All-things-New York blog Gothamist has an interview with Kenny Kramer (right), the inspiration for Cosmo Kramer on Seinfeld. We were chatting with Gothamist editor Jen Chung, and she reminded us of one of the many boneheaded ideas that the fictional Kramer had: a make-your-own-pizza pizzeria.
Ms. Chung was then kind enough to send us the relevant parts of the script from the episode titled "Male Unbonding."
KRAMER: That's for me. (into phone) Kramerica Industries.. Oh, hi, Mark.. No, no, no. Forget that. I got a better idea. A pizza place where you make your own. KRAMER: Oh, hey guys. Man, I'm telling you. This pizza idea, is really going to happen. GEORGE: This is the thing where you go and you have to make your own pizza? KRAMER: Yeah, we give you the dough, you smash it, you pound it, you fling it in the air; and then you get to put your sauce and you get to sprinkle your cheese, and they - you slide it into the oven. GEORGE: You know, you have to know how to do that. You can't have people shoving their arms into a six-hundred degree oven. KRAMER: It's all supervised. GEORGE: Oh, well. KRAMER: All of it. You want to invest? GEORGE: My money's all tied up in change right now. KRAMER: No, I'm tellin' ya, people, they really want to make their own pizza pie. JERRY: I have to say something. With all due respect, I just never.. I can't imagine anyone in any walk of life, under any circumstance, wanting to make their own pizza pie.. but that's me. KRAMER: That's you. JERRY: I'm just saying.. KRAMER: Okay, okay. I just wanted to check with you guys. JERRY: Okay. KRAMER: You know, this business is going to be big. I just wanted .. okay. (he exits quickly, then sticks his head back through the door) One day, you'll beg me to make your own pie. (he leaves) KRAMER: Last week. When I, you know, game you the phone. He's really into my pizza place idea! JERRY: This is too much. ELAINE: Wait, what pizza place idea? JERRY: Oh, no. KRAMER: You make your own pie! ELAINE: Oh, that sounds like a great idea. It would be fun.
Make-your-own-pizza is a recipe for disaster. Most New York pizzerias can't even turn out decent pies. What would customers do if left to their own devices? Then again, some of these places probably couldn't do much worse.
(Our favorite Cosmo Kramer scheme was when he got a hold of that Central Park carriage and fed the horse the huge can of beans or whatever.)
Dynamic Duo: Frank Pepe's Pizzeria Napoletana and Sally's Apizza were the two stops Slice made during the Pizza Club road trip to New Haven, Conn., on Saturday. Plenty of pizza was ordered from both venerable establishments. Above left is a large mozzarella pie (background) and a large white-clam pie (foreground) from Pepe's; above right is a large mozzarella pie from Sally's. Both pizzerias are so popular that lines form down the block, as can be seen below (Pepe's left, Sally's right).
Three cars. Seventy-nine point nine miles. Ten people. Two pizzerias. Nine pies. One hundred and twenty-some dollars. That's the Slice New Haven trip by the numbers.
We left Greenpoint, Brooklyn, at 12:30 p.m. Saturday and arrived at Wooster Street, home to New Haven's famous Frank Pepe's and Sally's Apizza, around 3 p.m. We were there to try New Haven–style pie, which only a few among us had had before. We'd heard that the pizza in this seaside Connecticut town was as good as, if not better than, New York's best and we wanted to try for ourselves. Our plan was to get hit Frank Pepe's around 2 p.m., eat some pie, take some photos, talk to some folks, and then get out and get in line at Sally's Apizza by 4:30 p.m. for the joint's 5 p.m. opening. (A kind reader had tipped us that we needed to be outside Sally's by that time to get in for the first seating of the day.)
We arrived a little later than planned and got on line at Pepe's around 3:15 p.m. After a 15-minute wait, we were in. The short wait gave Seltzerboy and I a chance to talk to filmmakers Michael Dorian and Joe dos Santos (left, from left) of Cat Price Productions. The pair were shooting video for a documentary about pizza and were in New Haven killing two birds with one stone—documenting Pepe's and talking to Slice editors. [The rest of the epic journey to Pepe's, after the jump.]
Maybe it's the fact that it's 2 a.m. and I've been breathing kerosene fumes for the better part of the day (don't ask), but I got a huge kick out of this Chowhound post that Slice friend Joe D. passed on to me. Under the heading "DiFara's: The Final Word," user "Food Maven" imparts wisdom for the ages:
The pizza at DiFara is very good. The real problem is that the pizza in 99% of all the other places sucks.
... To bring you this plug for my friend Sano's new sushi restaurant.
I wouldn't shamelessly hype a friend's pizzeria (Slice has to maintain a certain objectivity), but I feel no need to refrain from urging you to head to Taro Sushi New York, located at 446 Dean Street on the northern edge of Park Slope.
I've known Sano Yuji (right) for about two years now, since I started going to the now-defunct Gingko Leaf Cafe on Union Street in that same neighborhood. Sano introduced me to the world of raw fish, and I couldn't have asked for a better sushi sensei. He learned the trade working in his family's sushi restaurant—Taro Sushi—in Wakoshii, Japan (one train stop outside Tokyo proper in Saitama Prefecture) and prepares his fish in the edomae style (but doesn't mind making American-style sushi for the wary gaijin).
Now I don't know sushi the way I know pizza, so I won't go on and on, but just read this thread from Chowhound, which gives the Sano-era Gingko Leaf high marks. If last night's meal (part of which can be seen at left; I ate sushi and sashimi omakase—chef's choice—along with edamame, wasabi shumai, agedashi tofu, hajiki, and a lot of beer) was any indication, Sano has brought his skills intact to his own restaurant, which opened last night.
Sano-san's been planning to open his own place for years now, and I'd like to see him succeed, hence this nonpizza post. So go there. It's at 446 Dean Street. Right near the Atlantic Ave.–Pacific Street subway complex in Downtown Brooklyn. Tell him "Adam-san" sent you and he should treat you right.
He also does take-out and delivery, so give a call from the train as you head over the Manhattan Bridge and pick it up on your way home.
TARO SUSHI NEW YORK Location: 446 Dean Street (b/n 5th Ave and Flatbush), Park Slope Phone: 718-398-0872 Hours:
Tues.–Thurs., 12 to 3p.m.; 5 to 10:30p.m.
Fri.&Sat., 5 to 11p.m.
Sun., 5 to 10 p.m.
Mon., Closed. Payment accepted: Cash, Visa, MasterCard
We now return you to your regularly scheduled pizza programming (but not before showing you this cool-looking box, below, that the day's uni was delivered in).
This post on our "Pizza Peel" bulletin boards caught our eye when it went up about a week ago. We understand where "Seattle Pizza Girl" is coming from because we've often dreamed of opening our own pizzeria but wouldn't have a clue how to run it. SPG says:
Nobody's responded, but we hope there's someone out there who can help Seattle Pizza Girl. How 'bout it? Any pizzaioli reading Slice who wouldn't mind getting paid to have some extra help around the shop?
That is the question. But do you want the answer? You do? Be careful what you ask for. I just found this discussion on a website called FootballGuys.com. Seems the Football Guys are arguing the merits of folding a slice or not folding it. Discussion has gotten pretty heated. Witness:
OutlawsGM, who I think might be from Florida, says: "Folding a pizza has got to a northern thing. I had never seen anyone fold a slice if pizza until I went to the worst place in the world New York. Everyone was folding their pizza and I looked like an alien when I ate my pizza unfolded."
Not standing for that shit, Stompin' Tom Connors replies: "I got news for you -- it wasn't the unfolded pizza that made you look like an alien to New Yorkers. No, it was you and your pasty white Okie self stuffed into Bermuda shorts and suburbanite mall T-shirt, gawking slackjawed up at buildings over *gasp* five stories high, asking a local in a snail's pace moronic drawl where the Empire State Building is, tourist pins littering your Christopher Robbins hat, shuffling around the Today Show window so you can give grandma a thrill when she watched from the home."
Read the bulletin board discussion if you dare, gentle readers.
The last time I went to the themepark-meets-arcade-meets-pizzeria playplace was for a friend's birthday party back in Third Grade. Under the auspices of an adult I was granted entr�e—oblivious to the fact that without parental supervision I would have been persona non grata in Mr. Cheese's domain. No, my perception was clouded by visions of skee-ball, Galaga, Elevator Action, and the prospect of watching creepy animatronically anthropomorphic animals perform a hillbilly jugband show. Oh, and by the thought of eating lots of pizza.
I outgrew all that stuff by Fourth Grade, and between then and the age of 18 I discovered good pizza—or at least what passes for good in the Kansas City suburbs. Long story short: I had no reason to go to Chuck E. Cheese's at age 17, which is the age of some guys suing the company in hopes that it will ease its age restrictions. From the Times Herald of Port Huron, Mich.:
Led by JR Brown, 17, of Fort Gratiot, [Mich.], about 10 teens are mounting an e-mail campaign to get Chuck E. Cheese's to lower its age requirements.
On Friday, JR and a friend were unable to enter Chuck E. Cheese's at Birchwood Mall because they were not 18 and were not accompanied by a parent or legal guardian.
"If we can get into R-rated movies, then we should be able to get into Chuck E. Cheese's," said JR, who will be a senior at Port Huron Northern High School.
Company policy mandates no one younger than 18 be admitted without a parent or guardian, said Brenda Holloway, spokeswoman for CEC Entertainment, parent company of Chuck E. Cheese's.
"Our restaurants are for families with young children," she said. "It can be very intimidating for them if large groups of teenagers come in to play the games."
This gives Slice an idea. The new Atlantic Terminal development in Downtown Brooklyn has a Chuck E. Cheese. Perhaps a Slice outing is in order? Anyone interested? Games, pizza, robotic rats. If I get a decent-size group, I'll see about setting a date. Probably mid-week after work, as there are lines out the door on weekends.
Blogger The Real Janelle was in Long Island City over the weekend and spotted the banner you see to the left. She thought of Slice and our GOPizza special section and was nice enough to snap a picture and send it to us.
She also took the time to do a little research and found this post in the Forward, which tells us:
New York City will hang more than 1,100 two-sided banners to promote itself during the RNC convo.
Here's the slogans:
“17,312 restaurants – that’s one a day for 47 years”
“12,750 miles of sidewalk – 1,020 shoe stores”
“Over 150 museums – we’re quite the exhibitionists”
“Go from China to Italy – by crossing the street”
“Central Park has 200 species of birds – wear a hat”
“685 miles of subway tracks – a million places to go”
“190 Places to see live theater – not counting every street corner”
“500 pizza places – low-carb diet? FUGGETABOUDIT”
“325 nightclubs – sleep when you get home”
People are skeptical that visiting GOP members will actually do any of the aforementioned activities, and, given the reports coming out of Boston, so are we. Still, we hope conventioneers try some of the great pizza NYC has to offer.
Slice is, of course, a pizza-information resource. We take our mission seriously and rarely deviate from it.
Except when a juicy competitive-eating story presents itself. And if that story involves Sonya "The Black Widow" Thomas, our favorite gustatory gladiator, then it warrants mention in these pages.
This news is a couple days old by now, but maybe some of you missed it. Celebrity chef Todd English (right) will open a restaurant with Jeffrey Chodorow. Chodorow, as you may recall, was Rocco DiSpirito's one-time partner at the ill-fated reality-series restaurant Rocco's. From the New York Post:
When is English actually Italian? When it's Todd English.
It turns out the chef's mother is of Italian descent ó which may come in handy, since English and restaurateur Jeffrey Chodorow are planning to partner in a few Italian eateries before the end of the year.
Chodorow tells us the deal was sealed last weekend after English, a guest at his sprawling Hamptons home, "made the most incredible clam pizza I've ever had."
"Basically, Todd will be involved in what was originally slated for Rocco [DiSpirito]," said a source inside the Chodorow camp. DiSpirito and Chodorow, you'll recall, had a major dust-up on their reality TV show, after which a real-life court fired the chef from his eponymous eatery.
The first restaurant, an as-yet-unnamed place Chodorow calls "a basic red-sauce joint," will open in Atlantic City.
No word on whether there's going to be a reality-TV camera following Mr. English around.
NEEEE-HAW!A drawing by legendary comix artist R. Crumb (left), in which he imagines the crucial moment when Monica S. Lewinsky delivered pizza to the president; for dessert—cheesecake. And isn't this the photo (right) that Robert Smigel used for the Bill Clinton moving-lips segments on Conan O'Brien? We find those "interviews" to be among the funniest moments on Mr. O'Brien's show; here's one in which he talks to "President Bush."
Stockholm-based Slice reader Ian F. e-mailed us a couple weeks ago with some information he had uncovered while trolling through some blogs:
When we didn't respond fast enough, Ian e-mailed us again, this time with crucial new evidence: "Adam, the evidence for the thesis is mounting... see [this R. Crumb drawing]. And it's in French, to boot! How long were you planning to suppress this important
long-after-the-factoid from the American public???"
The R. Crumb drawing is, of course, the one pictured above. Thanks, Ian! We had forgotten all about the pivotal role pizza played in that whole saga.
To read more about the whole saga, from President Clinton's point of view, try picking up My Life from Amazon. And to learn more about R. Crumb, we can't recommend the Terry Zwigoff documentary Crumb (pictured above) highly enough. Mr. Crumb's upbringing and family are truly fascinating. There's so much more to the man than the Big Brother & the Holding Co. album cover he did back in the '60s.
KEEP ON TRUCKIN'New York's Finest Pizza operates out of a custom-made pizza truck (top and above left) on the northeast corner of 51st Street and Park Avenue. We observed the truck, across from Saint Bartholomew's, around 1:30 p.m. yesterday; the truck was very popular, with no shortage of customers (above right).
By 1:20 p.m. yesterday, I had made a sizable dent in my inbox so I decided to take lunch a little farther afield than usual. Bored with the mediocre and overpriced options near the office, I walked about 10 blocks up and a couple east to New York's Finest Pizza, a.k.a. "The Midtown Pizza Truck."
New York's Finest was neither mediocre nor overpriced, leaving me pleasantly surprised. I mean, pizza from a truck? Come on.
Turns out that the crisp, thin-crust Sicilian squares (right) are tasty, topped with a generous portion of fresh sauce, a bit of fresh basil, and a sparse sprinkling of Parm. The crust was light and perfectly crisp toward what would have been the middle of the pie but was a bit too crunchy at the edges for my taste. Still, it's certainly better than many of the places I've tried in Midtown.
After finishing my slices (I ordered one slice but for some reason was given two at no extra charge), I asked the truck's operator, Chris Wandy, a few questions. New York's Finest, he said, has been open for about a year and a half. It operates year-round—even though "it's murder in this heat," the oven, built into the back of the truck, keeps Mr. Wandy warm in winter. Crusts are prebaked at a kitchen beforehand, and the final bake is done in-truck. The sauce is also prepared in the off-truck kitchen but tastes none the worse for it.
The truck itself is a custom job. Mr. Wandy and his business partner, Douglas Spinosa, built it themselves after a catering-truck manufacturer quoted them a hefty delivery price of $100,000. "I'm buying a pizza truck, not a house," Mr. Wandy said. "Know what I mean?"
We at Slice do know what he means. And we also know that sticker shock won't be an issue at the pizza truck. The Sicilian-style slices—round pies are not an option here—go for $2. Whole square pies are $15. There are other menu options, but I didn't try them (well, except for the Pepsi—$1).
What we don't know, however, is where Mr. Wandy is finding houses for $100,000.
At right is the truck's menu; the pizza truck thread over on the Pizza Peel, Slice's bulletin board, has one patron saying, "I have tried the chicken parm and the rice balls, but both leave something to be desired. But the pizza is not bad, particularly for Midtown." Amazingly, the pizza truck has an oven built in; click the image at far right for a better view.
###
NEW YORK'S FINEST Location: Northeast corner of 51st Street and Park Avenue Prices: Plain slice, $2; whole plain pie, $15; all beverages $1
NY slice of life
The editors of Slice (sliceny.com), an NYC weblog of all things pizza, have created a catalog of pizza protocol for visiting conventioneers. At GOPizza.net, Bushites will learn, in scrupulous detail, the fine art of ordering and holding a slice, along with the history of coal ovens in New York. Slice has even created an iPod-based handbook to the choicest pies in the city. —AKIVA GOTTLIEB
The editors of Slice thank Akiva Gottlieb and the Voice for the mention. And we're grateful that you got our name right, too. For those who don't know, it's Slice. Not SliceNY or SliceNY.com. Just plain Slice.
Emerging from seclusion with his wife and daughter, an unshaven Gov. Jim McGreevey and his family briefly turned up in Rahway last night planning to have a "pizza party" with the mayor.
McGreevey arrived at Rahway Mayor James Kennedy's house in a government-issued white SUV and wearing a dark plaid shirt, khaki shorts and a quarter-inch of stubble....
And though Kennedy — who was armed with a couple of bottles of soda — announced to everyone around that the two families were "having a pizza party," the fun never even got started.
Perhaps wary of dining with the media lurking outside, both families piled back into their respective cars and drove off toward the governor's mansion before any pizza was ordered, let alone eaten.
Isn't it enough that the man had to resign? Now he can't eat pizza in peace? For shame on you, lurking media. For shame!
With a cheesy headline that made us crack a smile, the New York Post reports on the best slices in each borough. From Slice, Slice, Baby, by Chris Erikson:
Pizza is the most egalitarian of food. Everyone eats it, and a pair of slices can be had for under five bucks in every neighborhood in the city.
What's more, even New York's finest doesn't cost much more than the corner-joint variety—which means some of the city's best food costs a couple of dollars.
The problem is, knowing where to look. Because for every dedicated pizza maker turning out slices with chewy crusts and top-notch ingredients, there are a thousand who'll gladly sell you a blanket of gummy cheese on a slab of warmed-over cardboard.
Here is where the Post tells us to go:
MANHATTAN
Sal's & Carmine's (101st and B'Way), Joe's (corner of Bleecker and Carmine), Patsy's (117th and First Ave.), Five Roses (173 First Ave.), Bleecker Street Pizza (69 Seventh Ave. South), Pizza 33 (489 Third Ave.), and Little Italy Pizza (11 Park Place).
BROOKLYN
Di Fara (1424 Avenue J; Midwood), L&B Spumoni Gardens (2725 86th Street; Bensonhurst), Pizza Wagon (8610 Fifth Avenue; Bay Ridge), Fascati (80 Henry Street; Brooklyn Heights), My Little Pizzeria (114 Court Street; Brooklyn Heights), Sabella (229 Prospect Park West; Windsor Terrace), and, for pizza-loving hipsters, Driggs Pizza (588 Driggs Avenue; Williamsburg).
STATEN ISLAND
Joe and Pat's (1758 Victory Blvd), Denino's (524 Port Richmond Avenue), Nunzio's (2155 Hylan Blvd), and Tony's Brick Oven (195 Bay Street).
QUEENS
New Park Pizza (156-71 Cross Bay Blvd; Howard Beach) and Gino's (158-46 Cross Bay Blvd; Howard Beach).
THE BRONX
Louie and Ernie's (1300 Crosby Avenue), Full Moon (602 E. 187th Street), Giovanni's (2343 Arthur Avenue), and Café al Mercato (2344 Arthur Avenue).
Saturday was the umpteenth-annual Garfield-Place-Between-Fourth-and-Fifth-Avenues Block Party in Park Slope. This stretch is home to Slice HQ, so we were out on the street, grill on the sidewalk, dishing up some delectable pies. Slice editors Adam K., E-Rock, and Seltzerboy were on hand—in addition to some friends who stopped by.
I made two batches of dough in the morning, which gave us seven doughballs (one batch split into quarters and one into thirds). Wanting to keep things simple, I grabbed a zesty stick of pepperoni from Rocco at the pork store just around the corner, along with freshly made fresh mozzarella (he said he'd made it not more than two hours prior) and some pecorino romano. Our friend Janelle brought some little portobello mushrooms and a red pepper. We roasted both vegetables on the grill along with hamburger "appetizers."
Here are some photos:
Slice & Co. hang out on the sidewalk (left), just a few doors up from Al Capone's boyhood home ("Scarface" grew up on the street). To make grilled pizza, roll out the dough to no thinner than 1/8 inch (right).
Editor's note (5/27/2010): OK, I know I said I wasn't going to hold your hand through this, but so many people have asked for detailed instrux during the summer grilling season that we have put together The Ultimate Step-by-Step Guide to Grilling Pizza. And though I still think the tips below are good, this all-new updated guide is even better — especially for beginning pizza-grillers! Check it out here! »
photograph byJoe Schumacher | Blogger Joe Schumacher visits Morningside Heights pizzeria Koronet and observes some strange behavior. Koronet, for those of you who don't know, is known for slices that can be described as "as big as your head." In his blog entry Extra Value Is What You Get, Mr. Schumacher says:
While I was eating, three teenagers with southeast Ohio accents came in and also got slices. Koronet's slices are so large that you have to fold them in order to eat them. These guys weren't folding and it wasn't a pretty sight. I was about to show them how to fold their slice when the unforgivable happened. One guy asked at the counter for marinara sauce for dipping and the [other guy] asked for ranch dressing. Ranch dressing??? They were beyond my help.
Get your motors runnin', ladies and gentlemen. For Slice Pizza Club No. 5, we'll be takin' it to the streets (well, the interstate, rather). You see, we've heard nothing put sky-high praise for New Haven, Connecticut's two legendary pizzerias: Sally's Apizza and Frank Pepe's. Both shops are said to be as good as New York's best. Some folks say they're better. We call that bold talk, so we're going to see for ourselves, and we invite you to join us as we do.
CALLING ALL CARS As always, the Slice Pizza Club is not exclusive and is open to anyone who simply shows up to chew the crust with us. But this one is a little tricky because it's out of town. So far, we have two vehicles going with a total of nine slots, all of which are spoken for (sorry), but there may be dropouts—e-mail me to get on the stand-by list, first come, first served. If you have a vehicle and would like to join us, e-mail me at adam (at) sliceny dot com, and we'll coordinate. Hopefully you'll have extra space in your ride that you'd be willing to share; if so, let me know how many folks you'd be able to comfortably fit.
THE DETAILS Date: Saturday, August 28 Departure Time: Noon Driving Time: Roughly 1.5 hours Departing From: 88 Meserole AVE, Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Meserole AVENUE, not street. [By Subway: Take the G train to Nassau Ave. Take the exit at the front of the platform, which will put you at Manhattan and Norman avenues. Exit the stairs, and turn 180 degrees and walk one block to Lorimer Street (if you hit Leonard, you went the wrong way). At Lorimer, take a right and walk one block to Meserole Avenue, where you make a left; the building is the first on the left, No. 88. By Car: Use this Yahoo map to figure it out: 88 Meserole AVE]
BY TRAIN
If you want to take public transit to New Haven and meet us there, we're shooting for a 2 p.m. arrival time. You can take the Metro North New Haven line. There's an 11:07 a.m. train from Grand Central that arrives at New Haven at 12:50 p.m. and a 12:07 p.m. train that arrives at New Haven at 1:50 p.m. There should be taxis at the station; hail one (or call; numbers below) and have it take you to Frank Pepe's, which is the first pizzeria we'll be visiting.
FRANK PEPE'S Location: 157 Wooster Street, New Haven CT 06511 Phone: 203-865-5762 Hours: Mon., Wed., Thurs., 4 to 9:30 p.m.; Fri. and Sat., 11:30 a.m. to 10:30 p.m.; Sun., 2:30 to 9:30 p.m. Interesting Fact: Celebrity chef Todd English counts Pepe's as an influence.
SALLY'S APIZZA Location: 237 Wooster Street, New Haven, CT 06511 Phone: 203-624-5271 Hours: Tues.–Fri., 5 to 10:30 p.m.; Sat., 5 to 10 p.m. Good to Know:Apizza is apparently pronounced "ah-beetz."
TAXI CAB COMPANIES Metro Taxi: 203-777-7777 New Haven Taxi Company: 203-877-0000 Yellow Cab Company: 203-777-5555
QUICK AND DIRTY
Now that I've thoroughly confused you, let me simplify. New Haven on Saturday, August 28. We're leaving from 88 Meserole Ave. in Greenpoint at noon. We have two cars going, both of which are full (sorry). But you can still join if you can round up a car. Or you can go by Metro North and meet us at Frank Pepe's around 2 p.m.
[At top, an image from the factory brochure for the 1969 Dodge Dart. The Dart was perhaps the best car to ever roll out of the Motor City.]
For half the Slice staff, our alma mater is the University of Kansas. That means we don't need much of an excuse to bid hail to old KU, whose beautiful campus is pictured at right.
Seems that Elizabeth Edwards, wife of vice-presidential hopeful John Edwards, has a certain fondness for Larryville, too. From the Kerry-Edwards blog comes Missing Lawrence, a post rife with nostalgia for the little town on the Kaw:
John and I have a special affection for Lawrence. In 1976, we drove my parents' old station wagon from North Carolina to the Grand Canyon and back. We had so little money that we ate in restaurants only twice -- a McDonalds in New Mexico and a Pizza Hut in Lawrence. We stayed in a motel once in Colorado, but only because there was a huge electrical storm that made camping with the gear we had too dangerous. As we came back through Colorado, coming down the Rockies, we inadvertently left the brake on -- we thought we had released it fully, the perils of a unfamiliar car -- and by the time we got to Kansas the car needed attention. We hadn't much money, but we found a compassionate mechanic in Lawrence who helped us out for an amount we could afford, and while he worked, we ate that pizza. So, Lawrence, we owe you twice. Don't worry, we'll repay that debt. And soon.
Results have been mixed. After straying from our tried-and-true dough recipe (to follow), we came back to the old standby but left it in the mixer to knead for 15 minutes (instead of the 7 or so minutes we used to do) so the gluten could develop the proper elasticity. No matter on the dough and sauce, though. The real mixed results have to do with grill time.
Since the dough is cooking over an intense heat source, you have to watch it like the devil. After brushing on a generous coat of olive oil, we let our first pie sit on the first side (what will become the sauced side after flipping) for 5 minutes. There's artful charring and then there's burning. We achieved "burning" (as can be seen in the second photo here, on the pie's left-hand side). No matter. We still had 3 doughs in the hopper. The next pie, well, we learned our lesson, and let the thing sit on the first side for 2 minutes, during which time we coated it the top with another generous swatch of oil. After 2 minutes, the bottom stiffened enough to allow turning with the tongs, and we flipped it. Immediately after flipping—and as quickly as we could—we added the sauce, cheese, and toppings. I can't emphasize enough that you should have all your ingredients prepped and at grillside. The pizza will be on the rack for a short time, and you want those things to get hot in the brief span they're there.
Editor's note (5/27/2010): OK, I know I said I wasn't going to hold your hand through this, but so many people have asked for detailed instrux during the summer grilling season that we have put together The Ultimate Step-by-Step Guide to Grilling Pizza. And though I still think the tips below are good, this all-new updated guide is even better — especially for beginning pizza-grillers! Check it out here! »
Hossain and his wife, Mossamat, emigrated with their 1-year-old son, Abuhamza, from Bangladesh in 1985 in search of opportunity to lift themselves out of grinding poverty.
Their native tongue is Bengali and they arrived in this country knowing little English. Hossain worked as a dishwasher in diners, where he learned Greek and English. He gradually moved up to a position in the kitchen, with throwing pizzas being part of his repertoire. Nine years of saving allowed the family to rent a small storefront and open a pizzeria he called Little Italy in 1994. Adapting the menu to the neighborhood, they added fried chicken, hamburgers, beef patties, gyros and sweet potato pie. They eventually bought the building and moved into an apartment above the pizzeria with their five children. ...
'I'm proud to be an American," Hossain [right] says. ''When I was in high school in Bangladesh, I looked at a map of America and I dreamed of coming to this great land. Since I've been here, opportunity has kissed my feet. Hard work has done the rest."
Those who know Mr. Hossain expressed surprise:
The wives of the two men wept quietly as the hearing proceeded. One member of the mosque, Sajid Ahmed, 32, a native of India who has lived in Albany for 25 years, said that Mr. Hossain and Mr. Aref were religious people who regularly attended prayers at the mosque and that their arrests had shocked many of their fellow worshipers.
Mr. Ahmed said the idea of Mr. Hossain being involved in an anti-American terrorist plot seemed odd. Mr. Hossain told his friends he loved America and kept an American flag in his restaurant. He was also well known for giving to the poor, in keeping with his Muslim beliefs, Mr. Ahmed said.
"It was very surprising to me," Mr. Ahmed said. "I think they were being nice to some other people and they got entrapped in this case."
The house of worship's pastor urged his flock to pony up and "give the guy the biggest tip he's ever had."
Hong Fei Li, the congregation's benefactor, is part-time Pizza Hut driver and a hospitality student at the New Zealand Management Academy. He plans to use the money for student-related expenses.
The pastor was also motivated by the fact that pie delivery is a dangerous job and he wanted to do something nice for a pizza driver.
A WHOLE LOTTA SHAKIN' GOIN' ONDemocratic presidential candidate John Kerry and running mate John Edwards have been working crowds and shaking hands all over Ohio recently, trying to boost their rating in a state that could go either way this fall. They have been eating lots of that fine state's pizza, too.
Over the last 3 days, John Kerry has traveled 1206 miles by bus, shaken the hands of countless voters, and, to hear him tell it, eaten a lot of pizza—from Wheeling, West Virginia, [Kerry speaking] "The home of DeCarlo's Pizza!" to Zanesville, Ohio, [Kerry speaking again], "The home of Adornetto's Pizza." It's all part of a cross-country campaign tour designed to keep Kerry and running mate John Edwards in the news now that the convention is over.
And lest you think Mr. Kerry is the only one trying to make political hay by trading on the good name of pizza, President Bush has been linked with pizza a couple of times within recent memory.
One of the few great New York City triumphs that hasn't dissipated is the multitude of jaw-dropping statistics often used to describe how super-sized Gotham life is. Did you know there are more than 2,000 bridges in the city? Or that there are 6,200 sanitation workers ("trash hounds," as they call themselves) exporting our refuse? My favorite: There are enough miles of subway tracks to stretch from here to Chicago.
Measurements like these are compelling yet perplexing�and, for the most part, useless. Add this to the heap of curiosities: New York City schools receive 345,900 slices of pizza every day. (If this were math class, it would be worth noting that this means more than 62 million slices a year, enough to entitle each student to more than 52 slices from September to June.) This among the more peculiar tidbits in Sunday's New York Times Education Life supplement (not available online), the last page of which has a detailed story about what it takes to bring the pizza capital's 1.1 million schoolchildren their favorite midday delicacy.
Thanks to our friends at the National School Lunch Program, New York's 1,578 schools receive about 36,000 pounds of low-fat mozzarella each week, gratis. The cheese actually gets shipped (the article doesn't detail from where) to a Long Island factory, which churns out 18,000 pounds of pizza every hour. Each slice receives four circles of pepperoni, and then is frozen for one hour before being tested for bacteria, packaged in cases, and stored in a Brooklyn warehouse.
Each case, the article details, contains 60 slices of pizza and costs the city $16 (compared with the estimated $40 per case it might have cost without free mozzarella). So, if one were inclined to break down the Education Department's $295 million annual allotment for cafeteria food, the city spends 26.66 cents for a slice of pizza. Which is probably more than it spends on each textbook, but we'll reserve that discussion for another time.
One has to wonder, however, how much longer this food-delivery system will last. With Snapple now the "beverage of choice" in lunchrooms from Sheepshead Bay to Soundview, it's easy to imagine Pizza Hut powering its way into the Tweed Courthouse.
My family agreed with just about everything in "Charred Bubbles, and Other Secrets of the Slice" (July 18). Domenico DeMarco of Di Fara Pizza is an artist, and every pizza he makes is an expression of his commitment to quality ingredients, making pizza the right (that is, his) way and the reciprocated love and respect he and the Flatbush area have felt for each other for years.
But ordering from Domino's is so much easier, isn't it? And it makes such a fine product.
So, dear Times readers, don't make that pilgrimage to Avenue J. Stay home, pick up the phone, order a pie and, while you're at it, some wings and crazy bread. And leave Di Fara's to me and my family.
Mark Giles
Kensington, Brooklyn
We second that. This is one of the only times you'll hear us advocating a Domino's delivery.
Gothamist has an interview with Kenny Kramer (right), the inspiration for Cosmo Kramer on Seinfeld. We were chatting with Gothamist editor Jen Chung, and she reminded us of one of the many boneheaded ideas that the fictional Kramer had: a make-your-own-pizza pizzeria.
Three cars. Seventy-nine point nine miles. Ten people. Two pizzerias. Nine pies. One hundred and twenty-some dollars. That's the Slice New Haven trip by the numbers.
We arrived a little later than planned and got on line at Pepe's around 3:15 p.m. After a 15-minute wait, we were in. The short wait gave Seltzerboy and I a chance to talk to filmmakers Michael Dorian and Joe dos Santos (left, from left) of 
I don't even need to make an attempt at witty commentary on this one. The 
Slice is, of course, a pizza-information resource. We take our mission seriously and rarely deviate from it.
This news is a couple days old by now, but maybe some of you missed it. Celebrity chef 
To read more about the whole saga, from President Clinton's point of view, try picking up 
The August 18 
With a cheesy headline that made us crack a smile, the New York Post reports on the best slices in each borough. From 
Saturday was the umpteenth-annual Garfield-Place-Between-Fourth-and-Fifth-Avenues Block Party in Park Slope. This stretch is home to Slice HQ, so we were out on the street, grill on the sidewalk, dishing up some delectable pies. Slice editors Adam K., E-Rock, and Seltzerboy were on hand—in addition to some friends who stopped by.
FRANK PEPE'S
SALLY'S APIZZA
For half the Slice staff, our alma mater is the 
Inspired by 
The 
