Pizza Day

I have a love/hate relationship with olives. Or maybe a like/hate relationship. I like olives, many kinds, but they're not the type of food I ever think of buying myself. I just don't. If I'm with friends who order a pizza with olives on it or I'm at party where they are served or I find them in a salad, I'll eat them. But they're not something I really think about otherwise.

But I do like them on pizza, which makes me want to try this gourmet pizza pie that also utilizes brie cheese.

Nationwide, pizzerias are revving up to high speed to fill all their orders today. Surprisingly, Halloween is one of the busiest pizza nights of the year. It's the second busiest night to Super Bowl Sunday and in areas where football isn't big Halloween blows it away for sales and it's in the number one spot. Pizza sales increase by a minimum of 30% today and in some places up to 300% or more. Whether it's the trick or treaters needing quick easy meals before all that candy, or for all the parties, Halloween is big business in the pizza industry.

I dropped by my local pizzeria where several of my friends work for a midday snack and the place was hustling. All the tables were full, moms with pre-school kids were just finishing up and kids from the local school were all lined up waiting for a spot, all in their costumes and fooling around. Instead of just the one daytime delivery guy, they had two and were running behind on deliveries. They told me they would have three and hopefully four guys on duty starting late afternoon and asked me if I wanted to help, something that happens a few times a year on busy days like this. I declined, but I just may reconsider after hearing how much I would make for five hours work. I was told that they have started baking some of their more popular pies ahead of orders in hopes that they won't fall too far behind. On a usual busy weekend they typically have a reasonable 30 minute wait, today they hope to keep it less than 45 minutes for pickup and an hour plus for deliveries. Last year they did a week worth of sales on Halloween and stayed open two hours later than normal because of late night bulk orders for parties. So folks, if you want pizza tonight I recommend you order ahead of time or you just may be in for a long wait.

Source

First, a note to Slashfood readers:  I apologize for missing pizza day.  Not that anybody cares.  But I feel badly about it.  My long displacement kept me from regularly posting, but now, having landed at my new headquarters here in beautiful Midwood, I’m ready to resume my subliterary labors.  I’ll start with my tardy post on the unpredictable genius of Domenic DeMarco.  And early next week I’ll report on my experience this weekend as a judge at the Long Island Pizza Festival. Writing in Newsday some months ago, I penned the following paen to Dom:

"One man - bent, driven, possessed - towers over the world of pizza. His name is spoken of in hushed tones by the circle of believers; his work is subsumed in mystique; and no one who has made the trek to distant Midwood to eat his handiwork has ever walked away less than awed.”

Thanks to you guys, Pizza Day was a rousing success. And thanks to our crack team of bloggers who spent all night mulling it over, we're happy to announce the winners of our contest. Drumroll please...

Most Creative

We loved Stephen Cooks' Slashfood-specific interpretation, with Gorgonzola, rosemary, soppresata and walnuts, but this Calamari Goat Cheese slice earned extra credit.

Most Bizarre

How can we not give props to this Cantonese-style BBQ pork, bean sprout, Shanghai bok choi pizza with mabo tofu sauce from the Revecess Blog?

Editor's Choice

We loved all the entries, but one turned Slashfood Headquarters into one big puddle of drool. Congrats, Traveler's Lunchbox! Your Fig and Prosciutto Pizza wins the grand prize.

If you're one of the above winners, please contact us for info on how to collect your prize. Thanks to everyone for entering, and reading Slashfood!

Many thanks to all who entered Pizza Extravaganza – those who took the time and effort to join in have created some marvellous renditions. 

• The Traveler's Lunchbox
  
• Thought For Food
  
• Brandon Eats
  
• The Revecess Blog
  
• Pizza County - Pancetta Pie
• Pizza County - Pesto Pie
• Mel's Kitchen
• Chief Family Officer
• Stephen Cooks

The illustration, by the way, is a Giant Pizza Playground maintained at the Smithsonian Institute.

Of course, it is the topping that would dictate the wine you would serve with pizza. They are never really going to be haute-cuisine, although some of the more luxurious toppings do raise the quality stakes.  I would also stick to Italian wines.

White wines from Sicily in addition to Orvieto and Verdicchio make a suitable match for fish-based and vegetarian pizzas. Merlot from the Veneto or non-expensive Sangiovese would be my choice for meat versions. You could try this US$7 bottle as recommended on NoMerlot.com.

If goats cheese (or similar) dominates then it just must be a Sauvignon Blanc, which also goes well with salty ham (in a Hawaiian for example). A Pinot Noir, with its subtle earthiness, should go well with mushrooms.

The Prosciutto and Pesto Sandwiches by Mel's Kitchen scream out for a decent Sauvignon Blanc; the pesto should handle the exuberant styles from New Zealand if you want something other than Italian. Dessert Pizza's, such as those on Chief Family Officer, would be great with a lightly fizzy Asti or similar; something with a little sweetness.

Here are a few other ideas from around the web - wine with Pepperoni or Pepperoni and Sausage.

The illustration was taken from MetropoleParis, not entirely sure what it is on about but it does have pizza and wine in it!

Pizza experiences in the last few months have been limited to delivery (late nights working at the office) and on-the-go slices on the way home from less-than-noble late nights. But entertaining an out-of-town foodie guest recently offered the opportunity to visit Antica Pizzeria for the first time, often named among the best pizzerias in Los Angeles, along with Casa Bianca, Abbot’s Pizza Company, Mulberry Street Pizzeria, and Caioti Pizza Cafe.

Antica was the first pizzeria in the U.S. to be awarded the certificate for authenticity from the Verace Pizza Napoletana Association, which idenitifes pizzerias that adhere to a set of strict standards for making Neapolitan style pizza – specific raw ingredients, dough techniques, and oven temperatures. Even upon walking into the restaurant on the 2^nd floor of a mini mall in Marina  Del Rey, we could feel the volcanic heat from the wood-fired oven and see the pizzaiolo pulling and stretching the dough by hand. No machines or rolling pins allowed for traditional Neapolitan pizzas.

Our pizzas are about the size of a standard hanging wall clock, with a thin, crisp crust charred underneath by the floor of the oven, and punctuated op top here and there with enormous blackened bubbles. Unlike other pizzas that are an unbroken field of oily yellow cheese that hides a flood of red, these show the slightly sweet tomato sauce through milky white abstractions of melted fior di latte mozarella. I’m not sure what that means, other than delicious!

Other items on the menu are good. The wild mushroom ragout was deeply flavorful atop slices of firm, grilled polenta. A seasonal pasta special, bucatini, was good, but not all that memorable. But why venture away from what they’re famous for? Next time, pizza all around!

Antica Pizzeria
13455 Maxella Avenue, 2^nd floor
Marina del Rey, CA 90292
(310) 577-8182

Bagel? Pizza? Neither, or so I’ve heard. It seems that New Yorkers in LA are never happy because they just can’t seem to find a thick, chewy bagel or a perfectly floppy NY-style pizza.

But Abbot’s Pizza Company, with two locations, Venice and Santa Monica, wants to do them both. In the tradition of New York pizzerias, Abbot's makes pizzas the size of manholes. The crust is thin-ish, which means if you’re going to go without utensils, you either have to pick it up and fold to take a bite, or nibble from the edge of the paper plate. But the crust is only thin-ish because at Abbot’s, the crust is made from a bagel dough – crackly crunchy on the oustide, soft and chewy on the inside. Kind of makes you want to rip the crust off and smear it with cream cheese.

Abbot’s may not taste exactly like the pizza from a street vendor in NYC, but the wild mushroom pizza on poppyseed crust is enough to give some of us a pizza-gasm.

Abbot's Pizza Company
1407 Abbot Kinney (@ California Ave.)
Venice, CA 90291
(310) 396-7334

You can get an MD, JD, MBA, CPA, and PhD. They all mean you’re certified in something. You’re an expert. You’re the best. But who cares about those certifications when it comes to matters of taste? Particularly in pizza?

Apparently, the Verace Pizza Napoletana Association does. The VPNA is an international non-profit association in Naples, Italy composed of chefs, historians, scientists and politicians that awards certifications to “those pizzerias which respect the culinary tradition of the Neapolitan pizza by fulfilling a list of standards put forth by the organization.” It doesn’t work for any old dough thrown together with red sauce and cheese and delivered to your door from Papa Caesar’s Domino Hut. It is pizza made the way they have made it for hundreds of years in Naples, where it was first invented.

The certification is, no doubt, displayed in store windows all over Italy, but in the U.S. there are only 11 pizzerias that have the VPNA’s seal of approval, and three of them are in California: A16 in San Francisco, Coppola-Niebaum Cafe in Palo Alto, and Antica Pizzeria in Los Angeles. Wow, I feel so proud to live on the West Coast today.

Our grand Pizza Day has found great support across the foodie blogosphere.

Beau at Basic Juice has been exploring beef alternatives and discovers Buffalo. Using this 'lower fat replacement' he creates a Buffalo Souljah Pizza recommending a Pagani Ranch Zinfandel as an accompaniment. If the excellent photo on Stephen Cooks doesn't get you hankering after a slice of Pizza then.. well, I don't know what will. It is all part of a post on the Perfect Sausage Pizza. (I have nicked the photo to use as an illustration). Stephen created a Lobster, Zucchini and Corn pizza for blog-happening End Of Month Egg on Toast Extravaganza awhile back, but it looks so good I have included it here.