Friday Pizza Box 1/6/23
Welcome to the Wordloaf Pie January Friday Pizza Box, a weekly roundup of links and items relating to pizza.
Pizzattone
I just learned yesterday that Olga Koutseridi’s epic Wordloaf panettone post got mentioned in a recent Julia Moskin Times story on the bread (woot!). In the piece, Italian baking expert Laura Lazzaroni linked panettone to pizza, in the way that it took it being embraced elsewhere before Italians did so too:
Laura Lazzaroni, a journalist and bread consultant, said panettone is following the arc traced by pizza: A food not considered particularly interesting at home catches on abroad, is adopted by foreign artisans, then returns to great fanfare.
“We never fell out of love with pizza, but we didn’t think about it very much,” she said. “Then people started coming home from America saying, ‘I had better pizza in California than in — insert name of my town in Italy here — and we have to do something about it.’”
Pizza anytime?
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Stock photo
Not sure how good this would be, but:
ALLENTOWN, PA—In preparation for a traditional family recipe passed down by her grandparents, local woman Nicole Fitzsimmons sealed several leftover pizza crusts in a plastic container Thursday with an eye to making pizza stock from them later this week. “Most people just throw out their ‘pizza bones,’ but there’s a ton of flavor still in there,” said Fitzsimmons, 25, who “puts her own spin” on the recipe by throwing in leftover carrots, celery, and root vegetables. “You just toss warm water, pizza crusts, and your veggies in the kettle, and after a couple of hours, the connective dough in the crusts break down into a rich, savory base and you have delicious pizza stock. Super simple, and tastes way better than the pre-made pizza broth they sell at the grocery store.” Fitzsimmons also set aside several Sam Adams empties in order to try brewing her own beer bottles.
Anyone tried this?
A good pizza tweet
Given the number of likes on this tweet, I don’t think I really need to explain it. We were all there when it happened.
Scarr’s 2
NYC pizzeria Scarr’s has been on my list for a visit for a long time, both because of the reputation of their slices, and because they are one of the only old-school NY slice joints making pizza from in-house freshly-milled flour. I’ve heard the lines are long, which is one reason I’ve not been, but maybe their plans to expand will ease this some:
A $3.75 cheese slice from Scarr’s is very good. The sturdy crust is thinner than you’d expect and somehow lighter. The sauce is vibrant. When the 750-square-foot space opened, it was probably the only slice shop in New York that sold bottles of skin-contact Gewürztraminer. Yet this does not fully explain the crowds that line up each day or the tourists who travel to New York specifically to eat some of Pimentel’s pizza or the sneaker collector who paid a six-figure sum for Nikes stamped with the Scarr’s logo. Scarr’s Pizza has become an unlikely hub for food nerds and hypebeasts alike, and it is now moving across the street to a larger space that matches the growing fame of its easygoing owner.
That’s it for this week’s pizza box. May you all have a peaceful/pizzaful weekend.
—Andrew
The only reason not to eat bones is if the crust is mediocre (or worse).
Stock photo…..Pizza Stock
The Onion always has good recipes 🤔