Wood burning ovens are superb at many things including roasting meats, pizzas, breads, vegetables, etc. In fact, some of the very best food I’ve tasted has come out of our Aunt Giovanna’s olive wood fired oven in southern Italy (via her Panificio), including a wide variety of durum wheat breads. In fact, the very best breads in all of Italy […]

Calzones originated in Naples and are essentially folded, individual, pizzas.   Calzones are made from pizza dough and are usually stuffed with ricotta and spinach, ham, mozzarella, salame, etc.  In many parts of Italy, calzones are made smaller and deep fried and often sold as street food (sometimes called, Panzerotti). Growing up in northern NJ, our local pizzeria offered two types […]

My sweet grandmother (or Nonna Rosa) taught me some invaluable lessons about cooking at home and at the top of her list of practical cooking advice is the seminal claim: learn to love your toaster oven.  Yes, the often misunderstood kitchen appliance confined to summer cabins and the senior citizen set was the kitchen tool of choice for Nonna.  Why […]

If you travel to any panificio or bakery in Italy (and even some State side establishments) you’re bound to run across pizzette or bite-sized little pizzas with a variety of simple toppings.  Pizzette are made with a simple tomato sauce and high quality extra virgin olive oil including the same toppings you’ll find on most pizzas.   Most Italian bakeries make […]

Favorite Pizza Toppings Lately we’ve been making pizzas at home every weekend and we’ve been using our trusty homemade pizza dough recipe along with our standard pizza sauce (though we’ve been known to cheat and purchase prepared pizza dough from Trader Joe’s on occasion; hey, at about a dollar a pop you can’t go wrong).  Next to good dough and the appropriate pizza […]

(photo: homemade pizza with arugula salad <including red onion>) Growing up in the suburbs just outside of New York City our neighborhood had its fair share of pizza joints, including Vincent’s Pizzeria, Sal’s Classic, First Pizza Pan, Godfather II Pizzeria, Euro’s Pizzeria, Villa Rosa Pizzeria, etc.  All of the pizzeria’s mentioned made pizza in the NY fashion, that is to […]

Pizza Sauce Recipe I’ve always stuck to the claim that you can make pretty good pizza at home.  My critics argue that making “pizzeria” type pizza in a home environment is impossiblegiven that a home stove cannot reach the 900+ degree Fahrenheit temperature a proper wood burning stove can and, moreover, impart the appropriate flavor and heat to pizza dough (click here […]

(photo: matzoh pizza with sausage and broccoli rabe – courtesy of Dr. K) Our honorary Jewish Italian, Dr. K., recently put together some exquisite matzoh pizza for his family and I was compelled to ask him for yet another guest post entry.  Enjoy and Zeezum Pasach! Dr. K used Bittman’s olive oil matzoh recipe, which is an adapted Sardinian flatbread.  He used freshly milled hard […]

Making Bread “Under the Fire” The Italian word focacciameans “under the fire” and it shares many of the same traits as pizza.  However, focaccia is usually about 3/4 of an inch thick (versus the standard less than 1/2 inch thick pizza found in most parts of Italy) and is meant to be served at room temperature.  Focaccia is also prepared […]

Pizza Recipe I recently had a wonderful email exchange with Dr. K, an avid home cook, supporter of local foods, and Scordo.com reader.  Dr. K was moved by our article on cracked Calabrian olive saladbecause of the suggestion that making food with others is truly a special, and uniquely human, activity.  I couldn’t agree more with him and in turn wanted to […]