An Open Letter to My Editor

Dear Harlan,

     It finally happened.  I am sure you had your doubts just as I did all these years; but it really did happen. I actually found a reasonably priced restaurant here in Southern Arizona that has both good food and attentive service. Not only is the food good and worth the money but it is very good. The same holds true for the wait staff.  Aside from being attentive they are also friendly and knowledgeable.  Ironically, this find comes at a time when we will soon be relocating to Providence, Rhode Island—oh well, better late than never. 

     The restaurant is Pizzeria Vivace.  It is located in a non-descript stucco building with professional offices and retail shops in Tucson.  The only thing notable about the building’s exterior is the name Pizzeria Vivace on a wall that can be seen from the road.  For whatever reason, I felt it just may be worth trying.  I really can’t say what piqued my curiosity.  Whatever the reason though, we went there for lunch about a month ago and were impressed.  So much so that we put it to the “acid test”—a return visit.  It seems to be a common malady of the restaurants here that the quality of the food and service is never quite the same from visit to visit.  At times the food is good and the service is not or visa-versa. Somehow getting both the food and the service right, at the same time is just something they are incapable of doing.  As a result of this affliction we have been sorely disappointed many times in the past when we returned to other restaurants that we initially enjoyed.  Thankfully, this was not the case when we returned to Pizzeria Vivace.  The food was every bit as good as the first time we were there and the service was still just as attentive and energetic as before.

     On both occasions we had their Pizzetta for lunch, a six inch thin crusted pizza served with a very generous salad of chopped romaine lettuce, topped with a delicious house made vinaigrette dressing.  So far we have tried several toppings with equal success. My most recent Pizzetta  was topped with tender slices of pepperoni along with fresh Mozzarella cheese and tomato sauce; Linda’s pie came with thin slices of eggplant, zucchini, roasted red peppers, tomato sauce, a little pesto and two cheeses: Mozzarella and Trugole.  Naturally, we tasted each other’s pie and I would be hard pressed to choose one over the other.  My pepperonis were pleasantly spicy, moist and tender—very tasty.  The combination of the fresh vegetables with two cheeses and some pesto on Linda’s pie was wonderful.

     I realize that I am going on and on about a pizzeria as if it is a four or five star restaurant. However, considering our inability to find a restaurant here with both good food and good service for such a long time, my enthusiasm for Vivace’s is not surprising. Other than that there is not much else happening that is noteworthy.  We will be in Providence soon and we are looking forward to exploring the restaurants in the city and the rest of the State.  So get ready for my missives about the gastronomic fare in Rhode Island.

Linda sends her best to your lovely wife Margo and your beautiful daughters, Helen and Cara.       

 Regards,

Bernard

Pizza al Taglio -- Simply the Best!

     Reach back into your memory of taste sensations with me for a moment.   Summon the delicious flavors of a baked piece of very thin bread, moist and chewy with a crispy brown bottom, topped with a dabs of savory Fontana cheese, delicately accented with slices of fresh tomatoes, rich caramelized red onions, garlic and savory pieces of pancetta and we have just “tasted” the best pizza I ever had!

Declaring any food as the “best I ever had” is a phrase that I have strenuously stayed away from using until now.   Individual taste and personal preferences vary so much that such declarations are subjective at best.  To add to my unease with this phrase I have often been disappointed when tasting someone else’s “best” of anything.   Then there are times such as this when I savor food that is better than any other version of what I know to be very good or tasty, that I have no other choice but to simply say, this is the best I ever had.  Such is my esteem for the pizza I relished from a little Pizzeria in the Trastevere section of Rome, Italy.

     Tired and hungry, on our arrival in Rome we found ourselves hunting for a taste of the local fare when most Ristorantes and Trattorias are closed between lunch and dinner.   Tucked away on a little street off of the Viale Trastevere, near the Tiber River we stumbled upon Pizza al Taglio.  Much like a child with his nose pressed up against the glass storefront of his or her favorite toy store I beheld an array of rectangular trays of thin crusted pizzas.  I was overwhelmed with insatiable joy at the prospect of trying each and every one of their offerings available by the slice. The variety of toppings on each pizza tray included some of these mouthwatering choices: pancetta, tender slices of fresh mushrooms, tangy anchovies, flavorful caramelized red onions and what would become my favorite, the unlikely combination of potatoes and curry.   Each tray beckoned us to satisfy our hunger, which we did until there was no room for more.  Every mouthful was a taste experience long to be remembered, fresh morsels of different combinations of cheese, meat and vegetables atop a delicious pizza crust.

     The deliciously thin flavorsome pizza crust though is what sets Pizza al Taglio’s pizza apart from all other pizzas I have enjoyed.  The dough is made from Manitoba flour, a blend of wheat from North America whose origins are from the Canadian Provence of Manitoba.    According to Debra Rossi and Roberto Spagocci the owners of Pizza al Taglio, dough made from Manitoba flour can rise for as long as seventy-two hours.  The result is a crispy on the bottom, moist and chewy on top pizza crust that enhances the flavors of the toppings.  Combine this delicious pizza crust topped with fresh cheese, meat and vegetables, baked to perfection and the end result of this appetizing mélange is the best pizza I ever had.

Pizza al Taglio is located on the Via Cardinal Marmaggi, 12 in Rome Italy! 

A Proustian Pizza Memory from the Grill

Savoring pizza cooked on an outdoor grill is an uncommon taste experience with singular rewards. The hot charcoal briquettes or lava rocks add enticing, smoke-filled aromatics to the pie that conventional kitchen ovens cannot duplicate. The taste of the crunchy piecrust, topped with bubbling hot, melted cheese is wistfully reminiscent of the pizza served fresh out of the brick ovens from my bygone New York City neighborhood pizzerias. It is a Proustian Memory from my youth that I still relish with each morsel of pizza made on a grill.

One of the fundamental steps to successfully cooking pizza on an outdoor grill is bringing the temperature of the pizza stone, an essential tool, to the same temperature of the grill’s cooking chamber. The hot pizza stone sears the outside of the piecrust for a memorable, crispy and crunchy homemade pizza. The other equally important practice is elevating the stone from the grate, about two to three inches, with a metal vegetable basket or some other similar device that will not block the heat from the pizza stone. Elevating the stone in this manner places the uncooked pizza in the higher and hotter area of the cooking chamber to melt the cheese in the same amount of time necessary to cook the thin pizza dough.

The rest is easy; preheat the cooking chamber to 450° with the pizza stone in place, in order for the stone to reach the same temperature as the cooking chamber, slide the pizza with your favorite toppings onto the stone using a pizza peel. Close the cover to the grill and cook until finished. Randy Wade, the owner of Tumacookery in Tubac Arizona and my grilling guru, recommends a wooden pizza peel for this. When your piping hot, fresh made pizza is ready, slip a metal pizza peel underneath the crust, remove and enjoy! Following these simple steps will ensure a perfectly cooked pizza every time and—the creation your own Proustian Pizza Memory.

Randy Wade’s Signature Vegetarian Pizza Topping

Spread two tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil and two tablespoons of a balsamic vinegar reduction, or an equal amount of both, sufficient to cover the pie dough. Then add chopped arugula greens, a sprinkling of raw pecans and dried cranberries; the proportions of theses ingredient are to individual taste preferences; start with a quarter cup of each and adjust their amounts and proportions on your next pizza or pizzas. Finish the topping with thinly shaved slices of tangy Manchego cheese, sufficiently spaced for each slice to have its own shaving of cheese.

This no-fuss, easy to prepare combination of sweet and savory flavors elevates an ordinary pizza into a gourmet treat. Try a glass or two of Pinot Grigio by Cavit or a Soave by Inama; both are inexpensive Italian white wines that harmonize perfectly with the taste sensations of Randy’s vegetarian pizza.