The Blind Onion

"It doesn't look very good," says Mavel when I show her the picture on the website, trying to sell it to her for dinner. Ah well, my friend, it doesn't need to look good because the onion is blind.

I'll give Mavel her point, this pizza is not a looker. The cheese looks too shiny and the "hand-rolled" crust doesn't do anything for me except remind me of a berry pie which is not what I crave when I open the pizza box. "Ah, but looks are deceiving," said the wise Blind Onion. This pie is scrumptious. Its dough raises it above other sighted pizzas. It might not matter what toppings you but on it because the highlight of this pizza is the generous topping of cheese and the dough, the thick-but-not-too-dense bagel dough.

I have a friend who used to sell art and she always told me that the way you know you found the right piece is if you can't stop thinking about it, if it pops into your mind at unexpected times. Two weeks after I met the Blind Onion for the first time, in a strip mall in the Couve, I could not keep him off my mind. I found the right piece. This is art for my mouth.

(I had, however, stopped thinking about the Blind Onion's window art: is that a blind dog eating a piece of the Blind Onion? I'm not sure, but according to The Blind Onion Story on their website, the Blind Onion was part of "America's first all sight-impaired" band back in the 1960s. Sadly, the band was ill-fated, according to the story, because it had an annoying habit of making the audience cry. Ha ha ha.)

Whoring with Ken (at Ken's Artisan)

Mary Alecia, the Pizza Gigalo's girlfriend, said to the Pizza Gigalo: "do you want to go keep Kristen company while she whores herself to Ken?"

Evan said "yes!" and pimped it with the best pizza of the evening, in my opinion: the 

black olive. These extra-special olives are the vegetarian version of anchovies: super salty flavorful deliciousness. He did double duty (like a true gigalo) and added some anchovies! 

Another local pizza connoisseur, (Thank you, Ms Crowe) tipped us to get a side of the fresh red chilies which also added an extra bang to the plain margharita. My choice, the margharita + arugula, gave me a bit too much aragula.

Here's Gus, starting his pizza-loving life with Ken's sourdough. I appreciated the olive oil more than the bread, which was a little too crusty for my taste. But the crust underneath the pizza was pretty perfect, I just didn't appreciate the actual crust part. As I gave Aaron the title of crust hater because his was piling up, Matt wondered if there was ever a pizza whose toppings went all the way to the edge. This is what I wished was going on here. I had given Aaron such a hard time about denying his crust, that I was embarrassed to see mine doing the same. Bummer. 

The pizza's interior was delicious and delicate: great sauce with sporadically placed fresh mozzarella. The irregularity of the topping locations started another great pizza discussion. Is the topic location designed so that each bite has a different ratio of flavors? I'm not sure how I feel about this. I believe the best pizza is that which achieves the perfect sauce/dough/cheese/topping balance, but this gives you a different balance in each bite. So we must assess the whole pie experience, rather than one bite at a time. Bottom line here: mine had too much arugula. "Better too much than too little," said Matt. Maybe. But I couldn't stomach rejecting the lovely green along with my crust, so I ate it. It left my whole pizza experience imbalanced.

So, I started looking into my friends' pizzas -- Matt raved about his sorporsatta, the super-spicy-pepperoni-like meat pizza. Apizza whore confession: in 27.5 years of pizza loving I'd never tried a pepperoni pizza. So, if I am now, after all these years, willing to try the meat, why not start with a kind-of-like-but-not pepperoni pizza. Spicy! Some heat and a lot of flavor. One bite was enough for me, but it was tasty! 

 I looked around the table -- Aaron had one piece of his sausage and fennel left. I pondered it for a moment. (Keep in mind, I'm a life-long vegetarian; mom said I was born that way.) Lemme try it! Wow. Hands down the best pizza on the table (it one upped the black olive). The fennel was caramelized and he'd added the chilies before the pie got cooked. Delicious, and powerful. Maybe it would have been too much for the entire pie because it was really rich, but I have vegetarian taste. For meat lovers, it would be spectacular!

Home-topped, with dough by Pastaworks

They should have taken a picture of me tossing the dough over the oven. The centrifugal force really does help even out the dough. It's not just for entertainment (except the time I almost dropped it). I learned to make pizza (and calzones) when I was a line cook at Cafe Bernardo in Sacramento. I learned on a great flat iron oven, but they never let us toss the dough. We rolled it, with a rolling pin; how sad. But they did teach me about my favorite toppings - caramelized onions, mozzarella, fresh spinach, fresh tomatoes, and kalamata olives. This is now the standard pie in Kristen's kitchen. It's the pie that mom ALWAYS requests when she comes to town.

Mom comes. I make pizza.

I love to make my own dough, but Pastaworks recently moved into the neighborhood and I'd heard they make a mean dough you can by raw & frozen. So on our way to a beach house for the weekend, we picked up two frozen balls of dough! While my mom and I quilted the afternoon away, we let the dough defrost in the window sill (yes, we were blessed with SUN at the Oregon coast!).

One pie got red sauce, the other got basil pesto. Mom always prefers the pesto. But the eight of us demolished the 2 pies. This was some damn good pizza. Evan and MaryAlecia brought arugula, which was the perfect frest topping on the hot pizza pie!

The crust: hip hip horay for the Pastaworks dough. It was way thicker than I'd ever make, but you could cut one ball in half for a thinner result. We used one ball per pizza. The dough was plush, with sufficient salt and oil. Tasty. It gets 5 stars from me for frozen dough!

The pans: the tomato pie got the pizza stone and the pesto got a cookie sheet. No one raved about the pizza stone, and I particularly dislike it. The dough gets too crispy. I knocked my finger on the bottom -- kinda like cardboard. I prefer the good old, standard-issue cookie sheet, dusted with cornmeal. Evan, THE PIZZA GIGALO (check us out, photo to the right) pointed out that the stone might give a more even cook, but I just don't know. Maybe in theory it would, but theory doesn't matter if I like the pizza in the cookie pan better. And, when it comes to the perfectly-cooked, homemade pizza dough, the hotter the oven, the better. Our rental oven went up to 500! Nice.

The Pizza Phlebotomist

On Ashlee's suggestion, we went to Old Town Pizza, downtown, for lunch. The pizza was nothing special, but Ashlee's pizza-eating technique made my mouth drop. Just wait: yours will, too. So we each had 2 slices of their veggie pizza on our plates. One glance at the boring looking pizza with thick crust and I knew I needed crushed red pepper and probably salt. Ash leaned over and added a spoonful of what I presumed was salt. I said, "Hit me, too." She gladly doused me with some...sugar. It was sugar. What the fuck?

That was just the beginning. It gets better. I don't know what we were talking about -- it didn't matter, because nothing would have distracted me from what she did with her pizza. She dunked the cheesy tip of the slice into her Diet Coke. I shrieked: "What are you doing?" Unfazed she says, "I've always done it." Okay. "So, where did you get this idea and how long have you been doing this?" "I got it from Jersey. 'been doing it since I was a kid." For real? "Is it a New Jersey thing?" "Yah," she said, "but at this point it's probably more of an Ashlee thing." Nuts.

We proceeded to talk. Whatever, moving on. Do what you want to taint this already boring pizza and greasify what once was a perfectly drinkable soda. Gross. But it gets even better. 

When the cheesy part of her pizza was gone she put the crust down. I thought nothing of it. I didn't want to eat it either, too dry and flavorless. But then she stuck her straw into her soda and covered the end of it with her finger to extract some soda (the way we drank soda when were kids and our parents would say, "stop that!"). Then she INJECTED the soda it into the open end of the crust, with the skill and ease of a veteran phlebotomist. Gross. Oh my. She gleefully munched on the crust. Her face said "yum." I've known Ashlee way too long to have missed this.

Can't knock it till I try it, right? Shit, it was gross. The already bland dough was now soggy and the soda lost its fizz, the fizz that made the soda worth consuming in the first place. "So you do this with any soda?" "No, it has to be cola." "Not even root beer?" "Nope, I prefer the diet cola." Really? Wow.

So I tell this story to a group of friends eating pizza the next weekend and they're all floored. They'd never heard of this and they all know Ashlee well enough to be part intrigued, part shocked. Mavel was mortified. Then the group decided that maybe Ashlee was pulling my leg...y'know to make some excellent blog material. I am a gullible one. But there's no way -- she pulled it off way too naturally for the whole meal to be a spoof. One friend pointed out though: either way, if she was acting or she was for real, it makes a damn good story, virtually unbelievable. Way to go Ash! We love you!

Apizza Scholls, finally

My friend, Jenn (a new yorker and true pizza lover), was astounded that I'd been in Portland for seven years without eating pizza from Apizza Scholls. For her, this pizzeria's reputation preceded her move to Portland and when she arrived, she was pleasantly surprised that Portland pulls off a pizza akin to her long-time favorite: Grimaldi's, in Brooklyn Heights, NY. She is very serious about Pizza Scholl's distinction in the world, so we went, finally!

Jenn says "it's in the water." Really? "Yah, both Portland and New York have good tap water, for the dough" She swears it's not just her theory, but I have yet to see anyone make a similar claim (which might not be saying anything). Well, at least, it's not one of the several things written on the back of Apizza Scholl's menu as a key factor to a good pie. They claim "the most important factors in making a great pizza are proper dought fermentation, oven management, and the freshest highest quality ingredients available." Rock on. They do get the alchemy right -- their pizza is excellent.

After the first bite of their 'Margo'rita (their take on the traditional Margherita), I exclaimed "sufficiently salted." I hadn't realized what an important factor salt is in the flavor of perfect pizza, but appearantly I'd had INsufficiently salted pizza to know this was right on. Jenn looked at me and said, "no, perfectly salted." We'd even ordered half our 'Margo'rita with anchovies, which surprisingly didn't make that side too salty. The preserved little fish were marvelous additions! We chewed slowly, taking it all in. My first piece was gone before I even thought about the crushed red pepper (the number of bites before I want the red pepper being my gauge for how well-flavored the pizza is)!

Savoring our second slice, we discussed the "burnt" aspect of the dough. Jenn had showed me to "check upskirt" (see the action shot, above). This, apparently, is to check for evidence of the markings of good oven management, the high-heat, coal-oven kisses, according to Apizza Scholl's website. "Looks perfect," she says. Their menu also sheds some light on black spots. The only thing they have written in bold font reads like a precautionary statement: "Due to extreme temperatures the crust will take on a charred appearance. Although the spots on the crust may be black, the quick baking produces a superficial char, taking on a smoky and caramelized set of flavors...yum!" They got it right. It's a "superficial char," i.e., not burnt. This is exactly why it doesn't taste like burnt toast. The temperatures in their oven range from 650 - 900 degrees F. That's HOT.

Jenn has her own take on the char flavor. Get this: she finds an essence of the perfectly toasted marshmallow in their crust. She's careful in her analogy, though; it's not sweet, but it's there, she says. I understood what she meant: perfectly toasted on the outside, light and fluffy inside. But it wasn't til my last slice that it jumped out at me. I chewed more slowly and closed my eyes. There it is! I got it; I felt it. I waived the sensation up into my nose and ate all my crust, delighted at this discovery.

I have to make one negative point (sorry, Jenn): Apizza Scholls needs to work on their atmosphere. Their pizza rivals the best of New York pizza and the creators adhere to the pizzaiolo standards of Italy, but I felt like I was in suburbia. Sterile tables and walls and generic chairs. Light colored wood and clutter on the bar. Bad lighting. Their "art" (pizza made of metal) was hung too high to be appreciated, though I hope the close-up entertains you. Jenn pointed out that if this place was in NY, there'd be 10 tables where there are two here. Understandably, Apizza Scholls couldn't hold any more tables because they're a family-run pizza joint and they can only make so much pizza in one day. But c'mon, they are so successful, they could hire some help and a decorator to enhance the experience. They work so hard to make a perfect product, I just want their decor to support the effort.

I should say, though, their well-chosen BEER selection sure does support their aim toward perfection! The Anchor Steam Amber was the perfect compliment. I can't say, yet, whether Apizza Scholls gets my label of "perfect" (my highest award), but remember, I'm a whore - almost all of it makes me really happy. Next time I'm ordering the "Tartufo Bianco" which comes with mozzarella, pecorino romano, truffle oil and sea salt!