Talking Sweet About Nothing

You know what I never imagined would be so difficult? Finding live baker's yeast. At my pizza class in Philly the chef, Jeff Michaud, used live yeast in his dough. He purchased his at the local Whole Foods. 'That's cool,' I thought. 'I shouldn't have any problems finding it in Baltimore.' Wrong. I tried both Whole Foods locations, Trader Joe's, and finally asked the bakery departments at a couple of area grocery stores, all of which only carried dry yeast. This sort of bummed me out. Dry yeast is perfectly acceptable, but I was eager to try out my new skills learned in Philly. I remember my mom buying the stuff in the dairy department of any grocery store when I was a kid. Fliechman's sold it wrapped in tiny tin foil cubes. Now nobody has it.

Instead of giving up, I decided to reach out for help. I wrote the Pizzablogger. Pizzablogger is from Baltimore, and for the last few months has been keeping up with the local pizza scene at www.pizzablogger.org. He has an excellent site sharing tons of information on all things pizza related. It's definitely worth adding to your feed reader.

PB quickly wrote back suggesting that I try Graul's Market in Towson. I had been salivating for pizza for days, so I immediately jumped in the car to buy some yeast. Sure enough, Graul's was happy to sell me a small portion from behind the bakery counter. When I arrived at home I immediately got together the ingredients for dough and made a batch. I knew I'd have to wait at least 24 hours to eat, so I wanted to get started as soon as possible.

My first pizza out of the oven proved to be a huge payoff for the extra effort.

This pizza is doomed.


My dough stretching technique is getting better thanks to the tips learned from Jeff Michaud. All in all, everything is getting much more consistent with each pie. In fact, the pizzas that followed (from the same batch of dough) tasted even better as they had more time to stew in the fridge.

A few weeks ago as a birthday gift to myself, I took a pizza vacation up to the City of Brotherly Love. The impetus for this trip was a pizza making class with Jeff Michaud, the executive chef and co-owner of Osteria. Jeff is an acclaimed chef, making renowned pizzas, and even garnering a spot on Alan Richman's recent piece in GQ

Richman's piece covers American's love of pizza and outlines his list of the top 25 pizzas in America. It is definitely worth reading.

The class was smaller than I expected. I think there were about 12 people there, and only about 6 of us really participating. Jeff covered the basics of making the dough and forming it. We made two different base sauces; a traditional tomato sauce and a white, ricotta-based sauce. Anyone who wanted had the chance to form dough balls for proofing, stretch the dough (from dough made the day before), and top a pizza.


Here's Jeff, his apprentice, and a view of the mirror above the prep area.


We spent a good amount of time practicing stretching the dough. Jeff was right there the entire time to offer help and answer questions.


The two ladies work at Foster's, the home goods store sponsoring the demo. Jeff's apprentice is slicing two pies for tasting. These two pizzas are "pizza capra e zucchini" (white pizza with zucchini, ricotta cheese, and pesto).

This demo was such an amazing experience. Jeff Michaud was exceptionally friendly and eager to share his knowledge and passion for pizza. I learned so much and can't wait to practice making more pizzas.

Even though we got to eat everything we made (and all of it was delicious, of course), I still had another stop before heading back to Baltimore. My good friend Keith is from Philadelphia, and has always told me that if I ever had the chance, I had to try Tacconelli's Pizza. Tacconelli's is a legendary Philly pizzeria that's been operating in some form or another since 1918. It also came in at number 9 on that top 25 list I mentioned earlier.

Besides excellent pizza, Tacconelli's is known for a couple of other things. The family began the business as a full-scale bakery. In order to accommodate full production, the founder, Giovanni Tacconelli, and a few friends, built a 20'X20' brick oven. Think about that. That's seriously bigger than most people's bedrooms. Also, it is highly recommended that one call ahead to reserve their dough. Apparently they make a limited amount of dough each day, and where they're out...they're out. Luckily, Keith gave me the heads up and I called a day in advance to make sure I had a dough ball waiting for me.


From the outside it is very unassuming. It's located on a quiet neighborhood side street. Inside is no different. The basic menu in a plastic sleeve offers only pizzas and drinks (BYOB, btw). The decor looks like my grandma's house (not that there's anything wrong with that) and you're given paper plates and napkins as you are seated. No frill, and I love it.


Guess what. The pizza is amazing. The cracker thin crust is charred and delicious.


No droopy crust here!

Unfortunately, the kitchen is separate from the two main dining areas. I was curious to see the giant brick oven, so I asked the server if it was possible to stick my head in to see. She was nice enough to escort me back and let me stay for a minute or two to watch a couple of pizzas being made.




It's a little difficult to tell, but you can see back into the oven. The scale is weird in the picture, but it's awesome how far back it goes. There were about 2 other pizzas in there, too.


Funny side note, check out that long pizza peel handle. It extends back another few feet and is propped up on a makeshift table.

After all of the pizza from our trials in class, and the excellent pie from Tacconelli's, I had to take a few slices home in a box. It's only about an hour and half from Philly back to Baltimore, but I couldn't handle the smell in the car and ended up eating two of them. I had planned on saving at least one for Katie. I failed. The last piece was gone the next morning.