Building A Better Pizza

I am a huge fan of pizza. Working for various pizza joints in my younger years didn't cause my love to wane. In point of fact, it only intensified my love of pizza, the edible plate of food that it is. And I want to look at why we love this disc of deliciousness and how to make our own best version.


Over my college career and early adulthood I worked for several pizza chains and mom & pop shops. This helped to develop my palette and define what I consider to be the definitive pizza. I don't get into arguments over Chicago vs New York or thin vs regular vs pan. I just know what I like. And as a friend and I discussed recently, there really (or nearly) is no way to do pizza wrong. But, I do think you can do pizza righter (more right?).

There is a mixture of art and science and a little bit of magic that goes into making pizza. The crust, sauce, cheese, and toppings form a symbiotic relationship. If any one of these is out of whack, it's still pizza, just not perfection.

I'm looking at this all from the aspect of making a solid, homemade pizza. But we can take some of these elements into account when we are ordering from our favorite pizza parlor, too. You have a parts list and basic set of instructions. Think of it just like a "build it yourself" menu at a pizza joint. Actually, it's more like ordering from your favorite Chinese food restaurant: One item from A, two items from B and 1 item from C. With all this in mind, we can build the pizza of our dreams.

I'll be looking at the primary elements of what makes pizza good and what makes a good pizza. Let's take apart the engine and look the individual parts and how they work and how they work together. Then put it all back together, fire it up and take it for a drive.