July 22, 2024 • 48 mins
In this episode of 'Bread for the People,' host Jim Serpico welcomes Christy Alia from Real Clever Food. They discuss Alia's creation of Women's Pizza Month, which celebrates and highlights the contributions of women to the pizza industry, coinciding with Women's History Month. They also delve into the rising popularity of Detroit-style pizza, Alia's recipe development process, and her methods for making delicious pizzas using different types of cheese. The conversation touches on Alia's background, her sourdough journey, and the importance of experimentation and fun in cooking and baking. The episode is filled with tips on improving pizza-making techniques and engaging with the online culinary community.
Follow Christy on Instagram at @RealCleverFood
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/jim-serpico-bread-for-the-people-sourdough-pizza-life--5704379/support.
Follow Christy on Instagram at @RealCleverFood
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/jim-serpico-bread-for-the-people-sourdough-pizza-life--5704379/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
My name's Jim Surpico. And thisshould I start with my name? What
should I start with? This isbread for the people. Do you like
it like this? Welcome to bread? Or do you like it like this?
Welcome ready, Welcome to bread forthe people? Mine? Is there
a script? People? Welcome tobread for the people. I'm Jim Surpico
(00:27):
again. Here we are. Whata day. I'm excited for this episode
with Christy Elijah from Real Clever Food. We're gonna bring her on in a
minute. I had a busy morning. I have a friend coming over in
a couple of days. I thinkyou might have heard this story before.
Christy Christie's in here looking as Ido my intro episode, that's what we're
(00:53):
gonna call it. My friend hassome digestive issues and she requested I make
sour dough pizza, and that's whatI did. I spent the morning making
a few sour dough pizza dough balls. We're gonna let that ferment for a
couple of days. Then I mixedsome batches of scott Shot of bread,
which I actually turned into olive bread. So I'm getting that ready for my
farmer's markets. And chased down alawyer was helping me with an operating agreement,
(01:19):
and here we are. Oh,and then I realized that Christy's coming
on. Christy and I have somethingin common as of fifteen minutes ago.
You know what I'll think. WhatI'll do is introduce Christy and then we'll
get into it. She is asour dough bread baker, an instructor,
a consultant, and a recipe developerand the founder of Women's Pizza Month.
(01:42):
Please welcome Christy Eliah. Hey,thanks for having me. You know,
I feel like we know each other. I feel like we've talked to each
other before. I know, it'sweird, right, It's so strange.
I love the idea of Women's PizzaMonth. When I first started the podcast
a couple of years ago, Iwas interviewing Scott Wiener, and I told
(02:06):
him I was struggling to find femalepizza makers because locally where I live in
Long Island, I hadn't come acrossa lot, and I was early in
my pizza journey. I've since gotteninvolved in the national pizza scene and discovered
many female pizza makers. But tellme a little bit more about Women's Pizza
Month. Why was it important?To start. What it's all about.
(02:28):
Yeah, like I said, Icould talk about Women's Piacea Month for a
really long time, but basically Women'sPizza Mouth what's about is about celebrating and
highlighting all the amazing contributions women havebrought to pizza. And it's about inspiring
not only everybody out there who's onInstagram, but also myself, Like I
have been so inspired by women suchas Nancy Sillerton or Ceramic and a lot
(02:51):
of people like gets upsetting to methat they don't know who these people are.
So there's this misconception that there aren'teven women in pizza. So the
whole idea of behind Women's Pizza Monthis to introduce you to them, get
inspired by them, and celebrate them. So it's a really cool month.
We do it all month long inMarch and it coincides with Women's History Month.
And do you find that there's alot of young women getting involved and
(03:13):
even more than ever? And ifso, who are they? Every year
we get more and more women involved. A lot of these women are professional
pizza makers, some are just startingout with new businesses pop ups. They're
feeling really empowered out there that they'regetting noticed now, so they reach out
to me too, just to bea part of it. But all kinds
of people. We have vets likeLeah Skerto who's out in California. She
(03:37):
owns a pizzeria out there, amazingpizza maker. But she's been doing it
for she's got to be in itfor over twenty years. But yeah,
we'll have new pop up people whoare just starting in pizza. From the
beginning, we get old kinds ofpeople and starting talking about some young people.
And Long Island we got Tory teasedshe was actually original supporter of Women's
(03:57):
Pizza months. She's awesome pizza maker, just open her own pizzaia. And
what's cool is she's doing Detroit pizzason Long Island, which is really new
and really cool for Long Island.Yeah, Detroit pizza seems to be I
see it all over Instagram nationally,and I see a lot of people introducing
Detroit style pizza. And I alsosaw maybe it was jem and Yanni who
(04:23):
predicted that Detroit style pizza was goingto be a thing. I think it
was him and he was correct.Why do you think people are picking up
on that now? I think itstarted to become really big. Actually,
the first time I really noticed itwas a guy out of the UK,
probably in two thy nineteen. Hisname is Julian. He had a pizza
(04:46):
Instagram at that time called pizzas Lovely. He was inspired by Detroit pizza and
I think he really made it popular. Then more and more people started picking
up my friend Jimmy Hank as Joeprobably know, Jimmy Hank's pizza really got
into the free goo. So it'san instagrammable style the traditional If you know
anything about the traditional Detroit pizza,it doesn't have that pretty freako, but
(05:08):
people got a little bit wild withit, even that UK guy, I
think so. I think the instagramtall freako if you're not familiar with that,
is the freco is like a cheesecrown and it looks like almost painful
to eat sometimes when you look atthe pictures, but it's pretty to look
at. So I think that's partof the reason it got so popular.
And also, if you like cheese, it's a lot of cheese, so
(05:29):
I think people like that. Ithe freako is a byproduct of my cheddar
jalapino sour dough and the freako ripsthe bags. So it's very annoying sometimes,
but when I try to recreate iton pizza, I struggle. I
don't know if I'm utube very Bay. That's what I was going to say.
I think I'm not being I'm notbuying the right cheese. You know
(05:50):
what I'm not. The thing you'lllearn about me is I have no secrets.
Actually, I love to share allmy knowledge with everyone because my whole
thing is about empowering everyone and makingpeople realize that all this stuff is really
simple and it shouldn't be hard.It's really a matter of starches. So
you're looking at pre shredded cheese,the probably number one pre Go crowning cheese
(06:13):
is the cheap Costco Kirkland pre shredpard skin. That's the best one.
That's the best one. Do youminx it with MutS at all? I
personally met for I like to blendit because I'm about flavors. Even if
I'm going for the pretty instagrammable pizza, I'm blending my real cheese and the
(06:33):
whole middle of the pizza is gonnabe fresh slice, problown mozzarella, mix
of age mods. I mean,I'm not using pre shred on the middle
part of the pizza at all,just on the edge for that pretty instagrammable
crust. But I will mix itin with some age cheddar or prove or
something just to give it more flavor. The prettiest crowns are not the most
(06:56):
delicious ones. So if I'm makingpizza Detroit's for Instagram, I'm not using
pre shred. Do you use setit? Do you sprinkle the cheese in
the pans perimeter before you put yourdough in? No? But I do
find that's another thing. If youwant to make the good Freco. I
didn't know we're gonna get into detritbut if you want to make the good
Freco, you gotta avoid a lotof shrinkage so that way the crown can
(07:19):
build up, so that you're goingto do basically a par cook, for
that's how most people do the prettyones. And you have to do a
high temperature par cook so that you'regoing to really cook that really quick.
So we're talking about four fifty tofive hundred degrees in the oven for no
more than seven minutes. Can youcook a pizza like that in the dome?
(07:43):
You can park cook it in thedome. I justly turn the flame
off, or yeah, you don'tneed a flame, or you could cover
it too that if you have thepan, that's the magic of pan pizzas.
You could cover the top so youdon't have to worry about anything burning.
But a lot of I guess thebig hack is if you do have
a struggle with because you like touse a high hydration dough like I do,
So that's also going to cause moreshrinking, but it's also going to
(08:05):
taste better because you can have alighter dough that cheese around the edge at
the park. Who cook is goingto help you keep the edge, I
guess attached to the side of thepan. Lots of strategies, all right,
So tell us about your background andwhat inspired you to start real clever
(08:26):
food and what does it stand for? All right? My background is most
of my food history, especially myItalian food history, is from my Italian
grandfather, my Sicilian grandfather, whichI heard you talk about scot shadows,
but yeah, I learned how tomake pasta and bread and pizza from him.
Not sour though. Yet you growinto your own as you get older,
(08:48):
start exploring and probably it was inlike two thousand and sixteen that I
was introduced to somebody sour dough started, and this is funny, this was
I did had a oh my god, this is going to make everybody maybe
questioned me. But for like abouta year before that, I was actually
paleo because I was on that wholehealth kick and everything, and I was
(09:11):
convinced that Gluden was the enemy.And so then the natural progression, of
course, was I miss Luden andthese bread products so much. I can't
live my life when now it's notworth living. So then it was a
natural thing to see, Oh wait, a lot of people are having a
lot of luck with sourdough, andif you know anything about Paley or like,
you don't want to use like processjunkie stuff, so like gluten free
(09:33):
breads were out of the question.I tried out sourdough and it was so
good, and it actually felt reallygood. I'm a runner, I actualized
I'm fit, and it was coolthat I could eat sourdough bread and pizza
and I actually felt more energetic,Whereas when I ate like a typical three
hour, four hour fermented pizza outof a pizzeria at a local shop,
I'd want to take a nap.Afterwards. Yeah, I discovered the magic
(09:54):
of sourdough more recently and then aboutI think twenty nineteen, I made my
own sourdough starter because that's a wholeanother rite of passage to have your own.
Yeah, that's basically my background asfar as that goes. And Real
Clever Food. I created that duringthe COVID isolated when everybody was hunkering down
and I was on non social mediaat all, had no interest in Facebook,
(10:16):
Instagram, who needs that? Butyou know what, I started making
pizzas and posting them because it's likeyou're just all in your own world and
it was nice to reach out thereand see that there were people out there.
And people were like, wow,they were really interested in seeing these
pizzas that were made on this Unipizza and I was using at the time,
(10:37):
and they had questions and it waspizza and sourdo the most popular things.
And yeah, so that kind ofgrew out of it. But the
reason I used Real Clever Food andnot Real Clever Pizza was I love to
cook. I cook a lot ofthings besides pizza. So originally I had
stuff like lamb and potato, paveand all kinds of good things on there
(10:58):
and breads and stuff, but noone wanted to see that. They only
wanted to see the pizza. Yeah, I'm falling into the trap of I'm
a bread maker, but I ammaking a lot of pizza. So it's
a combination. Even when I'm outin the public with my food trailer which
is labeled the Italian Flat Bread truckside Hustle Bread Italian Flat Bread, and
it's got big pictures of scotsho outof sandwich is and now I'm making pizza
(11:22):
out of it. So I struggledwith the whole bread company versus the pizza
thing a little bit. It's goodto be a little broader. Do you
know Breadstall at a London He wasoriginally just a bread maker, that's why
it's called breadstall. And now he'sdoing so well with pizza. And he
actually just had a big investor comein on multiple ones and they're going to
(11:43):
be opening brick and mortars and he'sjust a pizza guy, but they're named
bread Stall. He's keeping history.Is he was a bread guy? Yeah
he is. He's going to beworking it for at least a while.
I don't know what the contract dealsare, but he's keeping the name.
Yeah, I think he's pretty muchselling Yeah, be branding to Surpercos Bread
(12:03):
Company from side Hustle Bread even thoughwe're going to make pizza and pizza will
be a good part of our business. Yeah. If it worked for him,
it could work for Hope. SoI have a filmmaking background. That's
what I did professionally for a lotof years. But I have to say,
(12:24):
I'm in awe of your Instagram pageand I'm curious to know how you
do it because I know how muchwork it takes because you're concentrating on the
food, which is It ends upbeing one of my problem when I'm working
alone, where am I putting myfocus on what I'm making or am I
actually designing this shot list and slowingdown? I guess I'm selling a lot,
(12:50):
so I'm also I have to worryabout speed. It takes a lot
of time to shoot this stuff.Absolutely. Yeah. When I'm doing like
private public events, when I'm reallyhustling, I try to get someone to
help me with the content or I'lltake a break from it, especially if
I have help and shoot the contentand will take turns shooting each other's content.
But most of my content is madeat homes, so that's why you
(13:13):
probably see mostly. Really, Idon't get too crazy about the angles and
what I'm shooting. I'm really makingpizza, and I have a tripod and
I'll set it up in places thatI think have worked for me and my
page. But I'm always trying newthings. But yeah, I get it,
making content and making large volumes offood. It's hard. It's really
(13:33):
hard, do you No, It'sjust different people, friends, family,
other pizza makers. It changes.I'm actually want to work more with different
local pizza makers. I actually traveleda lot. I went to London,
Germany, I was in Spain,so I really I have been connecting to
different pizza makers all over, obviouslyin New York too. Yeah, So
(13:54):
the goal is to keep connecting tomore and more people, because that's really
what is the reason, the mainreason I joined Instagram. The reason was
to reach out and find life outthere during COVID, and then I discovered
this community, this pizza community thatI've actually completely fall in love with.
They're my family and friends now andit's the reason I'm still here. So
(14:16):
I want to continue growing that communityand meeting these people in real life,
not just on Instagram. So that'salways been a thing for me, So
I'm going to continue to do that. Actually, this summer, I'm going
to be doing a Slice out Sliceat Hunger fundraiser. Last year we did
a big one in New Haven.We had about ten pizza makers come and
join us there. We're going toprobably have about the same amount, but
(14:39):
we're going to try to do itin New York City. Either we're looking
at right now, Brooklyn or LongIsland City. We're still working on it,
but it's going to be awesome.And I love pizza for a cause,
I love bringing people together. I'mreally excited about that. Yeah,
And likewise, I met a lotof people on Instagram and I think they
were at the New Haven event.Algie Russo, who I know. Oh,
I love him. Yats we're goingto be do that together. Yep,
(15:01):
yep, he's my buddy. Yeah. A lot of great people.
Yeah, yeah, really good.Where are you based? I'm in Westchester.
I was born and raised. Iwas born in the Bronx and most
of my life was in Queen's andthen I came up to Westchester about five
six years ago. Okay, that'sgreat. Do you have David Dubari do
you eat it? You know who? He is a chef up in Dobbs
(15:24):
Ferry. I believe the pallor noI don't. I haven't been to too
many places over and Dobb's Ferry Ihave to say. But yeah, if
he saw someone, I should checkit out. I've got a truck in
a restaurant. He's supposed to.He makes some unbelievable stuff up there.
When you went to London, theguy I follow on Instagram who's got a
great Guysney set up his peddling pizzas. Yeah, I didn't get a chance
(15:48):
to see him, but yeah he'sawesome. Adam, Yeah, fantastic Gos
the ambassador. We didn't get achance to meet up. I didn't unfortunately
I needed more time. But yeah, I met up with a lot of
people I had met on Instagram andlike I said, Breadstall, we went
to a bunch of the different pizzapizzeria is my favorite. Actually, one
of them besides Breadstyle is Balladin,which does pizza a la palla and they
(16:12):
also have amazing beer as well.There Ala is the market very similar,
I think, at least in mymind. That's what I want to do.
It's very similar to this sketch outof bread is high hydration facaccia like
bread that you can bake it ina pan, but then you could also
bake it somewhat free form and makepizza out of it. And I do
(16:33):
make pizza. I make my thickerpizzas Roman style pizza in pans and not
in pans, but I use thesame dough for that. I'm going to
ask you where in Italy, eitherare you from or where inspired by that
scit chatta? What part? Iwas inspired by it after I became a
bread maker and selling my bread professionallyand starting to make pizzas. I remember
(17:00):
about eight years ago going to Florenceon a trip and eating at the original
al Antiquo Vinio before it came tothe States. Then it came to the
States and became a big deal.I spent three months trying to figure it
out and talking to people about it, and I became very happy with the
bread, and I just decided tofocus on it. Yeah. The only
(17:25):
reason I asked that was because Ilearned about scochata actually through extended family who
were from the Siracusa area and theyactually make a very different thing with Goochata.
It's actually like a stuffed pizza,like a Really it's like an enriched
dough that has either olive oil orsome barred in it, and they basically
(17:47):
make it very thin and inside they'llput like Regatha and ham and other things
inside, So it's actually the completelydifferent East. I actually I should make
it again. I have been onmy page from like maybe a year or
two ago. So it's thin,but it has an inside. Do they
roll it up? No, it'sjust almost like sandwich together. Okay,
yeah, maybe like a thin cowzone. Yes, I would be like
(18:08):
that would probably be the best descriptionof it. But yeah, like a
large thin cowzone. Speaking of that, what do you make of the trend
of people making these pizza sandwiches?I feel like this comes up of other
pal Dude, I actually called thetrends when I was on I drifts What's
good to podcast people? He wasasking me, how do you go viral?
(18:30):
I was like, make pizza sandwichesand a couple of guys did that
and he went viral. He andI have friends. We actually took pizza
school together in Miami. Oh cool, Yeah, I drift is great,
Like he's one of those people Icall pizza family, Like I Drift is
an awesome guy or good friends.But I didn't know he Basically I didn't
hear that episode. I didn't knowhe went into this. But I want
(18:52):
to hear what you say. Yeah, he's asking me, how do you
go viral? So I had justI guess maybe a week or two before,
made a pizza souda where I putit up bacon and avocado in there.
I just thought it was funny becauseit's so simple. That's the whole
joke of it all is basically,you're taking pizza dough, you're shaping it
into a pizza, and then you'reputting just a little olive oil in it
and folding in half. So there'sno skill involved. It's super easy to
(19:15):
launch because your ingredients are super lightand it's there's no skill there. So
you just put it in there andyou cook it, and then you open
it up and you put stuff inside. You could even put dinner from last
night, no effort in there,ingredients you have into fridge, and all
of a sudden, people like,right, oh my god, you're the
best thing ever. It what Igot? I think seven thousand, six
thousand and seven thousand likes on it, over half a million views, and
(19:36):
it was just it was funny tome. So I when I drive fast,
I was like, just make somepizza saerages. I could have just
kept making pizza sandwiches and road dettrend, but that's not me. I
get bored very easily. As yousee. My peachas got everything and anything.
But practically speaking, so I'm watchingthis happen like I would say,
started six to eight months ago.In my opinion, I could be way
off on that, but that's whenI start seeing it. It was around
(19:59):
March really when it really started pickingup February. March February's one mind went
by over and over. I seeit, and I hadn't made one.
And I would say about a monthand a half ago, my son and
I were doing this wine blending eventand it was now getting laid. It
was like nine o'clock. We hadn'teaten. We had some extra coal cuts
like moltidella and the fresh muzzadel andeverything that would make the Regularkachi sandwiches on
(20:23):
and we had extra pizza dough.Let's try this thing. And I made
one, it was horrible in thatit's so much dough, like I didn't
That's the thing I do differently.I make sure it's stretched out. I
think if you want a good pizzasandwich my opinion, which most are not,
you gotta bake it thin. Idon't want big doe stuff inside and
(20:45):
raw dough. But most of thetime on Instagram it's a regular pizza and
that's what I made, And Iwas like, this is disgusting, Like
I'm just shoveling an entire pizza inmy mouth and it doesn't even taste good.
No, you gotta do it theright way if you're going to do
a pizza sandwich. That's the wholething too, is I feel like most
of them out there are not thinenough, cooked long enough. You're a
(21:07):
bread guy, so I'm a breadperson. I think people who understand like
bread has to be cooked to acertain temperature, to internal temperature. What
do you what is your minimum internaltemperature? Do you take the internal temperature?
I don't anymore more. Temperature?First, Yeah, okay, here's
Normally the minimum is one ninety.I usually go over two hundred unless it's
enriched, which I learned the hardway, and I've still been learning,
(21:30):
like I do a lot of hollowbreads or cinnamon raisin is another one of
the culprits because it's got milk init. And when I talked and studied,
I will always remember the magic numberbeing one ninety. But what I
realize is when you're doing enriched stuff, it's still cooking when you take it
out of the oven, and itdries up. Man. So now I
take it out at the one sixtyfive, the enriched stuff, oh and
(21:53):
much softer. So I was havingthat problem. But yeah, two hundred
is my magic number. Yes,So that's how I feel like. Those
pizza sandwiches are restuck the momer andyou're probably closer to one to six.
They feel like that's like it isthe public service announcement pizza sandwich. People
stick at thermometer inside you're a sandwich, or make them a lot better.
So let's move on to recipe development. Obviously you're coming up with stuff,
(22:17):
But what is it about that thatyou gravitate towards making new stuff? Why
do you do that? And whatbesides your page do you have another purpose
of doing it? It's a passionof mine, a lot of the inspiration
started out with recipes my grandfather taughtme, and I wanted to make them
my own and also just better andget creative. I just I love to
play, and that's what I That'sbeen a big thing for me. Like
(22:38):
when I tell people, whether they'reI'm teaching them bread or pizza, the
only way you're doing it wrong isif you're not having fun. There's a
learning curve. Obviously we all startsomewhere, but the biggest, most important
thing is having fun. Because thinkabout it, if you don't like something,
are you going to really want toget better? No, But if
you have fun and you're really enjoyingit, guess what you're going to be
(22:59):
into and you're gonna keep doing itand you're gonna get better because that's what
happens you practice, you get betterand better. I like to play,
that's the whole thing. I liketo have funds, coming up with new
recipes, new ways of doing things, getting inspired by others. That's what
I enjoy, right. What aresome of the favorite ingredients you like to
play with? Especially this time ofyear. I love to go to a
local farmer's market and see what's inseason or even like at the very beginning
(23:25):
of spring, like I always bringit up, but like wildgar like or
ramps we call them here. Ilove super seasonal ingredients, especially like short
season ones like rubarb or theying someweird things with pizza. It's funny like
a lot of people are anti pineappleor anti this, or anti d apple,
and I feel like a lot oftimes that problem would get solved if
people realize that you don't have toput tomato sauce on pizza. I think
(23:48):
that's another thing. A lot ofpeople don't consider pizza unless it has sauce
on it, which is weird becauseItalians have been making pizza without sauce since
the beginning of time, at leastsince the beginning of pizza. I feel
like a lot of ingredients like peoplestruggle with them and if they had if
they're just thinking about flavor pairings.Balance is another thing that I like to
talk about. You need the importanceof balance when it comes to mixing ingredients.
(24:12):
Yeah, most ingredients, not everyingredient can work on a pizza.
I see the pineapple thing come upa lot on the Facebook pizza groups.
I think those people are largely ignorantany anything could go on pizza, and
I love the fusion of different stylesof food on the Roman pizza. I
was doing Beria cris Bianco as apizza that I started making after reading his
(24:34):
book, and I saw you didsomething similar with lemons. I love doing
something with peccorino and lemon, andI do it at my wine blending classes
and people freak out like they neverimagined it would taste good and they love
it. Oh yeah, I thinkthere's a That's what I tell people too,
Like, I mean, if youwant to be a better pizza maker,
maybe also become a breadmaker. Ifeel like most of the people that
make bread they also tend to makebetter pizza because not only are you going
(24:56):
to learn more about fermentation, you'realso going to get more confident about handling
that dough as well, and you'remore likely to use your hands things.
Another thing people tend to be likeas soon as they start to make pizza,
there like I need a mixers,Like you do not need a mixer.
Actually you shouldn't use a mixer ifyou're just starting in bread and pizza.
So I love to work with beginnersand educate them about learning their dough
(25:18):
and getting messy. But I meanas a bread maker, I think you
understand that pizza is basically a breadand anything that you could put on bread
should be game for pizza or evenpasta, Like anything you put on pasta
should be game for pizza. It'svery similar. And talking about mixers,
I still use a stand mixer.Are you using a spiral? A spiral
(25:42):
is the way to go if I'mdoing large batches, But you know what
if I'm doing smaller parties, ifI'm going under twenty four dough balls,
I'm going for a hand really.Yeah, yes, it's a lot.
I'm doing mostly stretch and folds,and my hydration tends to be a little
higher. Since your bread you're goingat higher hydration. You' don't have to
work as hard. Yeah, alot of that gluten's going to develop for
(26:03):
you. Absolutely. And the otherthing I discovered if if you bulk ferment
at a relatively low percentage, youdon't need to stretch and fold as much.
That's right. You got to slowthings down. That's temperature and time
another ingredient, and people forget aboutit. Next that too, I'm going
to get I think by the way, blind baking. It's interesting. Only
discovered it from researching you. Oh, okay, tell the audience what it
(26:30):
is, all right? When wetalked about pizza and not pies, I
guess pizza can be called a potbut for pizza, basically, it's about
having a blank canvas you're basing.You're baking the pizza till it's pretty much
done or almost done without any toppingson top. And an easy way that
I like to teach people to doit is to actually put a metal plate
on top. And it's really easybecause a traditional way often was to use
(26:53):
ice, which would also keep downthe pizza. Can I interrupt you right
here? Yeah? It's Augie wasworking with me a couple of weeks ago
and we were making we were makingsomething that we wanted to We wanted to
finish it. It was a whitepizza, and we wanted to finish everything
that was cold, right. Itold them to put ice on the dough
and we would get hotspots and itwould burn a hole and dough. What
(27:14):
am I missing on the ice?I did notice that when you did it
with lemons, you put the iceon top of the lemon. I did.
I don't always do it because Iobviously don't want lemons always on my
pizza. You know what. Ithink The key is to use enough ice
but not too much ice, andyeah you probably yeah, you might have
been too much ice. And ifyou put too much sauce anything, you're
looking at rips and holes and problems. The same rules apply to any top
(27:36):
things, whether it's ice or sauce. You don't want too much or too
little. But that's why the plateis a really nice hack. I didn't
come up with that idea. Idon't know who the original person was,
but I learned it from a pizzamaker. Her name is Nick two cents
Pizza on Instagram. She's from Englandand I saw I heard doing and I
was like, I was like,I don't know, two years ago and
I'm like, oh my god againlike the pizza sad. That's so damn
(28:00):
easy. So I showed people howto do it, and of course that
went viral too, So I feellike, okay, if we want to
go into that, you want togo viral, show people something simple but
good. You know how to doit on Instagram and you're gonna make them
very happy and you'll probably go viral. Maybe something they haven't seen before.
I don't know if you could goviral making a pizza sandwich anymore, but
maybe you can. Probably. Ithink people are still going viral that It's
(28:22):
funny. Like I was at anevent and the barbecue guy there, his
name is Matt, really fantastic guy. He had all this great barbecue,
and he's like, did you hearabout did you know about Jesus sandwiches?
Like it was just like brand thinknew thing he just heard about. So
I think there's still enough people outthere that are like, still it's brand
new and mind blowing to them.So I think you still have a little
window if that's like your goal isto just go viral with something simple,
(28:47):
keep making those pizza sandwiches, thougha lot of the pizza community is going
to probably roll their eyes, probablybe annoyed at you. I'll try not
to be one of those sheep.Going back to the pineapple, I do
have a jar because I do thefarmers' markets every weekend and I'm next to
us pickle guy, and he hada jar of pickled jalapeno pineapple that they
use for like a marinate, andit tastes unbelievable. I think that's a
(29:10):
good way to use pineapple on thepizza. I helped Alexander Stafford with her
book Pizza Night, and she hadan amazing pineapple pizza that really actually made
me like, oh, this isreally good. What she does is she
cooks caramelizes the pineapple in us thebacon fat. First, she part cooks
(29:30):
the bacon a little bit, rendersthe fat out, and then the pineapple
gets cooked in mat and that getsput on a thin crust pizza with lots
of bacon, jalapenos and that caramelizedpineapple, and it's that sweet, salty
and heat, especially on a thincruss texture. The texture differences. It's
I was shocked at how good itwas. I told her she won me
over, So that was amazing.So did you help people with cookbooks?
(29:53):
I do? Yeah. Ali's bookwas probably like one of the best experiences
I had with that. I didsome ghost recipe writing for some people.
I've done photography for others. I'mactually doing some work with someone right now.
It's a passion of mine. Ilike to do everything when it comes
to food and good people. Socool. Do you engage with your fans
and your followers often and what doyou find The best way to do that
(30:15):
is a lot of people reach outto me, and it is time consuming,
so sometimes I'll have to leave people. I'll get back to you.
But I love to connect with everyone. If you send me a message,
unless somehow it gets lost on Instagram, like, I'm going to get back
to you. So having conversations withpeople like I enjoy helping people, enjoy
learning and meeting new people. Soif you reach out to me on Instagram,
(30:37):
I'm going to get back to you. It's your questions and that's how
I've met a lot of good people. And people have some interesting stories that
they share and I learned from them, they learn from me. It's a
give and take things. Yeah,through Instagram has been a big way.
Expo has been another way. I'vemet a lot of amazing people just getting
out there. Yeah, I wentto my first expo this year. Oh
so we didn't see each other there? What happened? That was overwhelming for
(31:00):
me? It is overwhelming a greattime. I really like the classes.
Yeah, there's some good and Iended up joining Mike Bousch's on Sliced group
after that, so I'm in thatnetworking group. Pretty cool. And then
there's a new one coming up inPhiladelphia in the fall. I heard about
that. Are you going. I'mlike on the fence on that one.
I want to go so close towhere we live. So I'm thinking about
(31:23):
getting in a car and going.We'll see, all right, maybe I'll
go to I know someone else askedme about it. I'll probably go there.
I always go maybe, and thenI end up going at the last
second. On Instagram, have yougotten any negative feedback, well, criticism?
And if so, how do youhandle that? We get trolls all
the time. I find it actuallyentertaining. Actually, my favorite thing to
do is to win a troll over. I'll go onto there. This is
(31:45):
my whole hot tip is I'll goonto their own page. Sometimes they'll have
a page and if they have adog on there, I'll be like,
your dog's so cute. No one'sgoing to keep trolling you after you tell
them that they have a cute hobby. So you go in and you'd be
nice to them and you disarm them. Kill them with kindness is usually my
motto. Kill them with kindness orrevenge. Success is the best revenge.
(32:06):
That's Those are the things I tryto live by. It's awesome. Do
you have a favorite recipe that you'vecreated and would you be willing to share
it with us? Just the overviewof what that might be that keeps changing.
Oh man, I've probably sourdough Bialli'sfor me was probably my favorite thing
because especially now up here on LongIsland or Queens is really easy to get
(32:28):
Bialli's, or up here in Westchesterit's really hard to find them. So
that's why I started making them,and sourdough wants, in my opinion,
tastes even better. So yeah,that's a recipe I share with a lot
of people. I want to makethose in my dome. Actually yeah,
oh they're so good, so goodyou'll flip out. So yeah, that's
a recipe I'm more than happy toshare with you. I could link it,
but yeah, you'll probably see itthat coming out of my dome.
(32:50):
At some point, I'd like todo more bread and that. So as
a Bali eater but not a blimaker, what makes them different a lot
easier? Yeah, and also youcould use boiled they are not. They
are made like a regular basic bread. They tend to be a higher hydration.
But yeah, you're not doing muchdifferent than not make When you make
bread pizza chibata, it's similar processed. Is it a high gluten flour in
(33:13):
the way that a bagel is?I use bread flour, which isn't particularly
extra high gluten. So no,anything that you would use for bread tends
to work really well for me forthe Beali's. Whereas a good, proper
New York bagel has a high gluten, it's not going to taste like a
proper bagel without that real chewiness.So that's I tend to like my beally
(33:34):
lighter, fresher, and I thinkthat's what makes me so happy with good
Billi's and a good Bealli egg sandwich. Oh, I'm in heaven. Do
you think that people in South Carolinathat are listening no what a bali is?
Absolutely not, unless they're originally fromNew York or have Jewish people maybe
on their back. I love thebeali I would love. I seriously would
love to try that. I'm goingto wrap things up. Are there any
particular influences or people that have influencedyou, whether from Instagram just reading their
(34:00):
books. I learned a lot froma baker named Carol Fields. She wrote
the Italian baker. That's where Istarted making yeast breads, and then I
got into sowardo later. Do youhave any people like that inspire you?
I get inspired by so many pizzamakers, basically the people that make me
hungry. On Instagram, it wouldbe like my latest thing. But there
(34:22):
was a while when I was firstdiscovered a ceramonic that was probably right around
COVID two thousand and nineteen twenty twenty. She was I loved her foragings.
She inspired me to really put allkinds of crazy local stuff a lot like
too much veggie is on the pizza, like, I love that, so
many things. Marizzio his sourdough stufflike he got me thinking more technical,
(34:45):
Like that's the thing. A lotof people who are like me to like,
I don't big. I don't big. I don't like the science.
I don't like the math. Butguess what, the math is important because
that's for recipe development. Math isyour best friend. So I've learned to
really love math because that's what helpsme tweak my recipes and help others tweak
their recipes. Is because it's allabout percentages, and that's I have to
(35:07):
credit Mercio really for he gets alittle too crazy in my opinion with some
stuff, like in technical because he'sgot an engineering background. But he really
inspired me to get a little moretechnical when it came to temperature and different
percentages, really focusing in on that. I'm exactly with you on that.
I've got a couple of friends thatare on the engineering side and they go
(35:27):
way deep and it's helpful if youcan really absorb it all. But some
of it's a little over my head. But the math part I love.
It is important to be a goodbaker. It really isn't. But I
think that's the other thing that Ialways try to also, like a lot
of people are intimidated by sourdough.They think it's something very difficult, and
it's really not. I think that'sthe big thing. That's why I love
(35:49):
working with beginners, like they're like, oh my goodness, this isn't so
hard. And then if you wantto convert your recipes that you're using with
YaST, it's all matter mass,exactly. And that's what I tell people,
and that's what I do myself allthe time. It's just a choice
of rising agent, that's all.It is so true, and I love
to people think it's new. Iwas like, no, sourdough is the
og. Nothing is older than sourdough. By the way, back to what
(36:13):
I did this morning with the sourdoughpizza dough. It's my regular recipe,
and I just substituted the sour dough, and I know in my head.
I know the ratio and the differencein my head, so I could do
that with any recipe. And infact, I've had to go the opposite.
If I screw something up on thesourdough side and eat bread fast,
I'll take my sourdough recipe and putactive yeast and go and get something ready
(36:36):
in three and a half hours.Oh yeah, yeah, you gotta do
what you gotta do. And Ilearned Poolish originally from my grandfather, which
is also what I like to callmy sourdough, a ready to go poolish.
So anybody out there who already usesa poolish should not be intimidated about
by sourdough, because what poolish reallymeans is fifty percent hydration. Pizza expo
that was classed by Peter Ryan Hartand Leo Spasiri. Something's coming up,
(37:00):
and I asked what I've been doingto not deal with the poolish because I
have three giant tubs sourdough that Ikeep active all the time. I was
putting sourdough instead of poolish into myactive yeast mixes to get away with not
doing a poolish but giving it acomplex flavor, and I think I lucked
into it working I've heard I heard. I don't know if it's lindustry,
(37:22):
but I heard rumors they might dothat as well. So it's exactly what
you just said. Though it's apreferment. Absolutely, it's all about flavor.
That's what I tell people what apreferment is about building flavor. That's
all it is. And I'm andI think everyone enjoys good food understands flavor
is everything. Flavor is everything.We're going to end on that. I
(37:43):
want to thank you for coming,and I'm going to turn this into a
meta episode that's going to run ona loop forever because here's what happened.
I did not hit record at thebeginning of this episode, and we need
to start it again, and weneed to go through Tory Teas in Malvern,
what we were we talking about rightafter that. We're gonna figure it
out. We're gonna start the showagain real quick. You're ready, all
(38:06):
right, let's do it. Doy'all just have to edit out the repeat.
I'm gonna I'm gonna this is gonnabe an interesting one. All right.
Welcome to Bread for the People.I'm Jim Serpico again. Here we
are. What a day. I'mexcited for this episode with Christi Aliyah from
Real Clever Food. We're gonna bringher on in a minute. I had
(38:28):
a busy morning. I have afriend coming over in a couple of days.
I think you might have heard thisstory before. Christy Christie's in here
looking as I do my introy episode, that's what we're gonna call it.
My friend has some digestive issues andshe requested I make sour dough pizza,
and that's what I did. Ispent the morning making a few sour dough
(38:51):
pizza dough balls. We're gonna letthat ferment for a couple of days.
Then I mixed some batches of scottShot of bread, which I actually turned
into olive bread. So I'm gettingthat ready for my farmers' markets and chased
down. A lawyer was helping mewith an operating agreement, and here we
are. Oh, and then Irealized that Christie's coming on. Christy and
(39:14):
I have something in common as offifteen minutes ago. You know what I'll
think. What I'll do is introduceChristy and then we'll get into it.
She is a sourdough bread baker,an instructor, a consultant, and a
recipe developer and the founder of Women'sPizza Month. Please welcome Christy Eliah.
(39:35):
Hey, thanks for having me.I feel like we know each other.
I feel like we've talked to eachother before. I know, it's weird,
right, It's so strange. Ilove the idea of Women's Pizza Month.
When I first started the podcast acouple of years ago, I was
interviewing Scott Weener, and I toldhim I was struggling to find female pizza
(39:55):
makers because locally where I live inLong Island, I hadn't come across a
lot, and I was early inmy pizza journey. I've since gotten involved
in the national pizza scene and discoveredmany female pizza makers. But tell me
a little bit more about Women's PizzaMonth. Why was it important to start?
What it's all about? Yeah,like, I said, I mean,
(40:16):
I could talk about Women's Pizza Monthfor a really long time, but
basically Women's Pizza Month what's about isabout celebrating and highlighting all the amazing contributions
women have brought to pizza. Andit's about inspiring not only everybody out there
who's on Instagram, but also myself, Like I have been so inspired by
(40:36):
women such as Nancy Sillerton or Ceramicand a lot of people like gets upsetting
to me that they don't know whothese people are. So there's this misconception
that there aren't even women in pizza. So the whole idea of betind Women's
Pizza Month is to introduce you tothem, get inspired by them, and
and celebrate them. So it's areally cool month. We do it all
month long in March, and itcoincides with Women's History Month. And do
(40:57):
you find that there's a lot ofyoung women getting a and even more than
ever? And if so, whoare they? Every year we get more
and more women involved. A lotof these women are professional pizza maker,
some are just starting out with newbusinesses pop ups. They're feeling really empowered
out there that they're getting noticed now, so they reach out to me too,
just to be a part of it. So, but all kinds of
(41:21):
people. We have vet's like LeahSkerto who's out in California. She owns
a pizzeria out there, amazing pizzamaker. But she's been doing it for
she's got to be in it forover twenty years. But yeah, we'll
have new pop up people who arejust starting in pizza from the beginning.
We get all kinds of people andstarting talking about some young people and Long
Island we got tory T's she wasactually a original supporter of Women's Pizza Months.
(41:46):
She's awesome pizza maker, just openher own pizzeria. And what's cool
is she's doing Detroit pizzas on LongIsland, which is really new and really
cool for Long Island. Yeah,Detroit pizza seems to be I see it
all over Instagram nationally, and Isee a lot of people introducing Detroit style
pizza. And I also saw maybeit was jem and Yanni who predicted that
(42:12):
Detroit style pizza was going to bea thing. I think it was him
and he was correct. Why doyou think people are picking up on that
now? I think it started tobecome really big Actually, the first time
I really noticed it was a guyout of the UK, probably in two
thy nineteen. His name is Julian. He had a pizza Instagram at that
(42:35):
time called Pizzas Lovely. He wasinspired by the Detroit pizza and I think
he really made it popular. Thenmore and more people started picking up my
friend Jimmy Hank, as you'll probablyknow Jimmy Hank's pizza. He really got
into the free goo. So it'san instagrammable style the traditional. If you
know anything about the traditional Detroit pizza, it doesn't have that pretty freako,
(42:55):
but people got a little bit wildwith it, even that UK guy,
I think so. I think theinstagram tall freako if you're not familiar with
that, is the freco is likea cheese crown and it looks like almost
painful to eat sometimes when you lookat the pictures, but it's pretty to
look at. So I think that'spart of the reason it got so popular.
And also, if you like cheese, it's a lot of cheese,
(43:16):
so I think people like that.I the freako is a byproduct of my
cheddar Jalapino sour dough, and thefreako rips the bags, so it's very
annoying sometimes, but when I tryto recreate it on pizza, I struggle.
I don't know if I'm ustub's verycrazy. That's what I was going
to say. I think I'm notbeing I'm not buying the right cheese.
(43:38):
You know what I'm not. Thething you'll learn about me is I have
no secrets. Actually, I loveto share all my knowledge with everyone because
my whole thing is about empowering everyoneand making people realize that all this stuff
is really simple and it shouldn't behard. It's really a matter of starches.
So you're looking at pre shredded cheese, the probably number one Freako so
(44:00):
crowning cheese is the cheap Costco Kirklandpre shred pard skin. That's the best
one. That's the best one youmentioned I personally met for. I like
to blend it because I'm about flavors. Even if I'm going for the pretty
instagrammable pizza, I'm blending mine withreal cheese, and the whole middle of
(44:21):
the pizza is gonna be fresh slice, probolo mozzarella, mix of age mods.
I'm not using pre shed on themiddle part of the pizza at all.
Just on the edge for that prettyinstagrammable crust, but I will mix
it in with some age cheddar orprove or something just to give it more
flavor. The prettiest crowns are notthe most delicious ones. So if I'm
(44:43):
making pizza Detroit's not for Instagram,I'm not using pre shred. Do you
use set it? Do you sprinklethe cheese in the pans perimeter before you
put your dough in? No?But I do find that's another thing.
If you want to make the goodI didn't know we're going to get into
the trip, but if you wantto make the good Freaco, you gotta
avoid a lot of shrinkage so thatway the crown can build up so that
(45:07):
you're going to do basically a parcook for that's how most people do the
pretty ones. And you have todo a high temperature par cook so that
you're going to really cook that reallyquick. So we're talking about four fifty
to five hundred degrees in the ovenfor no more than seven minutes. Can
you cook a pizza like that inthe dome? You can par cook it
(45:30):
in the dome. I actually turnthe flame off or yeah, don't you
don't need a flame, or youcould cover it too that if you have
the pan, that's the magic ofpan pizzas. You could cover the top
so you don't have to worry aboutanything burning. But a lot of I
guess the big hack is if youdo have a struggle with because you like
to use a higher hydration dough likeI do, so that's also going to
cause more shrinking, but it's alsogoing to taste better because you're gonna have
(45:52):
a lighter dough. That cheese aroundthe edge at the park cook is going
to help you keep the edge guessattached to the side of the pan right.
Lots of strategies. I mentioned thedome. I'm referring to the Gosney
Dome and in my intro which Ididn't finish, and I said we were
going to get to here. Whatwe have in common is that I just
(46:13):
got off the phone with Nate overat Goosney and they asked me to become
a Gosney ambassador, and I understandyour one. Yeah, I will be
one as of the to today's Julytenth, as the middle of the month.
I was going to make the announcementofficially, but yeah, I've just
been enjoying playing with my Dosney's.I really love the ovens so much.
(46:34):
If you know anything about me,I was an UNIE ambassador for over three
years and it was interesting. Butwhat I do, to be honest with
people is if the Dosney Arc orArc Excel had been out in twenty nineteen
twenty twenty, I probably would havenever been an UTIE ambassador because it's absolutely
amazing. The rock Box is cool, it's a really cool even but I
(46:57):
like space. Yeah, so that'swhy I was sold on Code sixteen.
I watched Kenzie Lopez going back andforth between the rock Box and the Code
of sixteen, and I think hewent with the Code of sixteen too.
It was just because of the space. But now that the ARC is out,
I feel like the Arc is thebest portable oven out there, the
gas only of in and so it'sa no brainer. Now, what good
(47:17):
news is this is coming out afteryou make your announcement, so we're in
the clear. Yeah all right,Christy, I have bad news. I
forgot to record the introduction, sowe're gonna start it one more time.
You ready, no, Welcome toBreadth for the people. I'm Jim Surpico
again. Here we are. Whata day. I'm excited for this episode
(47:45):
with Christy Elijah from Real Clever Food. We're gonna bring her on in a
minute. I had a busy morning. I have a friend coming over in
a couple of days. I thinkyou might have heard this story before. Frit
My name's Jim Surpico. And thisshould I start with my name? What
should I start with? This isbread for the people. Do you like
it like this? Welcome to bread? Or do you like it like this?
Welcome ready, Welcome to bread forthe people? Mine? Is there
a script? People? Welcome tobread for the people. I'm Jim Surpico
(00:27):
again. Here we are. Whata day. I'm excited for this episode
with Christy Elijah from Real Clever Food. We're gonna bring her on in a
minute. I had a busy morning. I have a friend coming over in
a couple of days. I thinkyou might have heard this story before.
Christy Christie's in here looking as Ido my intro episode, that's what we're
(00:53):
gonna call it. My friend hassome digestive issues and she requested I make
sour dough pizza, and that's whatI did. I spent the morning making
a few sour dough pizza dough balls. We're gonna let that ferment for a
couple of days. Then I mixedsome batches of scott Shot of bread,
which I actually turned into olive bread. So I'm getting that ready for my
farmer's markets. And chased down alawyer was helping me with an operating agreement,
(01:19):
and here we are. Oh,and then I realized that Christy's coming
on. Christy and I have somethingin common as of fifteen minutes ago.
You know what I'll think. WhatI'll do is introduce Christy and then we'll
get into it. She is asour dough bread baker, an instructor,
a consultant, and a recipe developerand the founder of Women's Pizza Month.
(01:42):
Please welcome Christy Eliah. Hey,thanks for having me. You know,
I feel like we know each other. I feel like we've talked to each
other before. I know, it'sweird, right, It's so strange.
I love the idea of Women's PizzaMonth. When I first started the podcast
a couple of years ago, Iwas interviewing Scott Wiener, and I told
(02:06):
him I was struggling to find femalepizza makers because locally where I live in
Long Island, I hadn't come acrossa lot, and I was early in
my pizza journey. I've since gotteninvolved in the national pizza scene and discovered
many female pizza makers. But tellme a little bit more about Women's Pizza
Month. Why was it important?To start. What it's all about.
(02:28):
Yeah, like I said, Icould talk about Women's Piacea Month for a
really long time, but basically Women'sPizza Mouth what's about is about celebrating and
highlighting all the amazing contributions women havebrought to pizza. And it's about inspiring
not only everybody out there who's onInstagram, but also myself, Like I
have been so inspired by women suchas Nancy Sillerton or Ceramic and a lot
(02:51):
of people like gets upsetting to methat they don't know who these people are.
So there's this misconception that there aren'teven women in pizza. So the
whole idea of behind Women's Pizza Monthis to introduce you to them, get
inspired by them, and celebrate them. So it's a really cool month.
We do it all month long inMarch and it coincides with Women's History Month.
And do you find that there's alot of young women getting involved and
(03:13):
even more than ever? And ifso, who are they? Every year
we get more and more women involved. A lot of these women are professional
pizza makers, some are just startingout with new businesses pop ups. They're
feeling really empowered out there that they'regetting noticed now, so they reach out
to me too, just to bea part of it. But all kinds
of people. We have vets likeLeah Skerto who's out in California. She
(03:37):
owns a pizzeria out there, amazingpizza maker. But she's been doing it
for she's got to be in itfor over twenty years. But yeah,
we'll have new pop up people whoare just starting in pizza. From the
beginning, we get old kinds ofpeople and starting talking about some young people.
And Long Island we got Tory teasedshe was actually original supporter of Women's
(03:57):
Pizza months. She's awesome pizza maker, just open her own pizzaia. And
what's cool is she's doing Detroit pizzason Long Island, which is really new
and really cool for Long Island.Yeah, Detroit pizza seems to be I
see it all over Instagram nationally,and I see a lot of people introducing
Detroit style pizza. And I alsosaw maybe it was jem and Yanni who
(04:23):
predicted that Detroit style pizza was goingto be a thing. I think it
was him and he was correct.Why do you think people are picking up
on that now? I think itstarted to become really big. Actually,
the first time I really noticed itwas a guy out of the UK,
probably in two thy nineteen. Hisname is Julian. He had a pizza
(04:46):
Instagram at that time called pizzas Lovely. He was inspired by Detroit pizza and
I think he really made it popular. Then more and more people started picking
up my friend Jimmy Hank as Joeprobably know, Jimmy Hank's pizza really got
into the free goo. So it'san instagrammable style the traditional If you know
anything about the traditional Detroit pizza,it doesn't have that pretty freako, but
(05:08):
people got a little bit wild withit, even that UK guy, I
think so. I think the instagramtall freako if you're not familiar with that,
is the freco is like a cheesecrown and it looks like almost painful
to eat sometimes when you look atthe pictures, but it's pretty to look
at. So I think that's partof the reason it got so popular.
And also, if you like cheese, it's a lot of cheese, so
(05:29):
I think people like that. Ithe freako is a byproduct of my cheddar
jalapino sour dough and the freako ripsthe bags. So it's very annoying sometimes,
but when I try to recreate iton pizza, I struggle. I
don't know if I'm utube very Bay. That's what I was going to say.
I think I'm not being I'm notbuying the right cheese. You know
(05:50):
what I'm not. The thing you'lllearn about me is I have no secrets.
Actually, I love to share allmy knowledge with everyone because my whole
thing is about empowering everyone and makingpeople realize that all this stuff is really
simple and it shouldn't be hard.It's really a matter of starches. So
you're looking at pre shredded cheese,the probably number one pre Go crowning cheese
(06:13):
is the cheap Costco Kirkland pre shredpard skin. That's the best one.
That's the best one. Do youminx it with MutS at all? I
personally met for I like to blendit because I'm about flavors. Even if
I'm going for the pretty instagrammable pizza, I'm blending my real cheese and the
(06:33):
whole middle of the pizza is gonnabe fresh slice, problown mozzarella, mix
of age mods. I mean,I'm not using pre shred on the middle
part of the pizza at all,just on the edge for that pretty instagrammable
crust. But I will mix itin with some age cheddar or prove or
something just to give it more flavor. The prettiest crowns are not the most
(06:56):
delicious ones. So if I'm makingpizza Detroit's for Instagram, I'm not using
pre shred. Do you use setit? Do you sprinkle the cheese in
the pans perimeter before you put yourdough in? No? But I do
find that's another thing. If youwant to make the good Freco. I
didn't know we're gonna get into detritbut if you want to make the good
Freco, you gotta avoid a lotof shrinkage so that way the crown can
(07:19):
build up, so that you're goingto do basically a par cook, for
that's how most people do the prettyones. And you have to do a
high temperature par cook so that you'regoing to really cook that really quick.
So we're talking about four fifty tofive hundred degrees in the oven for no
more than seven minutes. Can youcook a pizza like that in the dome?
(07:43):
You can park cook it in thedome. I justly turn the flame
off, or yeah, you don'tneed a flame, or you could cover
it too that if you have thepan, that's the magic of pan pizzas.
You could cover the top so youdon't have to worry about anything burning.
But a lot of I guess thebig hack is if you do have
a struggle with because you like touse a high hydration dough like I do,
So that's also going to cause moreshrinking, but it's also going to
(08:05):
taste better because you can have alighter dough that cheese around the edge at
the park. Who cook is goingto help you keep the edge, I
guess attached to the side of thepan. Lots of strategies, all right,
So tell us about your background andwhat inspired you to start real clever
(08:26):
food and what does it stand for? All right? My background is most
of my food history, especially myItalian food history, is from my Italian
grandfather, my Sicilian grandfather, whichI heard you talk about scot shadows,
but yeah, I learned how tomake pasta and bread and pizza from him.
Not sour though. Yet you growinto your own as you get older,
(08:48):
start exploring and probably it was inlike two thousand and sixteen that I
was introduced to somebody sour dough started, and this is funny, this was
I did had a oh my god, this is going to make everybody maybe
questioned me. But for like abouta year before that, I was actually
paleo because I was on that wholehealth kick and everything, and I was
(09:11):
convinced that Gluden was the enemy.And so then the natural progression, of
course, was I miss Luden andthese bread products so much. I can't
live my life when now it's notworth living. So then it was a
natural thing to see, Oh wait, a lot of people are having a
lot of luck with sourdough, andif you know anything about Paley or like,
you don't want to use like processjunkie stuff, so like gluten free
(09:33):
breads were out of the question.I tried out sourdough and it was so
good, and it actually felt reallygood. I'm a runner, I actualized
I'm fit, and it was coolthat I could eat sourdough bread and pizza
and I actually felt more energetic,Whereas when I ate like a typical three
hour, four hour fermented pizza outof a pizzeria at a local shop,
I'd want to take a nap.Afterwards. Yeah, I discovered the magic
(09:54):
of sourdough more recently and then aboutI think twenty nineteen, I made my
own sourdough starter because that's a wholeanother rite of passage to have your own.
Yeah, that's basically my background asfar as that goes. And Real
Clever Food. I created that duringthe COVID isolated when everybody was hunkering down
and I was on non social mediaat all, had no interest in Facebook,
(10:16):
Instagram, who needs that? Butyou know what, I started making
pizzas and posting them because it's likeyou're just all in your own world and
it was nice to reach out thereand see that there were people out there.
And people were like, wow,they were really interested in seeing these
pizzas that were made on this Unipizza and I was using at the time,
(10:37):
and they had questions and it waspizza and sourdo the most popular things.
And yeah, so that kind ofgrew out of it. But the
reason I used Real Clever Food andnot Real Clever Pizza was I love to
cook. I cook a lot ofthings besides pizza. So originally I had
stuff like lamb and potato, paveand all kinds of good things on there
(10:58):
and breads and stuff, but noone wanted to see that. They only
wanted to see the pizza. Yeah, I'm falling into the trap of I'm
a bread maker, but I ammaking a lot of pizza. So it's
a combination. Even when I'm outin the public with my food trailer which
is labeled the Italian Flat Bread truckside Hustle Bread Italian Flat Bread, and
it's got big pictures of scotsho outof sandwich is and now I'm making pizza
(11:22):
out of it. So I struggledwith the whole bread company versus the pizza
thing a little bit. It's goodto be a little broader. Do you
know Breadstall at a London He wasoriginally just a bread maker, that's why
it's called breadstall. And now he'sdoing so well with pizza. And he
actually just had a big investor comein on multiple ones and they're going to
(11:43):
be opening brick and mortars and he'sjust a pizza guy, but they're named
bread Stall. He's keeping history.Is he was a bread guy? Yeah
he is. He's going to beworking it for at least a while.
I don't know what the contract dealsare, but he's keeping the name.
Yeah, I think he's pretty muchselling Yeah, be branding to Surpercos Bread
(12:03):
Company from side Hustle Bread even thoughwe're going to make pizza and pizza will
be a good part of our business. Yeah. If it worked for him,
it could work for Hope. SoI have a filmmaking background. That's
what I did professionally for a lotof years. But I have to say,
(12:24):
I'm in awe of your Instagram pageand I'm curious to know how you
do it because I know how muchwork it takes because you're concentrating on the
food, which is It ends upbeing one of my problem when I'm working
alone, where am I putting myfocus on what I'm making or am I
actually designing this shot list and slowingdown? I guess I'm selling a lot,
(12:50):
so I'm also I have to worryabout speed. It takes a lot
of time to shoot this stuff.Absolutely. Yeah. When I'm doing like
private public events, when I'm reallyhustling, I try to get someone to
help me with the content or I'lltake a break from it, especially if
I have help and shoot the contentand will take turns shooting each other's content.
But most of my content is madeat homes, so that's why you
(13:13):
probably see mostly. Really, Idon't get too crazy about the angles and
what I'm shooting. I'm really makingpizza, and I have a tripod and
I'll set it up in places thatI think have worked for me and my
page. But I'm always trying newthings. But yeah, I get it,
making content and making large volumes offood. It's hard. It's really
(13:33):
hard, do you No, It'sjust different people, friends, family,
other pizza makers. It changes.I'm actually want to work more with different
local pizza makers. I actually traveleda lot. I went to London,
Germany, I was in Spain,so I really I have been connecting to
different pizza makers all over, obviouslyin New York too. Yeah, So
(13:54):
the goal is to keep connecting tomore and more people, because that's really
what is the reason, the mainreason I joined Instagram. The reason was
to reach out and find life outthere during COVID, and then I discovered
this community, this pizza community thatI've actually completely fall in love with.
They're my family and friends now andit's the reason I'm still here. So
(14:16):
I want to continue growing that communityand meeting these people in real life,
not just on Instagram. So that'salways been a thing for me, So
I'm going to continue to do that. Actually, this summer, I'm going
to be doing a Slice out Sliceat Hunger fundraiser. Last year we did
a big one in New Haven.We had about ten pizza makers come and
join us there. We're going toprobably have about the same amount, but
(14:39):
we're going to try to do itin New York City. Either we're looking
at right now, Brooklyn or LongIsland City. We're still working on it,
but it's going to be awesome.And I love pizza for a cause,
I love bringing people together. I'mreally excited about that. Yeah,
And likewise, I met a lotof people on Instagram and I think they
were at the New Haven event.Algie Russo, who I know. Oh,
I love him. Yats we're goingto be do that together. Yep,
(15:01):
yep, he's my buddy. Yeah. A lot of great people.
Yeah, yeah, really good.Where are you based? I'm in Westchester.
I was born and raised. Iwas born in the Bronx and most
of my life was in Queen's andthen I came up to Westchester about five
six years ago. Okay, that'sgreat. Do you have David Dubari do
you eat it? You know who? He is a chef up in Dobbs
(15:24):
Ferry. I believe the pallor noI don't. I haven't been to too
many places over and Dobb's Ferry Ihave to say. But yeah, if
he saw someone, I should checkit out. I've got a truck in
a restaurant. He's supposed to.He makes some unbelievable stuff up there.
When you went to London, theguy I follow on Instagram who's got a
great Guysney set up his peddling pizzas. Yeah, I didn't get a chance
(15:48):
to see him, but yeah he'sawesome. Adam, Yeah, fantastic Gos
the ambassador. We didn't get achance to meet up. I didn't unfortunately
I needed more time. But yeah, I met up with a lot of
people I had met on Instagram andlike I said, Breadstall, we went
to a bunch of the different pizzapizzeria is my favorite. Actually, one
of them besides Breadstyle is Balladin,which does pizza a la palla and they
(16:12):
also have amazing beer as well.There Ala is the market very similar,
I think, at least in mymind. That's what I want to do.
It's very similar to this sketch outof bread is high hydration facaccia like
bread that you can bake it ina pan, but then you could also
bake it somewhat free form and makepizza out of it. And I do
(16:33):
make pizza. I make my thickerpizzas Roman style pizza in pans and not
in pans, but I use thesame dough for that. I'm going to
ask you where in Italy, eitherare you from or where inspired by that
scit chatta? What part? Iwas inspired by it after I became a
bread maker and selling my bread professionallyand starting to make pizzas. I remember
(17:00):
about eight years ago going to Florenceon a trip and eating at the original
al Antiquo Vinio before it came tothe States. Then it came to the
States and became a big deal.I spent three months trying to figure it
out and talking to people about it, and I became very happy with the
bread, and I just decided tofocus on it. Yeah. The only
(17:25):
reason I asked that was because Ilearned about scochata actually through extended family who
were from the Siracusa area and theyactually make a very different thing with Goochata.
It's actually like a stuffed pizza,like a Really it's like an enriched
dough that has either olive oil orsome barred in it, and they basically
(17:47):
make it very thin and inside they'llput like Regatha and ham and other things
inside, So it's actually the completelydifferent East. I actually I should make
it again. I have been onmy page from like maybe a year or
two ago. So it's thin,but it has an inside. Do they
roll it up? No, it'sjust almost like sandwich together. Okay,
yeah, maybe like a thin cowzone. Yes, I would be like
(18:08):
that would probably be the best descriptionof it. But yeah, like a
large thin cowzone. Speaking of that, what do you make of the trend
of people making these pizza sandwiches?I feel like this comes up of other
pal Dude, I actually called thetrends when I was on I drifts What's
good to podcast people? He wasasking me, how do you go viral?
(18:30):
I was like, make pizza sandwichesand a couple of guys did that
and he went viral. He andI have friends. We actually took pizza
school together in Miami. Oh cool, Yeah, I drift is great,
Like he's one of those people Icall pizza family, Like I Drift is
an awesome guy or good friends.But I didn't know he Basically I didn't
hear that episode. I didn't knowhe went into this. But I want
(18:52):
to hear what you say. Yeah, he's asking me, how do you
go viral? So I had justI guess maybe a week or two before,
made a pizza souda where I putit up bacon and avocado in there.
I just thought it was funny becauseit's so simple. That's the whole
joke of it all is basically,you're taking pizza dough, you're shaping it
into a pizza, and then you'reputting just a little olive oil in it
and folding in half. So there'sno skill involved. It's super easy to
(19:15):
launch because your ingredients are super lightand it's there's no skill there. So
you just put it in there andyou cook it, and then you open
it up and you put stuff inside. You could even put dinner from last
night, no effort in there,ingredients you have into fridge, and all
of a sudden, people like,right, oh my god, you're the
best thing ever. It what Igot? I think seven thousand, six
thousand and seven thousand likes on it, over half a million views, and
(19:36):
it was just it was funny tome. So I when I drive fast,
I was like, just make somepizza saerages. I could have just
kept making pizza sandwiches and road dettrend, but that's not me. I
get bored very easily. As yousee. My peachas got everything and anything.
But practically speaking, so I'm watchingthis happen like I would say,
started six to eight months ago.In my opinion, I could be way
off on that, but that's whenI start seeing it. It was around
(19:59):
March really when it really started pickingup February. March February's one mind went
by over and over. I seeit, and I hadn't made one.
And I would say about a monthand a half ago, my son and
I were doing this wine blending eventand it was now getting laid. It
was like nine o'clock. We hadn'teaten. We had some extra coal cuts
like moltidella and the fresh muzzadel andeverything that would make the Regularkachi sandwiches on
(20:23):
and we had extra pizza dough.Let's try this thing. And I made
one, it was horrible in thatit's so much dough, like I didn't
That's the thing I do differently.I make sure it's stretched out. I
think if you want a good pizzasandwich my opinion, which most are not,
you gotta bake it thin. Idon't want big doe stuff inside and
(20:45):
raw dough. But most of thetime on Instagram it's a regular pizza and
that's what I made, And Iwas like, this is disgusting, Like
I'm just shoveling an entire pizza inmy mouth and it doesn't even taste good.
No, you gotta do it theright way if you're going to do
a pizza sandwich. That's the wholething too, is I feel like most
of them out there are not thinenough, cooked long enough. You're a
(21:07):
bread guy, so I'm a breadperson. I think people who understand like
bread has to be cooked to acertain temperature, to internal temperature. What
do you what is your minimum internaltemperature? Do you take the internal temperature?
I don't anymore more. Temperature?First, Yeah, okay, here's
Normally the minimum is one ninety.I usually go over two hundred unless it's
enriched, which I learned the hardway, and I've still been learning,
(21:30):
like I do a lot of hollowbreads or cinnamon raisin is another one of
the culprits because it's got milk init. And when I talked and studied,
I will always remember the magic numberbeing one ninety. But what I
realize is when you're doing enriched stuff, it's still cooking when you take it
out of the oven, and itdries up. Man. So now I
take it out at the one sixtyfive, the enriched stuff, oh and
(21:53):
much softer. So I was havingthat problem. But yeah, two hundred
is my magic number. Yes,So that's how I feel like. Those
pizza sandwiches are restuck the momer andyou're probably closer to one to six.
They feel like that's like it isthe public service announcement pizza sandwich. People
stick at thermometer inside you're a sandwich, or make them a lot better.
So let's move on to recipe development. Obviously you're coming up with stuff,
(22:17):
But what is it about that thatyou gravitate towards making new stuff? Why
do you do that? And whatbesides your page do you have another purpose
of doing it? It's a passionof mine, a lot of the inspiration
started out with recipes my grandfather taughtme, and I wanted to make them
my own and also just better andget creative. I just I love to
play, and that's what I That'sbeen a big thing for me. Like
(22:38):
when I tell people, whether they'reI'm teaching them bread or pizza, the
only way you're doing it wrong isif you're not having fun. There's a
learning curve. Obviously we all startsomewhere, but the biggest, most important
thing is having fun. Because thinkabout it, if you don't like something,
are you going to really want toget better? No, But if
you have fun and you're really enjoyingit, guess what you're going to be
(22:59):
into and you're gonna keep doing itand you're gonna get better because that's what
happens you practice, you get betterand better. I like to play,
that's the whole thing. I liketo have funds, coming up with new
recipes, new ways of doing things, getting inspired by others. That's what
I enjoy, right. What aresome of the favorite ingredients you like to
play with? Especially this time ofyear. I love to go to a
local farmer's market and see what's inseason or even like at the very beginning
(23:25):
of spring, like I always bringit up, but like wildgar like or
ramps we call them here. Ilove super seasonal ingredients, especially like short
season ones like rubarb or theying someweird things with pizza. It's funny like
a lot of people are anti pineappleor anti this, or anti d apple,
and I feel like a lot oftimes that problem would get solved if
people realize that you don't have toput tomato sauce on pizza. I think
(23:48):
that's another thing. A lot ofpeople don't consider pizza unless it has sauce
on it, which is weird becauseItalians have been making pizza without sauce since
the beginning of time, at leastsince the beginning of pizza. I feel
like a lot of ingredients like peoplestruggle with them and if they had if
they're just thinking about flavor pairings.Balance is another thing that I like to
talk about. You need the importanceof balance when it comes to mixing ingredients.
(24:12):
Yeah, most ingredients, not everyingredient can work on a pizza.
I see the pineapple thing come upa lot on the Facebook pizza groups.
I think those people are largely ignorantany anything could go on pizza, and
I love the fusion of different stylesof food on the Roman pizza. I
was doing Beria cris Bianco as apizza that I started making after reading his
(24:34):
book, and I saw you didsomething similar with lemons. I love doing
something with peccorino and lemon, andI do it at my wine blending classes
and people freak out like they neverimagined it would taste good and they love
it. Oh yeah, I thinkthere's a That's what I tell people too,
Like, I mean, if youwant to be a better pizza maker,
maybe also become a breadmaker. Ifeel like most of the people that
make bread they also tend to makebetter pizza because not only are you going
(24:56):
to learn more about fermentation, you'realso going to get more confident about handling
that dough as well, and you'remore likely to use your hands things.
Another thing people tend to be likeas soon as they start to make pizza,
there like I need a mixers,Like you do not need a mixer.
Actually you shouldn't use a mixer ifyou're just starting in bread and pizza.
So I love to work with beginnersand educate them about learning their dough
(25:18):
and getting messy. But I meanas a bread maker, I think you
understand that pizza is basically a breadand anything that you could put on bread
should be game for pizza or evenpasta, Like anything you put on pasta
should be game for pizza. It'svery similar. And talking about mixers,
I still use a stand mixer.Are you using a spiral? A spiral
(25:42):
is the way to go if I'mdoing large batches, But you know what
if I'm doing smaller parties, ifI'm going under twenty four dough balls,
I'm going for a hand really.Yeah, yes, it's a lot.
I'm doing mostly stretch and folds,and my hydration tends to be a little
higher. Since your bread you're goingat higher hydration. You' don't have to
work as hard. Yeah, alot of that gluten's going to develop for
(26:03):
you. Absolutely. And the otherthing I discovered if if you bulk ferment
at a relatively low percentage, youdon't need to stretch and fold as much.
That's right. You got to slowthings down. That's temperature and time
another ingredient, and people forget aboutit. Next that too, I'm going
to get I think by the way, blind baking. It's interesting. Only
discovered it from researching you. Oh, okay, tell the audience what it
(26:30):
is, all right? When wetalked about pizza and not pies, I
guess pizza can be called a potbut for pizza, basically, it's about
having a blank canvas you're basing.You're baking the pizza till it's pretty much
done or almost done without any toppingson top. And an easy way that
I like to teach people to doit is to actually put a metal plate
on top. And it's really easybecause a traditional way often was to use
(26:53):
ice, which would also keep downthe pizza. Can I interrupt you right
here? Yeah? It's Augie wasworking with me a couple of weeks ago
and we were making we were makingsomething that we wanted to We wanted to
finish it. It was a whitepizza, and we wanted to finish everything
that was cold, right. Itold them to put ice on the dough
and we would get hotspots and itwould burn a hole and dough. What
(27:14):
am I missing on the ice?I did notice that when you did it
with lemons, you put the iceon top of the lemon. I did.
I don't always do it because Iobviously don't want lemons always on my
pizza. You know what. Ithink The key is to use enough ice
but not too much ice, andyeah you probably yeah, you might have
been too much ice. And ifyou put too much sauce anything, you're
looking at rips and holes and problems. The same rules apply to any top
(27:36):
things, whether it's ice or sauce. You don't want too much or too
little. But that's why the plateis a really nice hack. I didn't
come up with that idea. Idon't know who the original person was,
but I learned it from a pizzamaker. Her name is Nick two cents
Pizza on Instagram. She's from Englandand I saw I heard doing and I
was like, I was like,I don't know, two years ago and
I'm like, oh my god againlike the pizza sad. That's so damn
(28:00):
easy. So I showed people howto do it, and of course that
went viral too, So I feellike, okay, if we want to
go into that, you want togo viral, show people something simple but
good. You know how to doit on Instagram and you're gonna make them
very happy and you'll probably go viral. Maybe something they haven't seen before.
I don't know if you could goviral making a pizza sandwich anymore, but
maybe you can. Probably. Ithink people are still going viral that It's
(28:22):
funny. Like I was at anevent and the barbecue guy there, his
name is Matt, really fantastic guy. He had all this great barbecue,
and he's like, did you hearabout did you know about Jesus sandwiches?
Like it was just like brand thinknew thing he just heard about. So
I think there's still enough people outthere that are like, still it's brand
new and mind blowing to them.So I think you still have a little
window if that's like your goal isto just go viral with something simple,
(28:47):
keep making those pizza sandwiches, thougha lot of the pizza community is going
to probably roll their eyes, probablybe annoyed at you. I'll try not
to be one of those sheep.Going back to the pineapple, I do
have a jar because I do thefarmers' markets every weekend and I'm next to
us pickle guy, and he hada jar of pickled jalapeno pineapple that they
use for like a marinate, andit tastes unbelievable. I think that's a
(29:10):
good way to use pineapple on thepizza. I helped Alexander Stafford with her
book Pizza Night, and she hadan amazing pineapple pizza that really actually made
me like, oh, this isreally good. What she does is she
cooks caramelizes the pineapple in us thebacon fat. First, she part cooks
(29:30):
the bacon a little bit, rendersthe fat out, and then the pineapple
gets cooked in mat and that getsput on a thin crust pizza with lots
of bacon, jalapenos and that caramelizedpineapple, and it's that sweet, salty
and heat, especially on a thincruss texture. The texture differences. It's
I was shocked at how good itwas. I told her she won me
over, So that was amazing.So did you help people with cookbooks?
(29:53):
I do? Yeah. Ali's bookwas probably like one of the best experiences
I had with that. I didsome ghost recipe writing for some people.
I've done photography for others. I'mactually doing some work with someone right now.
It's a passion of mine. Ilike to do everything when it comes
to food and good people. Socool. Do you engage with your fans
and your followers often and what doyou find The best way to do that
(30:15):
is a lot of people reach outto me, and it is time consuming,
so sometimes I'll have to leave people. I'll get back to you.
But I love to connect with everyone. If you send me a message,
unless somehow it gets lost on Instagram, like, I'm going to get back
to you. So having conversations withpeople like I enjoy helping people, enjoy
learning and meeting new people. Soif you reach out to me on Instagram,
(30:37):
I'm going to get back to you. It's your questions and that's how
I've met a lot of good people. And people have some interesting stories that
they share and I learned from them, they learn from me. It's a
give and take things. Yeah,through Instagram has been a big way.
Expo has been another way. I'vemet a lot of amazing people just getting
out there. Yeah, I wentto my first expo this year. Oh
so we didn't see each other there? What happened? That was overwhelming for
(31:00):
me? It is overwhelming a greattime. I really like the classes.
Yeah, there's some good and Iended up joining Mike Bousch's on Sliced group
after that, so I'm in thatnetworking group. Pretty cool. And then
there's a new one coming up inPhiladelphia in the fall. I heard about
that. Are you going. I'mlike on the fence on that one.
I want to go so close towhere we live. So I'm thinking about
(31:23):
getting in a car and going.We'll see, all right, maybe I'll
go to I know someone else askedme about it. I'll probably go there.
I always go maybe, and thenI end up going at the last
second. On Instagram, have yougotten any negative feedback, well, criticism?
And if so, how do youhandle that? We get trolls all
the time. I find it actuallyentertaining. Actually, my favorite thing to
do is to win a troll over. I'll go onto there. This is
(31:45):
my whole hot tip is I'll goonto their own page. Sometimes they'll have
a page and if they have adog on there, I'll be like,
your dog's so cute. No one'sgoing to keep trolling you after you tell
them that they have a cute hobby. So you go in and you'd be
nice to them and you disarm them. Kill them with kindness is usually my
motto. Kill them with kindness orrevenge. Success is the best revenge.
(32:06):
That's Those are the things I tryto live by. It's awesome. Do
you have a favorite recipe that you'vecreated and would you be willing to share
it with us? Just the overviewof what that might be that keeps changing.
Oh man, I've probably sourdough Bialli'sfor me was probably my favorite thing
because especially now up here on LongIsland or Queens is really easy to get
(32:28):
Bialli's, or up here in Westchesterit's really hard to find them. So
that's why I started making them,and sourdough wants, in my opinion,
tastes even better. So yeah,that's a recipe I share with a lot
of people. I want to makethose in my dome. Actually yeah,
oh they're so good, so goodyou'll flip out. So yeah, that's
a recipe I'm more than happy toshare with you. I could link it,
but yeah, you'll probably see itthat coming out of my dome.
(32:50):
At some point, I'd like todo more bread and that. So as
a Bali eater but not a blimaker, what makes them different a lot
easier? Yeah, and also youcould use boiled they are not. They
are made like a regular basic bread. They tend to be a higher hydration.
But yeah, you're not doing muchdifferent than not make When you make
bread pizza chibata, it's similar processed. Is it a high gluten flour in
(33:13):
the way that a bagel is?I use bread flour, which isn't particularly
extra high gluten. So no,anything that you would use for bread tends
to work really well for me forthe Beali's. Whereas a good, proper
New York bagel has a high gluten, it's not going to taste like a
proper bagel without that real chewiness.So that's I tend to like my beally
(33:34):
lighter, fresher, and I thinkthat's what makes me so happy with good
Billi's and a good Bealli egg sandwich. Oh, I'm in heaven. Do
you think that people in South Carolinathat are listening no what a bali is?
Absolutely not, unless they're originally fromNew York or have Jewish people maybe
on their back. I love thebeali I would love. I seriously would
love to try that. I'm goingto wrap things up. Are there any
particular influences or people that have influencedyou, whether from Instagram just reading their
(34:00):
books. I learned a lot froma baker named Carol Fields. She wrote
the Italian baker. That's where Istarted making yeast breads, and then I
got into sowardo later. Do youhave any people like that inspire you?
I get inspired by so many pizzamakers, basically the people that make me
hungry. On Instagram, it wouldbe like my latest thing. But there
(34:22):
was a while when I was firstdiscovered a ceramonic that was probably right around
COVID two thousand and nineteen twenty twenty. She was I loved her foragings.
She inspired me to really put allkinds of crazy local stuff a lot like
too much veggie is on the pizza, like, I love that, so
many things. Marizzio his sourdough stufflike he got me thinking more technical,
(34:45):
Like that's the thing. A lotof people who are like me to like,
I don't big. I don't big. I don't like the science.
I don't like the math. Butguess what, the math is important because
that's for recipe development. Math isyour best friend. So I've learned to
really love math because that's what helpsme tweak my recipes and help others tweak
their recipes. Is because it's allabout percentages, and that's I have to
(35:07):
credit Mercio really for he gets alittle too crazy in my opinion with some
stuff, like in technical because he'sgot an engineering background. But he really
inspired me to get a little moretechnical when it came to temperature and different
percentages, really focusing in on that. I'm exactly with you on that.
I've got a couple of friends thatare on the engineering side and they go
(35:27):
way deep and it's helpful if youcan really absorb it all. But some
of it's a little over my head. But the math part I love.
It is important to be a goodbaker. It really isn't. But I
think that's the other thing that Ialways try to also, like a lot
of people are intimidated by sourdough.They think it's something very difficult, and
it's really not. I think that'sthe big thing. That's why I love
(35:49):
working with beginners, like they're like, oh my goodness, this isn't so
hard. And then if you wantto convert your recipes that you're using with
YaST, it's all matter mass,exactly. And that's what I tell people,
and that's what I do myself allthe time. It's just a choice
of rising agent, that's all.It is so true, and I love
to people think it's new. Iwas like, no, sourdough is the
og. Nothing is older than sourdough. By the way, back to what
(36:13):
I did this morning with the sourdoughpizza dough. It's my regular recipe,
and I just substituted the sour dough, and I know in my head.
I know the ratio and the differencein my head, so I could do
that with any recipe. And infact, I've had to go the opposite.
If I screw something up on thesourdough side and eat bread fast,
I'll take my sourdough recipe and putactive yeast and go and get something ready
(36:36):
in three and a half hours.Oh yeah, yeah, you gotta do
what you gotta do. And Ilearned Poolish originally from my grandfather, which
is also what I like to callmy sourdough, a ready to go poolish.
So anybody out there who already usesa poolish should not be intimidated about
by sourdough, because what poolish reallymeans is fifty percent hydration. Pizza expo
that was classed by Peter Ryan Hartand Leo Spasiri. Something's coming up,
(37:00):
and I asked what I've been doingto not deal with the poolish because I
have three giant tubs sourdough that Ikeep active all the time. I was
putting sourdough instead of poolish into myactive yeast mixes to get away with not
doing a poolish but giving it acomplex flavor, and I think I lucked
into it working I've heard I heard. I don't know if it's lindustry,
(37:22):
but I heard rumors they might dothat as well. So it's exactly what
you just said. Though it's apreferment. Absolutely, it's all about flavor.
That's what I tell people what apreferment is about building flavor. That's
all it is. And I'm andI think everyone enjoys good food understands flavor
is everything. Flavor is everything.We're going to end on that. I
(37:43):
want to thank you for coming,and I'm going to turn this into a
meta episode that's going to run ona loop forever because here's what happened.
I did not hit record at thebeginning of this episode, and we need
to start it again, and weneed to go through Tory Teas in Malvern,
what we were we talking about rightafter that. We're gonna figure it
out. We're gonna start the showagain real quick. You're ready, all
(38:06):
right, let's do it. Doy'all just have to edit out the repeat.
I'm gonna I'm gonna this is gonnabe an interesting one. All right.
Welcome to Bread for the People.I'm Jim Serpico again. Here we
are. What a day. I'mexcited for this episode with Christi Aliyah from
Real Clever Food. We're gonna bringher on in a minute. I had
(38:28):
a busy morning. I have afriend coming over in a couple of days.
I think you might have heard thisstory before. Christy Christie's in here
looking as I do my introy episode, that's what we're gonna call it.
My friend has some digestive issues andshe requested I make sour dough pizza,
and that's what I did. Ispent the morning making a few sour dough
(38:51):
pizza dough balls. We're gonna letthat ferment for a couple of days.
Then I mixed some batches of scottShot of bread, which I actually turned
into olive bread. So I'm gettingthat ready for my farmers' markets and chased
down. A lawyer was helping mewith an operating agreement, and here we
are. Oh, and then Irealized that Christie's coming on. Christy and
(39:14):
I have something in common as offifteen minutes ago. You know what I'll
think. What I'll do is introduceChristy and then we'll get into it.
She is a sourdough bread baker,an instructor, a consultant, and a
recipe developer and the founder of Women'sPizza Month. Please welcome Christy Eliah.
(39:35):
Hey, thanks for having me.I feel like we know each other.
I feel like we've talked to eachother before. I know, it's weird,
right, It's so strange. Ilove the idea of Women's Pizza Month.
When I first started the podcast acouple of years ago, I was
interviewing Scott Weener, and I toldhim I was struggling to find female pizza
(39:55):
makers because locally where I live inLong Island, I hadn't come across a
lot, and I was early inmy pizza journey. I've since gotten involved
in the national pizza scene and discoveredmany female pizza makers. But tell me
a little bit more about Women's PizzaMonth. Why was it important to start?
What it's all about? Yeah,like, I said, I mean,
(40:16):
I could talk about Women's Pizza Monthfor a really long time, but
basically Women's Pizza Month what's about isabout celebrating and highlighting all the amazing contributions
women have brought to pizza. Andit's about inspiring not only everybody out there
who's on Instagram, but also myself, Like I have been so inspired by
(40:36):
women such as Nancy Sillerton or Ceramicand a lot of people like gets upsetting
to me that they don't know whothese people are. So there's this misconception
that there aren't even women in pizza. So the whole idea of betind Women's
Pizza Month is to introduce you tothem, get inspired by them, and
and celebrate them. So it's areally cool month. We do it all
month long in March, and itcoincides with Women's History Month. And do
(40:57):
you find that there's a lot ofyoung women getting a and even more than
ever? And if so, whoare they? Every year we get more
and more women involved. A lotof these women are professional pizza maker,
some are just starting out with newbusinesses pop ups. They're feeling really empowered
out there that they're getting noticed now, so they reach out to me too,
just to be a part of it. So, but all kinds of
(41:21):
people. We have vet's like LeahSkerto who's out in California. She owns
a pizzeria out there, amazing pizzamaker. But she's been doing it for
she's got to be in it forover twenty years. But yeah, we'll
have new pop up people who arejust starting in pizza from the beginning.
We get all kinds of people andstarting talking about some young people and Long
Island we got tory T's she wasactually a original supporter of Women's Pizza Months.
(41:46):
She's awesome pizza maker, just openher own pizzeria. And what's cool
is she's doing Detroit pizzas on LongIsland, which is really new and really
cool for Long Island. Yeah,Detroit pizza seems to be I see it
all over Instagram nationally, and Isee a lot of people introducing Detroit style
pizza. And I also saw maybeit was jem and Yanni who predicted that
(42:12):
Detroit style pizza was going to bea thing. I think it was him
and he was correct. Why doyou think people are picking up on that
now? I think it started tobecome really big Actually, the first time
I really noticed it was a guyout of the UK, probably in two
thy nineteen. His name is Julian. He had a pizza Instagram at that
(42:35):
time called Pizzas Lovely. He wasinspired by the Detroit pizza and I think
he really made it popular. Thenmore and more people started picking up my
friend Jimmy Hank, as you'll probablyknow Jimmy Hank's pizza. He really got
into the free goo. So it'san instagrammable style the traditional. If you
know anything about the traditional Detroit pizza, it doesn't have that pretty freako,
(42:55):
but people got a little bit wildwith it, even that UK guy,
I think so. I think theinstagram tall freako if you're not familiar with
that, is the freco is likea cheese crown and it looks like almost
painful to eat sometimes when you lookat the pictures, but it's pretty to
look at. So I think that'spart of the reason it got so popular.
And also, if you like cheese, it's a lot of cheese,
(43:16):
so I think people like that.I the freako is a byproduct of my
cheddar Jalapino sour dough, and thefreako rips the bags, so it's very
annoying sometimes, but when I tryto recreate it on pizza, I struggle.
I don't know if I'm ustub's verycrazy. That's what I was going
to say. I think I'm notbeing I'm not buying the right cheese.
(43:38):
You know what I'm not. Thething you'll learn about me is I have
no secrets. Actually, I loveto share all my knowledge with everyone because
my whole thing is about empowering everyoneand making people realize that all this stuff
is really simple and it shouldn't behard. It's really a matter of starches.
So you're looking at pre shredded cheese, the probably number one Freako so
(44:00):
crowning cheese is the cheap Costco Kirklandpre shred pard skin. That's the best
one. That's the best one youmentioned I personally met for. I like
to blend it because I'm about flavors. Even if I'm going for the pretty
instagrammable pizza, I'm blending mine withreal cheese, and the whole middle of
(44:21):
the pizza is gonna be fresh slice, probolo mozzarella, mix of age mods.
I'm not using pre shed on themiddle part of the pizza at all.
Just on the edge for that prettyinstagrammable crust, but I will mix
it in with some age cheddar orprove or something just to give it more
flavor. The prettiest crowns are notthe most delicious ones. So if I'm
(44:43):
making pizza Detroit's not for Instagram,I'm not using pre shred. Do you
use set it? Do you sprinklethe cheese in the pans perimeter before you
put your dough in? No?But I do find that's another thing.
If you want to make the goodI didn't know we're going to get into
the trip, but if you wantto make the good Freaco, you gotta
avoid a lot of shrinkage so thatway the crown can build up so that
(45:07):
you're going to do basically a parcook for that's how most people do the
pretty ones. And you have todo a high temperature par cook so that
you're going to really cook that reallyquick. So we're talking about four fifty
to five hundred degrees in the ovenfor no more than seven minutes. Can
you cook a pizza like that inthe dome? You can par cook it
(45:30):
in the dome. I actually turnthe flame off or yeah, don't you
don't need a flame, or youcould cover it too that if you have
the pan, that's the magic ofpan pizzas. You could cover the top
so you don't have to worry aboutanything burning. But a lot of I
guess the big hack is if youdo have a struggle with because you like
to use a higher hydration dough likeI do, so that's also going to
cause more shrinking, but it's alsogoing to taste better because you're gonna have
(45:52):
a lighter dough. That cheese aroundthe edge at the park cook is going
to help you keep the edge guessattached to the side of the pan right.
Lots of strategies. I mentioned thedome. I'm referring to the Gosney
Dome and in my intro which Ididn't finish, and I said we were
going to get to here. Whatwe have in common is that I just
(46:13):
got off the phone with Nate overat Goosney and they asked me to become
a Gosney ambassador, and I understandyour one. Yeah, I will be
one as of the to today's Julytenth, as the middle of the month.
I was going to make the announcementofficially, but yeah, I've just
been enjoying playing with my Dosney's.I really love the ovens so much.
(46:34):
If you know anything about me,I was an UNIE ambassador for over three
years and it was interesting. Butwhat I do, to be honest with
people is if the Dosney Arc orArc Excel had been out in twenty nineteen
twenty twenty, I probably would havenever been an UTIE ambassador because it's absolutely
amazing. The rock Box is cool, it's a really cool even but I
(46:57):
like space. Yeah, so that'swhy I was sold on Code sixteen.
I watched Kenzie Lopez going back andforth between the rock Box and the Code
of sixteen, and I think hewent with the Code of sixteen too.
It was just because of the space. But now that the ARC is out,
I feel like the Arc is thebest portable oven out there, the
gas only of in and so it'sa no brainer. Now, what good
(47:17):
news is this is coming out afteryou make your announcement, so we're in
the clear. Yeah all right,Christy, I have bad news. I
forgot to record the introduction, sowe're gonna start it one more time.
You ready, no, Welcome toBreadth for the people. I'm Jim Surpico
again. Here we are. Whata day. I'm excited for this episode
(47:45):
with Christy Elijah from Real Clever Food. We're gonna bring her on in a
minute. I had a busy morning. I have a friend coming over in
a couple of days. I thinkyou might have heard this story before. Frit
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