Pure and Simple

Dedicated to all those who have a dream. Those who never gave up, and those who are still searching. Whatever it may be.
...as they say, sometimes they come back.

“I started going to Italy a lot with my family, and once I was old enough I started to go on my own a lot, up to the point where I was going 3, 4 times a year, and I just really became obsessed with baking. It’s such a difficult thing to master, because every time you do it, one little thing changes your outcome: the weather, the way the water is, the flour, every batch of flour is a little different, the way it’s milled, the time of the year, the way the oven is working”.
“I just so got into it, I just kind of got lost in the idea of trying to become good at it. My grandmother was a super big influence on me, and my mother also. And also music, like punk rock hardcore music, mostly. It really spoke to me and made me feel like I wasn’t alone”.
“It’s just doing it with total awareness of every detail, you know it’s just being aware and constantly pushing”.
“I decided to open a place in New York City. When I was younger, that was always my goal. I had been saving a little bit of money here and there, and eventually, after six months of looking around, I found a location in the East Village, and I signed a lease and I started construction”.
“When I was kid and I was going to Naples and eating pizza... there was no pizza like that in America. When you went to Naples and walk down those back alley ways, and you go in there in these pizzerias where they had these beehive-shaped ovens covered in this tiny little tile, this raging fire flying out of the mouth of the oven, and these guys nonchalantly just sliding dough and then pulling it out like no care in the world. It’s like covered in wetness and oil, but not heavily topped, the focus is always on the dough".
“Every book that was written in the 70s and 80s, I’ve read! If it was about baking, Naples, or pizza, I’ve read it from cover to cover like five times! It was so incredible to make something with so few ingredients and have it have so many levels of flavor and be so different every day. And to me that was creative. Instead of having all these other options, to have olives, and peppers, and sausage, and tadatatata... I was like I’m already stresses out and wanna master this one thing that’s constantly evolving every single day and throughout the day, why would I even wanna deal with anything else? It’s so much easier to make anything, including pizza, with the more crap you put on it or the more things that you do to hide the truth of it and the simplicity of it”.
“When you walk into our place, that’s like basically walking into my living room. Everything in there I built with my own hands, everything hanging on the walls is from people that I care about, and beyond all that, the product that I’m serving is everything that I can give”.
“Every day I see new things, I discover new things. I’ve been doing this for 21 years, and I’m still struggling, and I’m still searching. So my universe is always expanding, because I’m lost inside this universe that I’ve created for myself”.

(A. Mangieri, Pure and Simple)


Picture taken from Una Pizza Napoletana website

Pizza Obsession

I love this guy. Remember him?




MY PIZZA & ME
Excerpts from an interview
[..]
To make pizza in a wood oven good, there is so much attention that needs to be paid, constantly be aware of how each pizza is baking, if you need to add wood, if you need to not add wood. And you just see where the hot spots are in the oven and just keep pushing it throughout the night. I mean that takes years and years and years to learn and it takes a 100% dedication throughout the night and focus.

Me, the guy that works in the kitchen, and the waiter, the three of us, that’s it. We did every single thing in here, tiled the floor...The counter here I designed it and had a woman in Chinatown weld it. I actually put the marble on top of it.

You know, we get people to come in, like last week, some woman was like Oh, the dough doesn’t taste the same. What are they doing?, and the waiter is like Who’s THEY?. There is no they!
So I would hope that when people come in here, they really try to open their eyes and open their mind and see that...you know what?...you might not like the waiter, you might not like me, but I just hope that you come in and you see that we really don’t compromise and that we really do care and we’re not trying to get anything over on anybody. It’s the truth, it’s not done in any way but with love [...].

[...]
On the menu we have just four kinds of pizza.[...] They are basically all the same, they all taste really different though.
[...]
It’s not that I am against other toppings on the pizza, it’s that I feel like once you open that door, then there is no limit. Honestly, I don’t know how you can control all those different elements and have them be of a high quality. I wish that I could grow everything myself and control them from start to finish, but I can’t.
I mean, I think you start to loose a grip on the quality of everything little by little by little, and also, more importantly, the taste, you know, it’s really difficult to have something taste beautiful, interesting, and, you know, make you wanna come back again and again, and crave a taste for when there is like, four ingredients in it.

[...]
None of these old time pizzerias in New York City, in my opinion, make good pizza, not one of them. They all stink. You know, they learned how to make it 30 years ago and if anything changes or ingredients change over time, they don’t even know why, they just keep rolling with it. It might have been good when the original guy started it, and he was doing it to survive and it was his life, but at this point...pfff...
The pizzerias that are newer in the city, too, the same thing, I mean you know they have multimillionaires back and they get some guy that make pizza..., you know, and maybe the guys are from Italy...Whoopee. If you ever see anybody in America that says that they’re from Naples and they are a pizza maker, if they were making pizza in Naples, they were making it at a rest stop on the Autostrada, because, if you’re a pizza maker in Naples, you have like the best jobs in the city, it’s like one of the highest paid jobs, they’re super respected and they are in demand. They are not gonna come to America to make 10 bucks an hour and work 15 hours a day and be treated like a third class citizen.

I’ve had four ovens...actually, I think I’ve had five, ‘cause I had one in my backyard that me and my father built. That was my first one, and we built that after I was trying to make pizza on the floor of the fireplace in the living room...and that didn’t work too well either.

You can’t make, in my opinion, the same flavor with coal or with gas, There is nothing beautiful about it. The heat from a coal oven is not gentle; it’s very dry and very overpowering. With a brick oven you have the heat from the fire, the direct heat from the fire, you have the hot air and then you also have the floor and the walls all being hot.
I opened here and had a guy from Naples build me an oven. When he finally finished it and as soon as I fired it up, I knew that it wasn’t built right. It’s a shame, I mean, it cost a ton of money. It was still better than any other oven that I had. It took us two days to get it out with a sledgehammer. We ripped the front of the store off, I ripped all the walls out so that I could get everything out of here, threw the oven in the dumpster, and got another one.
The oven that I have now is the oven that I wanted since I was a little kid. I went to Italy in April of last year, and went and met this man that built this oven in Naples. [...] Every element of the oven works perfectly together, [...]every single detail is perfection. [...] I am so happy with it, it’s really beautiful.

The taste of the dough, the whole structure in the crust, it should have like a sweet kind of smell, it shouldn’t smell of yeast, it should smell of the wheat. The ingredients on the pizza, it should be lightly topped, everything should be kind of an even balance, you know, and playing off each other. There shouldn’t be where, you know, you hide the dough with - like - ricotta, pesto, black olives and everything else under the sun. That’s of mediocre quality, there should be beautiful dough, baked properly, with some seasoning and that’s how you can tell – to me – a good pizza.

The hardest to source is the buffalo mozzarella. [...] There is always a problem, at least once a month it doesn’t come for one week, dates are falsified. It depends who you know in Italy, how they stamping it...
Even when the buffalo mozzarella is not at its freshest, it still melts differently, and looks different on a pizza than fresh mozzarella, which is called fiordilatte in Italy.
When you take it out of the oven, the pizza looks like it has some life, it’s shiny, it’s glistening, the cheese usually has these beautiful little shades of a little bit of greenish to it.

There are some people in America that are trying to make buffalo mozzarella, but I’ve tried both of them, there is one in California and one in Vermont, and I love the fact that they’re doing it, I really wanted to use it, to support it, but the taste... it’s just not there. It just doesn’t have the magic that the buffalo mozzarella does from Caserta or Battipaglia outside of Naples.

Hide Bread

I made up my mind. My next 42 km will be in Big Sur. I write it here because that way I feel somewhat forced to keep the promise and I avoid getting strange ideas, like backing out at the very last minute. Some say it's one of the most beautiful marathons in the U.S., not as popular as New York or Boston, but certainly more spectacular for the course that runs along one of the most gorgeous stretches of the whole Pacific coast.

What does this have to do with the girl in the kitchen, you may ask? It's just that while thinking about Big Sur, I remembered this recipe, that I marked a while back with the usual yellow post-it so that I could try it as soon as possible. I found it in a beautiful book, The Big Sur Bakery Cookbook, one of those recommended by The Big Brother Amazon that all of a sudden you feel like you absolutely have to own.
It's sort of a culinary diary of this small restaurant/cafe', hidden behind a gas station along Highway 1. The tale of four friends who decide to leave the glamorous yet impossible scene of Los Angeles in order to pursue their dream in the middle of nature. With all its difficulties, like electricity that can be gone for days when the only power line connecting Big Sur to Carmel decides to break down, the suffocating feeling that hits at times when you live in a community of few hundreds people, or the financial risk of running a business that is largely based on tourism.

As usual, the first recipe that catched my attention is that of a bread, even if in this case it's not a leavening one, but rather a cross between Irish soda bread and English muffins (note to my Italian friends: mind you, English muffins are totally different than muffins, and they are more similar to English scones, which in turn are not to be confused with American scones...how confusing...I should stop here, otherwise this parenthesis will break into a new post).
In short, I warn you, these unusual rolls, quintessence of zen and healthy California, are not for everybody. What I mean is that they are not suited for the classic pane e salame, the crust is hard and crunchy and their crumb very dense and full of seeds that pleasantly creak under your teeth. They absolutely need to be sliced in half and toasted before eating, just like English muffins (which are not like muffins!!), and they are the best at breakfast, spread with jam and paired with a large, bottomless cup of coffee.
Now I know for sure. Next stop, Big Sur.


Hide Bread
for approximately 8 rolls>

all-purpose flour 2 and 1/2 cups (375 gr)
flax seeds 1/4 cup (50 gr.)
sesame seeds 1/4 cup (40 gr.)
oat bran 1 cup (120 gr.)
sunflower seeds 1/8 cup (25 gr.)
millet, amaranth, quinoa or poppy seeds, or a combination of any of these 1/4 cup (50 gr.)
salt 1/4 teaspoon
baking soda 1/2 teaspoon
beer 1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon (60 ml.)
buttermilk, milk or water 1 and 1/4 cup (350 ml.)

I divided the recipe in half, the original amount is for 15 rolls of approximately 4 inches in diameter.
In a large bowl, combine all dry ingredients and stir well. Make a well in the middle, and add beer and buttermilk (or milk and/or water). Mix with your hand or using a wooden spoon until all ingredients are blended together and form a thick and wet batter. Slightly sprinkle the surface with flour and turn the batter on the work surface. Roll it into a log of approximately 2 inches in diameter, then cut it in slices about 1 1/2 inches thick. Pat them down with your hands and place them on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake at 375 for about 45 minutes, until the surface turns golden brown. Let them cool completely. Before serving, remember to slice the rolls in half and toast them well.

Una Pizza Napoletana

Picture taken from the New York Times official website

Anthony Mangieri, who is him?

Once upon a time there was a fundamentalist pizza maker, one of those who aren't willing to come to terms with anybody, no cheap mozzarella, no artificial yeast, no canned tomato sauce. Anthony Mangieri had a dream, pursued for years like the Holy Grail: understanding the secret of pizza, dissecting it, making it his own in order to be able to offer it to the rest of the world. Anthony Mangieri knew that Neapolitan pizza is a serious affair, a magic one needs to conquer with very few ingredients, but all of top quality. No tricks here, no superfluous additions: salt, water, flour and natural rising. Tomatoes, mozzarella, olive oil and basil. Take it or leave it. All the extras are banished, what do you need them for?

Not an easy challenge, in a market where spoiled customers are used to ask and get whatever they want: thick pizza, thin, square or round, with pesto or with chicken, well-done or half-baked, with pineapple or ham, or with everything at once, just tell me what you want and I'll make it for you. So-called pizzerias and take-out pizza on every corner, fast-food prices, who did he think he would compete with?

Una Pizza Napoletana was everything but a traditional American pizza restaurant. Right when you'd read the sign on the door, you could understand there was something odd:

"Open Thursday-Sunday
5 pm until sold out of dough"

Is this a joke? What do you mean Thursday to Sunday? And those who may want pizza on Wednesday, what are they suppose to do? And then, we are in the US, how dare you closing and taking a day off? And what's this thing that you may run out of dough? No, no, no, that's not possible, dough never ends. Until there's a client, there must be dough; it doesn't matter if it hasn't fully risen yet and if in reality it's supposed to be for tomorrow. Use it and that's it, what's the difference?

By the time you had read the menu, you didn't know what to think anymore: Anthony was a visionary or he was simply crazy. Una Pizza Napoletana offered only four pizzas, all of them variations on the same subject: Marinara, Margherita, Bianca and Filetti (with chopped cherry tomatoes on top). A swap between the same ingredients, tomatoes, mozzarella, olive oil and basil. Nothing more. Four pizzas. No salads, no appetizers, snacks or finger food. Not even dessert. Pizza like a religion, a fundamentalist faith to which Anthony would grant only one thing, some red wine from Campania, served in a carafe.

In reality, his visionary delirium was equivalent to a business suicide, the willingness to attract criticism and disapproval from hungry people. What? How come I can't make substitutions? And you don't even have pepperoni? Next time I'll think twice before waiting here for half hour... And yet, pizza was coming out as beautiful as ever, round, fragrant and steaming hot. And it was whole, as it should be, not already sliced or cut in half, American style. To everyone his own pizza, because for things like these it's right to be selfish.

And then there was this thing about the ingredients, all rigorously imported and carefully selected, chosen with a fanatical precision: organic flour, San Marzano tomatoes DOP (acronym for any certified Italian food product), sea salt from Sicily, extra-virgin olive oil that was more like a olive nectar, fresh buffalo mozzarella from Campania.

Those who want to understand will follow me, for all the others there will always be the other thousand and thousand of NY pizzerias. Those who wanted to understand patronized that tiny place in the East Village as if it were a temple, with the same worship and respect one has towards the Holy. I hope, Ho Fede, just like Anthony had tattooed on his fingers. Those who wanted to understand would never give up that brick oven for any other pizza in Manhattan.

Obviously, Anthony Mangieri was not crazy, and this idea of a hard-core pizza, he had got it right. His insane obsession for Naples - he was born in New Jersey and had never been in Naples - had taken him on the right path. And yet, at the height of his career, Anthony Mangieri took courage and decided that the East Village dream had come to an end. It was about time to give someone else the chance. Una Pizza Napoletana closed its doors few months ago, all of a sudden, with a simple Thank You message to the customers for the support and the love they showed him during the whole 5 years.

But those who know Anthony Mangieri, know that a man like him can't stop dreaming at 40: I want to make a change, man, he tells to the Diner's Journal reporter, the NY Times' blog dedicated to the restaurant business. I’m almost 40. I’ve lived my life between New Jersey and this neighborhood. If I don’t do this now, then when?

And you wanna bet that...