Jon In Albany: Father's Day Pizza

For Father's Day, my family brought me to one of the most exclusive, hard to get into pizza spots in Upstate, NY. You need to know someone, plus the timing is hit or miss and sometimes weather dependent. I mean, sure it's my backyard and I was making the pizzas, but I stand by it.

I've gone on about the Pizza Cognition Theory before, basically the first pizza you appreciate as a child become pizza for you. I've heard of exceptions like adult pizza snobs that grew up on chain pizza, but I've found that for the most part, the theory holds true. My Pizza Cognition Theory pizza is from a long gone restaurant called The Brick Oven formerly in Bridgeport, Connecticut. I think It's a Brazilian place now.

Don't get me wrong, I really like the pizza I make in my wood oven, but it isn't the same as the pizza I grew up eating. However, every now and then there are flashes of Brick Oven pizza coming out of my oven. Kind of like a time traveler trying to break through some force field into present day.

I made twelve pizzas plus a gluten free square on Sunday. Why did I stop? Because I ran out of cheese. And speaking of cheese, I used a different mozzarella and I now have a new go to brand. If I didn't have to buy Grande mozzarella by the case, I probably would have been using that. Over the years I've gone through all the supermarket brands, the BJ's brands, a few from Whole Foods, some from Honest Weight and all the options at Restaurant Depot. I had settled on the Saputo Mozzeria brand From Restaurant Depot as a combination of good price and decent cheese. Not the best cheese, but decent. Saputo makes another brand I like better, but that's a hour round trip every time to get.

When I was in Restaurant Depot to pick up cheese, more cans of tomatoes and to replenish the cup n char pepperoni supply, I saw a new option. Empire mozzarella from Cuba, NY. In one of the old work trips across the state, I have been to Cuba and I have been to this cheese shop. Had to try it.

The cheese was really good. A definite improvement over the Saputo and taste-wise, a major step towards marking something that tastes like the Brick Oven used to taste like. Another thing I did was use a more heavily seasoned sauce on the pizza. This sauce has salt, garlic, oregano and olive oil instead of just good tomatoes with salt. The two combined to give me several flashes of Brick Oven pizzas from the 80s. Especially on the mushroom slice (no photos of that one), but also on this cheese pizza.

I think a slightly bigger dough ball and a little longer bake would get me pretty damn close to those pizzas of my youth. And I should be good on pepperoni for a bit.

Some more of the 12 pizzas...