Pizzacentric

Blue crabs and foods comprising crabmeat are like soul food to old timers from the Eastern Shore regions of Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware. But the Chesapeake was over-crabbed. Demand expanded beyond the regional population. And importers began to bring (inferior) crab meat from other parts of the world.  Prices continue to rise.

My grandmother was raised in a kosher home and never ate pork or any meat with dairy. But she loved crab cakes and shrimp and she broke kosher law by eating these foods. Her soul, it seems, was part Eastern Shore.

It would be an interesting study to trace the dissolution of loyalty to kosher through the past few generations. Why was shellfish an acceptable departure but not milk with meat?  

Another family elder — who has asked to remain anonymous — also strayed from kosher. He eats pork sausage, bacon, and cheeseburgers; shrimp, scallops, and lobster — though never in his own home and not until later in life. But he will not and has not ever eaten crab. "Why?" I've often wondered. His reason, it turns out, has nothing to do with diet or religion or ethics or flavor. 

About eighty years ago when he was a boy — it was an era when, I imagine, American shorelines were more accessible and less privatized, a time when children could wander and explore nature without paying admission (it was also a time when fireworks were still legal in Massachusetts) — he had an experience with crabs that etched to his soul a deep disdain for the creatures. It will never fade.  

Here’s the story, as told to me by Mr. Anon, a 94-year-old relative of mine who happens to be a native of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Over the years he has told me many incredible stories from his life but until now, has not allowed me to share them with others. This one's a gem.

It happened in the summertime when I was about 14 years old, in Winthrop, Massachusetts, where I grew up. It was a beautiful time of life. It was nothing to walk through the water and climb up on a rock and as the tide came in, to look down and see lobsters and flounder and all kinds of perch. You could drop in a hand line and catch a bunch of perch and you'd have dinner for the day. The water was so crystal clear. The fish were so plentiful. Sadly, young people today cannot know of the bountiful nature that existed years ago. 

On one particular beautiful day — just before the Fourth of July — the sun was shining, the tide was out, and I was walking in the shallow water to go swimming. It was a rocky beach — not sandy — and it was notorious for these large crabs that were about five or six inches across, not including the claws. You had to go through a lot of seaweed to get to the deep water and the crabs lived in this seaweed.  

As I walked through to go swimming, one of them latched onto my toe — firmly. I yelled and kicked and threw him right off. But it hurt like anything!  

So I decided to buy a whole string of firecrackers and untangle it so that I would have individual firecrackers. I walked out along the beach to where all the crabs were peacefully sunning themselves in the seaweed — blowing bubbles, happy as anything.  

I approached one, and immediately his claws went up. I took a firecracker, put it between his claws and he clamped right down on it. I lit it, walked away, and watched [as he pulled the firecracker toward his center and] blew himself up. This was the prelude to the Hamas suicide bombers, you know.

And so I did that all along the beach, blowing up crabs from one end to the other. I must have done about fifty or sixty crabs. When high tide came in, it was crab meat washing all along the shore. Seagulls descended in droves for the free meal. They cleaned up the beach.

I love shrimp, I love lobster, and I love clams. I hate crabs. To tell the truth, I never had them before that day when I blew them up. And I never had them after. Many times people have tried to get me to try crabs. If they hadn’t bit me I might have had a different attitude. 

But it was fun watching them blow themselves up — handing each one a firecracker that it thought was someone else’s toe. The firecrackers really made a bang. And that bang blew them up. It really was great to see them go to pieces. They deserved it. CH-CH-CH-CH-CH-BOOM!! I hope I got the one that [had grabbed] me. That’s the area of the beach I was working on.

I wouldn't hurt those crabs if I was back there again. I don't even know if I would kill a cockroach if I saw it in the house. I like to preserve life in nature. That's why, when I caught that snake in my apartment last year, I released it into the woods.

But it is a food chain. You have to accept that the nutrients we need are in the food chain. Some people don't. They're vegetarians. For me, the bottom line is: moderation in everything.

***

Blowing up fifty or sixty crabs with firecrackers serves no meaningful purpose. Clearly. And who am I to judge the ethics of Mr. Anon’s war on crabs in 1932? However, I do not think the story validly explains his refusal to try crabs. Crabs are good!

(My non-acceptance of another person's eating rules represents one of my greater flaws. Real hypocrisy. No one can talk me into eating organ meats and yet sometimes I get pushy and try to persuade others to eat something they don't like or want. I have said to vegetarians, that they should eat clams because clams have no central nervous system and really, they're more like celery than chicken. I don't even think this is true!)

Why do people dislike certain foods? Of course, a person would eat anything if his/her survival depended on it. But what about situations where life is not at stake? I don't know. (A top result of my search on the topic turned up this article. It's not very scientific.)

Before I get to clams — which of course I must do because I love clams and there's a clams part of Mr. Anon's story that belongs here also — I must add that he is a gentle human being. When I asked him how he can reconcile his demeanor of today with that of a formerly delinquent crab-bomber, he said:

I know a lot of people are conscious of protection of life, trying to contribute to the health of the environment these days. But in those days when I was 14, people didn't reflect on the environment or talk about environmental protection.

***

Okay, clams. After he told me the story of the exploding crabs, Mr. Anon reminisced about the clam chowder he has eaten over the course of his life. His memories almost culminate in a recipe, so I decided to include it here.

A couple notes. The "littlenecks" to which he refers are clams that others call "soft shell clams," Ipswich clams, or "piss clams." Twin breathing siphons protrude from one of the narrow ends of these elongated bivalve mollusks. (I wrote about them in this Pizzacentric story here.) I cannot verify the superiority of one type of clam over another when it comes to chowder, but I trust my Massachusetts source when he claims that these types of clams are the best ones for making a proper clam chowder.  

A partly-consumed caesar salad at Peppino's in Park Slope, Brooklyn.

It’s no secret to anyone who knows me that I'm a fan of the pizza at the Pines of Rome in Bethesda, Maryland.  I love how the pizzamen there press the tomato sauce into uncooked dough with their fingers so that the two become one, but yet how some tomato fragments manage to surface above the cheese by the time the pizza is finished cooking.  I also love the white pizza.  It’s made with olive oil, shallots, herbs, and with or without fontina cheese.  The crust is crispy and chewy with underside air pocket craters.

I’ve searched long and far in New York for pizza similar to that of the Pines of Rome.  I had thought that in a city as vast and vastly Italian-rooted as New York is — where pizza choices vary in both nuanced and obvious ways — that of course I would find worthy proxies for the Pines of Rome.  

Good pizza?  Yes.  Worthy proxies?  Fleeting and rare.

In Bethesda, Maryland, the Pines of Rome's white pizza — sans cheese.

***

For a time, years ago, I regularly inhaled slices at a place called Cristardi’s, where the texture of both red sauce and crust reminded me of the Pines of Rome.  It was a tiny square room with no seats located behind a drugstore on a side street in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn.  There was no sign outside so, not only did I feel in-the-know, but the reward was the best pizza in a neighborhood replete with good pizza.  

Cristardi's closed years ago and the drugstore has since expanded into their old space.  I asked the pharmacist if he knew how to find the Cristardi's people and whether they had another place.  I searched the phone book and the internet.  I asked many neighborhood old-timers and pizza people.  Ten years later, I still look.  But no dice.  

There's a lesson here: enjoy your favorite pizza while you can.

Eventually, I took to the practice of transporting both white and red pies, plus orders of the garlicky roasted red and yellow peppers, from the Pines of Rome back to New York whenever possible.  I love cold storage.

View on a snowstorm from within Peppino's, in Park Slope, Brooklyn.

And then, discovery.  Last week, my wife suggested we venture through a snowstorm to Peppino’s in Park Slope — a newish pizza/pasta restaurant with a wood- and gas-fired oven and a Bay Ridge pedigree.  I had wanted to try a different and more-hyped pizza restaurant that night, but boy am I glad we went to Peppino's!  Because Peppino's serves something that is as good a proxy for the cheeseless version of the Pines of Rome’s white pizza as I’ve had in New York.  

The funny thing is — maybe because in New York, white pizza almost always has ricotta — Peppino’s doesn’t even call it pizza.  Instead, it’s "Garlic Crisps.”  I discovered these "crisps" only because they are served — in square cuts like those at the Pines of Rome — as croutons atop salad.  When was the last time a caesar salad made your day?!!

Linda, the server, agreed with me when I pointed out how good they are.  “I’m obsessed with them,” she said.  

Crispy along the edges, tender in the center, and seasoned with minced fresh garlic, Italian parsley, and olive oil, they are not exactly the same as the Pines of Rome's white pizza without cheese — but they come close.  I asked if they would serve them — instead of in a basket or atop a salad — as a whole pie.  They said yes, ask for two orders of garlic crisps kept together as a pizza.  

Peppino's large half-pepperoni, half-veggie pie.

One need not go to Peppino’s just to experience the fulfillment of Pizzacentric’s yen for Pines of Rome white pizza.  Peppino's regular pies are also good.  

Visually, they look a little like Joe & Pat's (and its brethren joints, Ciro and Pier 76 on Staten Island, and Rubirosa in Manhattan) except with thicker crust.  And the small-diameter pepperoni you can get on a red pie (they curl up and get crisp around the edges) and the default use of fresh mozzarella each remind me of Lombardi’s.   

Visually, the topside of a Peppino's pie resembles that of Joe & Pat's (and pedigree),
but the fresh mozzaarella & small rounds of crisp-edged pepperoni veer into Lombardi's territory.

***

I returned to Peppino's a few days later equipped with fontina cheese.  They didn't mind adding it to my whole pie order of Garlic Crisps.  Click the below photo of my custom white pizza with fontina for a short video of Hubert, Peppino's pizzaman, as he prepared it.  It turns out, it was more like the white pizza at Geppetto, a DC restaurant owned my uncle than that of Pines of Rome.  When I worked at Geppetto we liked to make red pizzas with that garlicky white sauce added on — so good!  But all that's another story for another day.

Peppino's Pizza in Brooklyn, NY.  (1)  469 Fifth Avenue (between 10th & 11th Streets, in Park Slope).  Tel. 718-768-7244.  F or G train to Fourth Avenue.  Map Peppino's, Park Slope

They used to say it’s the water -- why bread and bagels and pizza were supposedly better in New York.  I don’t know if anyone has debunked this myth but I’ve found no good proof ― neither scientific nor anecdotal ― to convince me it’s true.

Perhaps it's that the skill of bread-making is not easily transferrable.  I’ve seen bread master Jim Lahey sweat from frustration whilst prodding an employee to get the stretch right.  The guy may have made bread but, pre-bake, it didn’t look like Jim’s bread.

I’ve had Pizza of Great Dough in New Haven and New Jersey and I’ve heard that great dough exists in SF, AZ, LA, and Chicago.  I assume the owners of older spots mastered the art years ago and passed the trick along to next generations when the time came.  I imagine that when it comes to the newer good spots, success of dough has come via a long journey of trial and error.

--

I love the story Giovanni Lanzo told me about how when he was making dough in the back of his dad’s shop, Luigi’s, many years ago, his father would yell from the front ― without ever peeking ― feedback along the lines of, “It needs more water!”  He knew from the sound.

Similar is the story of Luciano Gaudiosi, who now runs Sal and Carmine with his Great Uncle Carmine and his brother George.  A few years ago, when Grandpa Sal ― the heart and brains behind S & C's pizza ― was on the verge of dying, heir apparent Luciano confessed his insecurity about taking over the business and, in particular, how he would get the dough right.  He figured it out.

Sal and Carmine is in the vein of the many pizzerias that once dominated the streets of New York.  At these places, it was a guy or two in there working, at least one of whom was the owner.  Consistency of product was also important: homemade dough with a minimum one day rise, no preservatives ― unprocessed cheese.  

Romantic, huh?  I’ve observed that today ― in particular in Mahattan, where rents have become prohibitive for mom & pop shops like pizzerias ― many have either declined in quality,  chainified, or shut down.  People, thank the heavens, still appreciate homemade stuff.  Even the Sbarro chain is banking on that (read this storyto see what it has planned for its locations).  

Luciano at Sal & Carmine told me of his concern about how much the rent could increase come 2016.  If it crosses above $10,000/month, he doesn't know whether it will be worth it to stay (the place seems to have about 750 square feet).  Of course that’s the case: it's pizza, a low cost (and, I would argue, essential) New York food item.  To state the obvious: you gotta sell a lot of slices and pies to make big rent.  Let’s hope that when the time comes, it gets worked out.

In the meantime, watch the video (click photo above) to catch a glimpse of how valuable a multi-generational pizzeria can be.  Topic of the day: dough.  Then, head up to 102nd Street for a slice.  A damned good slice at that!

***

Sal & Carmine Pizza in New York, NY.  2671 Broadway (between 101 and 102 Streets).  Tel. 212-663-7651.  #1 train to 103rd Street.  Map Sal & Carmine. Hours: 7 days, 11:30 am - 10 pm.  Sal and Carmine website.

Perhaps no pizzeria has inspired more hunger and admiration amongst pizzaphiles and food adventurers alike than Di Fara ― a classic corner joint in Midwood, Brooklyn.  Lines snake out the door, the wait for even a slice can exceed an hour, and owner Dom DeMarco -- the man who makes all of the pies ― speeds up for no one.

I have written about the experience of waiting for pizza at Di Fara (awesome way to pass time!) and many have covered Di Fara with reverence for this man who does pizza the old-fashioned way.  

But admiration for Dom aside, people go to Di Fara for pizza.  Many places ― like Glaser’s Bake Shop and Russ & Daughters ― remain owner-run and convey multi-generational pride in everything they do.  Things worth celebrating.  But to my knowledge none have lines like Di Fara.  Granted, Dom moves slowly and makes pizzas one at a time, but it's pizza that brings people there.  Pizza.  What is it about Di Fara’s pizza that makes such a splash?  I asked the owners if I could weigh and measure the ingredients as Dom prepared pizza.  Maybe I would find some answers.  They said yes!

A tale of three cheeses.  It turns out that with both varieties of pizza at Di Fara ― the square and the round ― it’s what Dom does with cheese that truly differentiates his pizza from others.  By “cheese” I refer to any of the three general types he uses.  Square and round pies both receive whole milk low-moisture mozzarella (a cheese common to most pizza) and grated Grana Padano or Parmigiano Regiano (both aged Italian cheeses).  The square pie also receives fresh mozzarella ― either mozzarella di bufala or fior di latte (from cow’s milk), both of which are imported from Italy.  

But what does Di Fara do with these cheeses?

Altering the paradigm.  With the round pie, Dom uses slightly more grated cheese (usually grana padano) than mozzarella.  To my knowledge, no other place does this.  The result is cheese-borne saltiness that finds its perfect counterpart in Di Fara’s good tomato sauce.  Try it at home: make a pizza, however you normally would, and use at least as much grated grana padano as mozzarella.  Drizzle on a little olive oil and voilà -  the Di Fara flavor. 

Defying physics.  Dom again alters the paradigm with his square pie, a triple cheese-and-sauce power combo.  Ask for extra cheese at most pizza shops and it means a thicker coat of the same stretchy and congealy mozz.  The cheese on Di Fara’s square is 40% whole milk low-moisture mozzarella, 40% fresh mozzarella from Italy (either mozzarella di bufala or fior di latte), 20% grana padano.  Its twice-baked dough, though topped with over 2¼ pounds of cheese and sauce, defies physics and comes off light, airy, crunchy, and chewy on the bottom and, yes rich, but also refined on top.  

I’ve seen how, when Dom has more than one square pie in the oven, the room can get a little smoky.  The day I went to measure and weigh ingredients was a big day for the square.  It happens because olive oil, liberally applied onto the pan’s surface below the parbaked crust, has splattered onto the hot oven surface.  I wouldn’t attempt this pizza at home!  Instead, head to Di Fara, spend the afternoon, order a slice and a square, and taste the cheese.

***

Di Fara Pizza in Brooklyn, NY.  1424 Avenue J (at East 15th Street).  Tel. 718-258-1367.  Q train to Avenue J.  Map Di Fara. Hours: Wed - Sat: lunch 12 - 4:00 pm, dinner 7 - 9 pm; Sun: lunch 1 - 4 pm, dinner 7 - 8 pm; closed Monday and Tuesday.  Check Di Fara’s Facebook page for updated and last minute changes.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Scott Wiener L-O-V-E-S pizza ― and pizza could not have a better advocate.  He runs a pizza tour business in New York.  I’ve attended the tour and I’ve run into him conducting tours a number of times.  It's not just pizza the food he loves, it's also pizza technology and pizza history and pizza culture and really anything pizza.  Tell him about a restaurant with a destroyed coal oven buried in the sub-basement and he goes to investigate.  Bring up the absence of water buffalo in the United States (from whose milk mozzarella di bufala is made) and he cites economics: cows produce four times as much milk as buffalo.

So it was Scott's event, Slice Out Hunger, to which I eagerly headed this past Wednesday night.  Thirty-two New York pizzerias ― including many of the biggest in town ― donated a minimum of five pies each.  I delivered five pies from Di Fara and ten from Sam’s Restaurant.  But Jim Lahey’s Co. was there; Kesté and Don Antonio both represented (with owher Roberto Caporuscio himself serving slices); Arturo’s, Lombardi’s, Joe’s, and other classics ― plus some places I haven’t yet tried, like Cowboy Pizza and Farinella.

The money raised from the event ― $12,903 in total ― was donated to City Harvest, a non-profit that collects exceess food from restaurants and other food businesses and delivers it free of charge to community food programs throughout New York City.  Every dollar donated results in the collection and delivery of four pounds of food ― so that's over 50,000 pounds of food for people thanks to Slice out Hunger and the thirty-two pizzerias that participated!

I roved around with my Flip Video camera and documented the love people have for pizza ― love, of course, that is amplified due to the dollar price per slice, the good cause, and Scott Wiener’s vision, passion, and execution. Click top photo to watch the video.

I'll be there next year ― will you?

--

Slice Out Hunger is Produced by Scott Wiener of Scott's Pizza Tours.
See Slice Out Hunger's Website for details.

SLIDESHOW: Lombardi's NYC, a place where coal burns.

Lombardi's current coal oven is a block away from (but at least as old as) the original.

Gennaro Lombardi at the original Lombardi's coal-burning oven, c. 1956 (Photo courtesy Gerry Lombardi)

On its surface, a Lombardi's pizza is a simple thing: dough, tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, and basil...

...but the flavor imparted by a coal-burning oven offers a culinary glimpse into America's pizza past.

Busy but efficient, Lombardi's is frequented by tourists and locals alike.

The place must do a ton of delivery business - they'll bring pizza to most of Manhattan below 14th Street.

John Brescio: Don't question his devotion to pizza.

According to Brescio, Lombardi's goes through about 1,000 pounds of anthracite coal PER DAY!

Ah, the rest stop.  Found along an off-ramp that doesn’t exit the highway, it's a place where people refuel their vehicles and themselves and where they eliminate solid and liquid waste from their bodies — and from their pets. When it comes to eating along a toll road, there isn't much choice: just the rest stop. When my family hits the road — often with our car filled to the brim — there's no time to pack a lunch, so we either time the drive to occur between meals or we suck it up and go to one of these places.

Here's the problem: the food at a rest stop can leave a person feeling downright ill. In fact, one’s compulsion to call rest stop food food depends upon one’s personal definition of the word. On Friday, I had a roast beef sandwich and curly fries at Roy Rogers at the Walt Whitman stop of the New Jersey Turnpike. These items were not food.

SLIDESHOW: Hungry in NJ? Trapped on the Turnpike? Let's go here!

Sugary temptations for the kids. Good luck parents! (Who profits from this?)

At the Woodrow Wilson rest stop on the New Jersey Turnpike. 

Unlike Burger King and others, Roy Rogers offers a Fixin's Bar - an assortment of self-serve condiments.

3-piece chicken and biscuit (bot. left): 1375 calories, 91 g of fat, 2660 mg sodium (wow).

Though no roast beef sandwiches were on display, an employee prepared one for me in less than a minute. How old are these sandwiches?

Holster Fries (at right): 546 calories, 29 g of fat.

Roy Roger's roast beef sandwich (surrounded by items from the Fixin's Bar): 368 calories, 822 mg sodium.

When we exited Autostrade A1 onto E45 on our way to Pizzeria Salvo in Naples the plan was to rely upon Google’s map turn details (sans cellular connection) because in Naples there are no street signs.  I wondered how would we know when Via delle Repubbliche Marinare becomes Via Provinciale Botteghelle di Portici?  (That was the point at which the directions said to drive five hundred meters and then turn left.)  When we faced a straight road with low buildings, few trees, and litter scattered about, we saw a single car crawling forward inch-by-inch.  Its driver ― with an arm extended out the window, has hand holding a leash ― was "walking" the dog.

My friends in Rome have always refused to go to Naples with me despite its being less than ninety minutes away and, because I had read or received plenty of warnings like “Stay away from Naples,” “Don’t drive in Naples,” and “You should read Gomorrah,” I had yet to visit. 

I know.  A person with my passion for pizza and impetus for food experiences should have hopped aboard a cheap train years ago to stop in at the meccas Antica Pizzeria Port’Alba and Pizzeria Brandi for what I am sure are heavenly pizza experiences.  But when in Italy I’ve always been happy with pizza in Rome and everywhere else I’ve gone and ― in the US at least ― I've often found Naples-style pizza to be soggy in the center.

This summer, since I would be traveling with my family and our friends and their family, and since these friends wanted to go to Naples because the husband’s ancestors had emigrated to the United States from Casalnuovo di Napoli and he wanted to see it, it was finally time to try pizza in Naples.

I called Scott Wiener.  He’s a pizza expert who owns a pizza tour business in New York.  He’s been to Naples and I figured he’d have good advice.  He said I should go to Pizzeria Salvo, an old and well-respected place in Naples’ southern neighborhood of San Giorgio a Cremano.

“You think that’ll be good enough?” I asked him.  “Or should I brave the roads and head to the harbor, find a parking lot, and eat at one of the famous places?”  

“No,” he said.  “First off, if you have a car and try to go to the center of town, there are no parking lots.  When you pull up to the restaurant, a guy will come up to you and offer to take your keys and take care of the car while you eat.”

“Does he work for the restaurant?” I asked.

“No.  But anyway,” he added, “Pizzeria Salvo is really good.”

That settled it.  I wasn’t about to drive my family and lead my friends, all of us in rental cars with who-knows-what insurance, into the center of Naples in order to hand the keys over to a sketchy car parker guy, all so that I could taste one pizza over another.

--

To discuss Naples-style pizza one must consider its crust, which I find both cursed and blessed at the same time ― mainly due to the wet factor.  Don’t get me wrong ― I like it.  But in nearly every experience I’ve had with this kind of pizza (most of them in New York City), I’ve needed fork and knife.  

A good Naples crust ― at least around its puffy perimeter ― offers all the complexity, salt, and chew of good baker’s bread; but the center ― thin because this is the style, and soft due to a quick high-temperature cook time ― doesn’t merely sag, it falls.  

At Salvo, pizzas measure about fourteen inches in diameter and come in several combinations.  I wanted to compare the flavor and effects of mozzarella di bufala with those of fior di latte (fresh cow’s milk mozzarella), so I tried two different pies.  The biggest and most general finding of my test confirmed something I already knew: variance of items on a dough affects strength-of-crust.  While both pizzas had the same crust the one called Margherita del Vesuvio (a “white” pizza with grape tomatoes, mozzarella di bufala, extra virgin olive oil, and basil ― 4 Euros) provided superior sturdiness ―I believe because it had no sauce. You could pick it up! 

The other ― a standard fior di latte Margherita (7,50 Euros) ― turned soggy in the middle within a minute or two.

(Scroll from this photo of the fior di latte margherita to see the sturdier but blobbier Margherita del Vesuvio.)

On the menu, Salvo provides sourcing information for all of its ingredients.  The grape tomatoes on the Vesuviopizza were canned Pomodorini del Piennolo del Vesuvio DOP di Casa Barone; the mozzarella di bufala was from the Caseificio Golino & Bellopede; and the olive oil was from Villa Dora.  The pomodorini were juicy and sweet and rendered sauce unnecessary. 

Sadly, the mozzarella di bufala was thick and chewy; Salvo’s blobby application of it made me wish for less.  It also made me appreciate the Roman pizza al taglio method for cheese: rather than cooking mozzarella di bufalathey add it to baked pies in the form of small room temperature hand-pulled strands.  

Meanwhile, though Salvo’s fior di latte Margherita did suffer from soggy interior, its cheese more than made up for the downside.  It was extraordinary: creamy and rich,  just the right amount of salt, and not at all blobby.  The sauce was sweet but in a non-sugared way and, as with the Vesuvio, the pedigree of all of its ingredients is listed in detail on the menu.  Here's Salvo’s menu.

When I asked the owner’s son, whose name I did not find out, which cheese is the true pizza mozzarella, he said fior di latte is more traditional.  Then he elaborated on Salvo’s philosophy: “For us, every pizza is a dish.  We use only ingredients from Campania.  We don’t want products from industry.  Even the beer we have is artisanal beer.”

Over the course of several visits and with Alexia as my guide, I have learned how to do coffee in Rome.  I write this on the morning of the day I will head to Italy ― and I don’t know what I’ll do about coffee: I think it has begun to disagree with my inner workings.

But I have yet to celebrate Italian coffee on Pizzacentric and ― seeing as it’s summer in New York and Rome ― my thoughts have turned to granita, a coffee-, almond-, pistachio-, or fruit-flavored frozen drink Sicilians often have for breakfast with a brioche roll.  I did not think decent granita exists in New York, but it does at Grom, a chain of Italian gelato stores that have opened here and elsewhere around the world.  More on Grom below.

Imagine you are in Rome and already amped up on caffeine.  You began the day, as is proper, with a cappuccino ― or a doppio cappuccino ― and cornetto.  Then while touristing around you stopped in at a few different bars for espresso.  Thus, you have had more coffee than you should have had, but in Rome perfect cups announce their presence through the doors of bars all over: the clinking of porcelain on porcelain and the hum of compressors forcing hot water through filter and ground coffee into little cups, the motorized crunching of beans, the megaphoned whisper of steam as it explodes milk against the inside walls of metal pitchers, and the chit-chatting Italians who hold these drinks for less than a minute before downing their contents in one or two quick tips.  

(Coffee as tasty as good coffee in Rome costs more in New York.  At Café Pedlar, a good place up the street from my apartment in Brooklyn, an espresso is $2.50.  In Rome, good espresso ― which is commonplace ― costs about € 0.70, or roughly US $0.90.)

During my first visit to Rome in 1996, Alexia brought me to Caffé Tazza d’Oro, an espresso bar near the Pantheon, where I tried granita for the first time.  Imagine a plastic cup filled with thousands of square specks of coffee-ice topped with a heap of panna, a thick whipped cream.  The result, when mixed, is a sticky-yet-granular, icy, more-bitter-than-sweet afternoon pick-me-up-again best consumed with a spoon.  

When I walk out of Tazza d’Oro and into the hot sunshine, brain aloft and body abuzz, the heat does not bug me in quite the way it seems to bug so many of the tourists who look fatigued as they stand without shade next to flag-bearing guides who tell them things about ancient Rome: they listen, they mop molto sweat off of their brows, and then they walk off toward the next point of interest ― perhaps Piazza Navona.  I feel superior because I know about granita and because I’m dangerously wired.

Last April, when I described Tazzo d’Oro’s granita to Nick ― the man known to Pizzacentric readers as the Sicilian Critic ― I sensed disdain.  He said, “This is not granita.  This is grattachecca ― ice mashed into little pieces and mixed with a syrup of processed flavors.”  Because he is from Sicily, the birthplace of granita ― and because he is the Sicilian Critic ― he would not try it.

When we went to his hometown I had a granita at Bar Castello, an espresso bar near his parents’ house.  At Nick’s urging I had almond, not coffee: it’s made from actual ground almonds, not manufactured flavorings.  (I had an espresso to go with it.)   

This granita was smoother in texture than Tazzo d’Oro’s and more naturally almond than anything almond I’ve ever had (excluding almonds, of course).  Even though the granita was frozen and wet I could still sense the nut-meat within.  I ate it with brioche ― what a great combination!    

(I did not try Castello’s coffee granita and so do not know how it would compare to Tazzo d’Oro’s.  I have, however, discovered a post by a person named “Jill,” who along with “John,” has a blog called “Vegan Backpacker.”  Her post about granita substantiates Nick’s claim that for the best granita, you have to go to Sicily.  Check it out her yummy photos!)

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Anyone in New York (or Malibu, Osaka, Paris, Tokyo ― or any of several Italian cities) can find decent granita at Grom, an chain of Italian gelaterias with roots in Turin.

Grom’s almond granita tastes natural like the one I had in Sicily.  The only difference is that the almonds are ground a little coarser than they were in my Sicilian granita.  I also tried Grom’s coffee granita.  Its flavor is good ― a little bitter and not too sweet ― but a little too wet.  If you have granita at Grom ― which is not a cheap place ― be sure to splurge extra on panna: it’s a luscious addition.

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Map Tazzo d'Oro.

Map Bar Castello.

Grom's website.

SLIDESHOW: Giovanni Lanzo, pizzaman for the people.

Luigi's replaced this menu sign a couple years ago but has not raised prices.

There's a lot of magic at Luigi's, but food-wise, it begins with the dough.

Luigi's Supreme pie: sopressatta, sausage, green peppers, minced garlic, and homemade green herb olive oil.

Visit Luigi's in late summer and you may score a slice topped with tomatoes grown by Luigi himself.

Photos are from 2010.

“I knew you were coming,” Giovanni said as I entered Luigi’s, “I knew it.”  “How?” I asked.  “Because,” he reminded me, “you wrote on Facebook that you were going to Time Warner Cable.”  I had exchanged my cable box down the road, and Giovanni, with his laptop set up on one of his tables —  never missing a beat — knew I couldn’t resist his pizza.

This small shop on a treeless, cheerless stretch of Fifth Avenue in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, not far from the Greenwood Cemetery, is more than a pizzeria: it is a social parlor where co-owner Giovanni Lanzo holds court with employees and customers all day and evening.  Because he is a born storyteller, you may find yourself sticking around for longer than planned.  I arrive with extra quarters for the meter — just in case.

He often talks about his father, the restaurant’s namesake, who retired in 2000.  Topics include Luigi’s work ethic, his love for his customers, his no-nonsense approach to business, and his devotion to excellent ingredients.

“You know, it’s amazing, so amazing how my father is.  He’s old-fashioned — that’s it.  He never did anything wrong.  He liked coming to his pizzeria.  He came from Italy, so he didn’t have a million friends.  His friends were the people that came into the store.”

In 1998 Luigi’s was used as a location in the feature film, “Big Daddy,” starring Adam Sandler.

“When they came to film,” recalls Giovanni, “the producer was shocked because my father told him that he wasn’t going to close the store.  They had requested the store, they wanted to shoot it here, and we had worked out a figure.  The director said, ‘Okay, you’re gonna close between 5 and 9.’  My father said, ‘Close?  It’s Friday!  My customers are coming here every day for 30 years.  I’m not gonna close for you.  I can’t.  I don’t care if you give me $10,000 for one day.  My customers are more important to me.’”

Giovanni pauses and smiles, then adds, “And that’s a day I learned something from my father.  I said, Wow, all my college, all my years in school never taught me this.  My father realized that his customers are what made him — not somebody who comes here once for ten grand.  And so the movie people came, and we served our customers through the hallway.

“There’s one woman around the corner, Miss McLaughlin.  She loves telling the story about how she saw someone from the movie set tell a customer that they couldn’t come in.  My father overheard this and stopped the whole scene they were filming to bake her a pie and two calzones.  She’s been getting that same order for over 30 years!

“It’s why I like coming here.  It’s family here.  I was born around the corner, so, I’m home.  People around me know me since I’m born.  They watched me grow up.  I’m watching their kids grow up.  It’s a neighborhood.  It’s a neighborhood store.”

There are many stories, but Giovanni’s conversations usually include talk about pizza.  “Growing up, I knew that pizza was something for the poor people, something for people to enjoy, you know, a fast meal, but good and healthy — and it wasn’t supposed to be expensive.  You walk into these places now, it’s ridiculous, the prices are just too high.  It’s how you make pizza.  If you make it with your heart it’s going to come out good.  All the gimmicks, like brick oven.  There’s bricks in these ovens too,” he says, pointing to his pair of 1972 Baker’s Pride gas ovens.  “It’s all about if you love to cook.  That’s what pizza’s about: you cook it, you love making it, it comes out great!”

Because this is his parlor, he plays host an