize my privilege and I will always support equality for all. In tech, I’ve seen this kind of lip service since I moved to the bay area in 2012. Companies with leaders who look like me say they want diversity, but they continue to come up short. They come up short, because the gate is still locked with a key that really only white people have. Which in my experience is basically a computer science education from a well regarded university. I do not want to simply be part of the lip service.

I am committed to learning how to better advocate for people of color, and I am committed to being part of the coming change. In the past, I’ve struggled to take action, in part because I was afraid of a misstep. I want to be an advocate but I don’t want to look like a fool. It seems to me the best thing I can do is continue to empathize, to listen, to educate myself, and to simply try.

As for the humble craft of baking pizzas, Greg and I went pretty big and prepped enough dough for 8 pizzas. We made two pep, two asparagus, two mushroom, and two gluten free.

We made three sauces for the bake. A Fresh Garlic cream for our asparagus Pie. A modified mushroom cream, and a tomato sauce. The garlic cream is as simple as it sounds. We pressed two heads of garlic into 480g of heavy cream and combined in a processor. As for the mushroom cream, we took about half of the yield from the garlic cream and added baked white mushroom, a half of a red onion diced, and some rosemary sprigs and combined those in a processor. I really liked the garlic in the mushroom cream. As for the tomato sauce it was pretty standard though we used a new type of tomatoes from producer Delallo Salerno Crushed Tomatoes. Again we added about 2 heads of crushed garlic. This was probably my favorite sauce to date, I think because of the tomatoes.

The bakes went well though our dough wanted to spread out and be 18 inches and we really could not accommodate for that size in the oven we had. So we had to push up some of the crust when we put them on the stone. Greg and I were moving around a lot pulling pies out, prepping, then throwing pies in the oven so I did not get any pictures. You’ll have to trust me that they turned out edible. In fact the asparagus was once again the fan favorite. Though we did have some strong sentiment towards the pepperoni as well. We used a sliced pork chorizo that baked really nicely. It will be worth it to try and track down some chorizo again for a pepperoni pie.

We had Hot Chip radio playing all night, and I really enjoyed this bake.

I only took one photo! One of the Mushroom pies below:

May 2020

14, 15 - May 28th 2020

It’s hard to believe I’ve made 15 pies in a month. I am super happy about it. When we started the project, I said that by pie 15, I wanted to start making pizzas for friends. That way I don’t have to eat 15 pizzas a month, but also to seek feedback. I feel comfortable doing that, but I recognize there is still so much I will learn as I get further along!

I talked the in-laws into letting me conduct an additional pizza experiment for them. A few weeks back, Julie and I ordered some delivery from the extraordinary Nopalito in San Francisco. Given all the precautions with COVID, they are offering taco kits that you kind of make at home. This really just involves putting the yummy stuff in the oven to warm up and then making your own tacos. But their carnitas is insanely flavorful and delicious, and since then, I’ve been wondering about a carnitas pizza! I thought a nice, charred and crispy carnitas would be a great pizza topping. So we set out to try it here at the in-laws in Gig Harbor.

Greg, my father-in-law, threw a big slab of pork shoulder in one of those slow cookers for like 24 hours. He added some of his own seasonings, and the pork had a lovely spicy heat to it. In the future, I’d like to create a seasoning blend that we can continue to replicate and make an effort to use more local pork. This pork came from Costco (no knock on Costco), as we are trying to use what we have. When the time came, Julie and I shredded up the pork, put it on a baking sheet, and broiled it for 4 minutes before the bake to try and get closer to the crispy texture I wanted. The broil plus the additional time during the bake made this meat feel like the real deal.

For the sauce, I just blended a canned Enchilada sauce I found in the pantry with some green chilis. I added a bit of crushed black pepper as well. As we were shaping the dough, we decided to take the sauce from the slower cooker and add some of that to our pizza sauce base. Good call by Julie, it brought in a bit more heat as well as some smaller pieces of pork!

Per usual, I prepped the dough the day before, though this time with a different flower. I was given some Tony Gemignani's type 00 flour, which I’ve not used to this point ( type 00 that is). It had an entirely different smell and texture. It’s pretty fun to start noticing subtle differences. Remembering this is all still a work in progress, I chose to make two pies from the yield, wondering if I could slightly thicken the crust and produce a somewhat larger pie. I cut the dough into two 438g balls and began shaping them. The first pie was a funny looking thing. I was not all that comfortable working with more dough and ended up producing a pizza that was way too crust heavy. Basically, I did not work enough of the dough out evenly from the center. I did what I’d normally done, but this left so much dough for the crust. The second pie, I had a better understanding of what the dough could do and made a proper pizza pie! This was also the first time my dough had beautiful bubbles, which I was way too excited about. But the bubbles are the real deal folks. Here is what went on each pie:

85g Fresh Mozzarella
58g Shredded Mozzarella (I ran out and just split the portion I had evenly)
We eyeballed the amount of carnitas (basically covered the pie)
We added a bunch of thinly sliced onions (another great call Julie)
When the pies came out, we finished with diced cilantro and a drizzle of Rocca Delle Macìe olive oil (we picked this up on our honeymoon, good stuff).

Julie played Buena Vista Social Club on shuffle, which was entirely appropriate. As I think about it, this was really the first major team effort pie, and I want to make more team pies!

Voila. 15 and 14. You can see how chubby the crust is on 14:

11, 12, 13 - May 24th 2020

#11 - Sausage, Artichoke Heart, and Garlic Cream
#12 - Asparagus and Garlic Cream
#13 - Sausage and Garlic Cream

This was a super fun bake. Julie and I are currently with her parents at their home in Gig Harbor, Washington. So cooking up here meant using a new oven for the first time since starting this project. I feel like baking on different ovens lends a little more street cred to the project! All three of the pies we made turned out really delicious. The oven up here did not get any hotter than 455, so the bake was right around 15 minutes for all three pizzas. I kept a watchful eye on the development of the crust and was super happy with the bake and the flavor of all three. We did not use the broiler for any of the pies.

When prepping the dough, I forgot to add olive oil. Funny mistake. I added it last, basically incorporating it into the already formed dough ball. It felt silly at the time, but I remembered I’m just out here learning, and it did not pose any problems later when crafting my dough balls. This batch produced three 292g dough balls.

They have a great little local market called Harbor Greens up here. I picked up some fresh mozzarella from producers BelGioioso, some creamy moz from a producer named Peterson Co, ground pork from the meat counter, and fresh garlic and fresh asparagus. All three pies were a bit more moist than previous ones we’ve baked, and it was likely the addition of a creamy moz instead of a low moisture moz. The first pie, #11, was a Sausage and Artichoke heart pizza, which was fabulous but had the most moisture of all three. The Artichokes were Kirkland brand from Costco that I found in the pantry, and were basically marinating in a jar of oil, so that could have been part of it.

First things first, I prepped a fresh garlic cream sauce to use as the base of all three pies. Basically, I peeled and pressed about a head and a half of garlic into 460g of heavy cream, then mixed in a blender. I really liked this sauce on the pies. It provided an excellent base for all three and did not overwhelm with garlic flavor. Next up was the sausage! I’ve never really worked much with raw meat, and I set out to use the sausage recipe from Pizzeria Beddia. That called for combining a number of ingredients to form a light paste, which I then mixed in with the coarse ground raw pork. Those included sea salt, whole black peppercorns, chili flakes, and sugar combined with chopped fresh sage and 3 peeled and crushed garlic cloves. I threw all of that stuff into a ziplock bag and used a rolling pin to incorporate the ingredients. I loved how the seasoning came out, and one of the best parts was the way the sausage cooked on the pizza. The sausage was delicious, but the juices combined with the seasoning oozed onto the pizzas and added super flavorful bites to pies #11 and #13.

Pie #12 was the standout of the evening. An Asparagus pie pulled from Pizza Camp. I started by slicing the heads of fresh asparagus into thin pieces (100g worth). I sprinkled a bit of olive oil on them, though that might have been unnecessary as I finished the pie with an olive oil drizzle. I also finished it with diced chives and a squeeze of lemon, and that proved to help create such a refreshing blend of flavors. This will be a pie we revisit often!

Some measurements. I used 75g of fresh mozzarella and 120g of shredded creamy mozzarella for all three pizzas. I sliced up the artichoke hearts and used 128g for pie #11. I did not weigh the sausage, but we had a lot, which is why I used it twice. To create the sausage, I simply pinched together around 25 small pieces total.

They have a little Alexa powered speaker system in the kitchen here, and I mostly had it shuffling through Vampire Weekend throughout the prep and the bake.

Here are the evenings pies from #13 to #11:

10 - May 18th 2020

One of my favorite pizzas in the world is a mushroom pie from Longbridge Pizza here in San Francisco. Since this project started, I’ve wanted to make a mushroom pie both as an homage to Longbridge, but also because Julie and I love mushrooms! And so, with some guidance from Joe Beddia, I set out to make a great mushroom pie. First, I prepared a mushroom cream sauce as the base for the pie. This sauce included baking a bunch of white mushrooms (Joe’s recipe calls for button shrooms, but I couldn’t find any) that were tossed in olive oil, salt, and pepper. Once those browned nicely (around 25 minutes) I pulled them out and pureed them with diced red onions, rosemary, and some heavy cream. I loved the addition of rosemary.

When it came time for the bake, I had already sauteed shiitake mushrooms as our main topping. I opened up a new block of fresh mozzarella from Wisconsin based producers Crave Brothers, and used whole foods shredded mozzarella as our low moisture cheese. This time out, I weighed all of my portions. It was a gentle, calming exercise, and I plan to do this moving forward. For posterity sake, my measurements were based on the assumption that I would bake a 11 - 13 inch pie. This one was probably closer to 13 inches. The measurements were:

70g of Fresh Mozzarella
125g of Shredded Low Moisture Mozzarella
75g of Sauteed Shitake Mushrooms

The thing I want to pay closer attention to is the volume of cheese. For a pie this size, the volume outlined above felt near perfect. Earlier in the day, I made a trip to a nearby restaurant supply store, which was an oddly enjoyable experience. I found myself wandering around the commercial kitchen section, wondering if we’d have our own shop someday. Anyway, I was not successful based on my list (I wanted pizza boxes as I’d like to serve these pies to people other than myself at some point). I did, however, pick up an oven thermometer. The range we have doesn’t actually have a temperature gauge! It turns out our oven won’t heat higher than 450. That is good knowledge to have, considering I had the dial cranked all the way up to 500. So our bake is roughly 13 minutes at this point. Around 8 minutes at 450 and then I flip to broil for a few minutes. For this pie, I switched the oven to broil a little earlier than pies of the past whilst the crust was still golden and only broiled for about 3 minutes. This produced a phenomenal crust.

All in all, I was deeply satisfied with this pizza. It’s hard to believe it’s number 10 already. Oddly enough, thinking about the pie a day later, we did not have any music playing. Perhaps I was enjoying myself too much to notice!

Here is #10 in all it's glory:

8 & 9 - May 17th 2020

This was our first go with a traditional white flower from North Carolina based producer Anson Mills AND with yeast! Until now, I’ve used baking powder. My brother saved the day and shipped me some yeast from his stockpile, which I gladly introduced in this dough. I made the dough the day prior, which is going to be the new standard moving forward unless otherwise specified. It’s just so much better. We made a pie for lunch and a pie later on for dinner. I wanted to revisit a pepperoni, but this time get the size and shape right. I was aiming for an 11 - 12 inch pie. Our current dough creation process yields three dough balls.

When the pepperoni came out, it felt like we’d made our first real pie. Size, shape, and taste were exactly what we hoped for. I think I’ve consistently said that each pie was the best one to date. I suppose that’s a good thing. Continual improvement! I’m going to try and stop saying that moving forward, but this pepperoni was indeed our best pie - a real pizza.

#9 was a blend of yummy ingredients that we have in the fridge. We used the rest of the pepperonis that I had diced for #8 and added pitted kalamata olives as well as peperoncinis. I don’t see peperoncinis on pizzas much, but I am obsessed with the sweeter flavor and bite of a peperoncini. We always have some in the fridge. #9 was also heavier on the low moisture shredded mozzarella as I ran out of the Belfiore fior di latte. All in all, there were some fantastic bites in #9. Salty from the olive and sweet and tangy from the peperoncinis. I want to continue to use peperoncinis in the future. This was a successful day of baking and a big step in the right direction.

It was Sunday so we had Dave Brubeks essential mix playing throughout the afternoon.

Take a peek at the pies starting with #8, the pepperoni:

6 & 7 - May 14th 2020

I made two pies today and am hooked on the value of a premade dough that sits for at least 24 hours. Julie really encouraged me to get comfortable stretching the dough as much as possible to find the crust we want and build trust in the dough's elasticity. And so we took one dough ball and cut it into two! I ran into a few issues of my own making (struggling with the transition from peel to stone), but pie #6, the pepperoni, was my best yet flavor-wise. It felt special. The crust was just as I’d imagined and an absolutely delicious balance of cheese. I picked up some fior di latte by Berkely based producers Belfiore and a block of low moisture whole foods mozzarella that I shredded.

At the moment, I don’t not want to deal with raw meat for the pepperonis so I got Vincenza's Uncured Pepperonis and diced them into smaller pieces. I think Vincenza's is a whole foods brand; I can’t find anything about them online. But they are yummy, all pork pepperonis and undoubtedly sufficient for our homemade pies. All in all, I loved #6 though the shape and size left me wanting. My 7th pie was great too, a simple cheese pizza. Again the goal with these two pies was to really stretch the dough. Our oven actually shut off switching from broil bake to bake, and I couldn’t get it to heat back up and so the pie sat on the stone for a long time. It was certainly edible (as most pizza is), but it was not the product I’ve been striving for. You can tell from the photo; the crust was just not cooked as well as if the oven was actually on. I am continuing to learn lessons and improve, which is why we’re doing this!

Once again, I woke up with the song that started the evenings playlist in my head. It felt entirely appropriate at this early stage in my pie-making odyssey: Don’t check the score, Hamilton Leithauser

Here are both pies, pepperoni first because it was better:

5 - May 13th 2020

I’ve frequented so many pizzerias in my life. I love the feeling of being a regular somewhere (coffee shops, pizzerias). Growing up, my parents always ordered from our local Round Table Pizza. Today a pretty well-known chain, but back in the 90’s, I had no clue it was a ‘chain’. It’s still hands down one of my favorite pizzas. Whether we dined in the restaurant or had delivery, we knew everyone that worked there. That kind of community around food feels right to me.

Our local Round Table was owned by brothers who immigrated from somewhere in the Eastern Block, and the staff was mostly Mexican Americans. That they were from somewhere else never mattered and it should never matter. We were friends. There are things about today's society that bother me, and my main disappointment stems from how we seem to be divided in America. I struggle to understand the fear of immigration and xenophobia rising on the Right. Study just a tiny bit of history, and you recognize that most of the conflicts from past societies are a result of nationalist movements. The bottom line from my perspective is that we are all human beings engaged in similar struggles. I’ve learned that people in the US consume something like 100 acres of pizza per day. All that pizza is undoubtedly made by people from all walks of life, from all over the globe, and pizza came to the US by way of Italian Immigrants. Let’s love and support one another regardless of where we come from.

In the last few years, as my consciousness has evolved, and my empathy deepened, I’ve wondered about the lives of the folks at my favorite pizza spots. Often this thought will bubble up: “Are these people satisfied simply making pizza for a living?” It’s usually both a question fueled by my insecurities around the status we associate with one's job title. And an actual question of whether these people are fulfilled. Likely an unconscious search into whether this kind of work would leave me fulfilled. I better understand that in a shop like Longbridge (my favorite in SF), it’s probably just about the pizza. These people love pizza. I look at this book, Pizza Camp, and I know that Joe Beddia loves pizza. I love pizza. That love sort of feels like enough to be happy.

Okay, off the soapbox and on to the pizza. I am super excited about this pie. This is the first pie for which I premade dough the day before following the guidance laid out in Pizza Camp. I sit here writing this entry as I wait for the oven to heat up, my wife to finish her meetings, and for the dough to rise a bit more. I am using the last of the cheese I bought, so essentially, this is my first attempt at the purest pizza classic. Cheese / Margherita. I didn’t care much for cheese pizza growing up. I liked toppings. Today, as a well-traveled adult with a bit more of an education in pizza, I kind of live for a cheese pie. So here goes my attempt. My fifth pie, topping free save for some fresh mozzarella, shaved provolone, and the whole foods Italian blend cheese. Not the combination I want, but I don’t want to waste ingredients. At this stage, the journey is still more about the crust.

When the pie came out, I was so happy! I was able to work the dough into what I felt was an actual real pizza. It was thin, and the cheese cooked in a way it hasn’t before. I watched it bubble up in the oven with deep satisfaction! The crust also had distinct bubbles, which was genuinely thrilling, and the only thing I’d go back and change is to try and bring the size of the crust down slightly by stretching more.

I actually woke up with this song stuck in my head and used it to kick off the evenings playlist: Redemption Song, Bob Marley

Here is the pie:

4 - May 10th 2020

This was a fun pie. I felt happy crafting, and settled in slightly more than the last few and just got to work. Julie had a great suggestion that in addition to sharing the pie here, I should share the music or song that inspired the pie crafting. I love music, and when I am working on a pie I usually have something playing. So from here on out I will also share the song that started the evenings playlist so that you get a sense of the vibe that built the pie. I have a vision in the back of my mind that should our own shop eventually come from this 100 pie exercise, music will be a huge component of the shop. Something to set the tone and intention each day. I find music to be inspiring and energizing. It’s a fixture of my daily life.

My aim with this one was to get the crust closer to my vision of a blend of New York & Neapolitan style. Basically a thinner crust. I did not really hit that target, and in this case the pie needed a few more minutes on the stone. The crust came out and was decent but slightly too soft. I picked up some new pizza sauce, which is becoming one of my favorite parts of the process. I chose some canned goodies from local producer, Muir Glen. I believe this was the best job I’ve done with toppings and char, and I liked the sauce, but as mentioned, a bit disappointing on the crust both in terms of cook time and thickness. It was not thin enough.

Song that started the evening: Sound & Color, Alabama Shakes

Here is the pie:

3 - May 7th 2020

Changed the ingredients a bit as we ran out, but still shopping at Whole Foods. Eventually, I want to focus on more organic ingredients when things start to get back to normal. For this pie, I wanted to make something with broccoli, so I went to whole foods and got fresh broccoli and two new cheeses. Di Stefano Mozzarella which was whole milk and I was basically filtering for whole milk. Then I picked up some provolone. I should have used another mozzarella but didn't. At home I tossed a good amount of thinly sliced yellow onions with olive oil, salt and pepper and then baked them at 475 for 20 minutes. We have a food processor and so I blended the onions into the sauce we made for pie #1 & #2. It was a really nice touch and we used more sauce then we did for the first two pies.

Here is the pie:

2 - May 3rd 2020

I realized that the flour I have from Ibis is a Red Wheat flour. Also we don’t have any yeast at the moment so the crust is nowhere near a finished product. It’s actually good, but it’s crunchy and you can’t fold the pizza without breaking the slice in half. I put an order in for some Pizza flower from Anson Mills in SC (https://ansonmills.com/products). Our pizza stone is 14 inches so I am consistently making smaller pies, like 12 inches. I want bigger ones! So for this attempt we used sliced brussel sprouts and mushrooms. It got a bit more char on it than I probably would want in the future but I enjoyed this one and felt like it was an improvement on the previous pie.

Here is the pie: