Pizza Slow (high quality)

Mastodon posts

  1. Every time I walk past this house I’m like “Damn, I didn’t think people actually used More Windows (high color)”

    a photograph of the front facade of a house in san francisco. the house is stucco or some other flat surface with a staircase first rising to the right, parallel to the house that then turns and rises to the left parallel to the house. The windows are black aluminum and double-hung with no shutters. The inner wall facade of the lower staircase is bright yellow and presents as an arrow wedge pointing right because the outer facade is the gray again. A decorative yellow line along the barn style roof pitch is also the same yellow.between first first and second story windows, the owner (I presume) has affixed the word HOPE in raised 2’ high all capital san serif letters painted the same dark gray as the house. I don’t know what is going on with that, but I’m getting hippie shit vibes, on the hippie/punk spectrum.Anyway, for more on More Windows (high color), check out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xX9B_BYMXQE.
    Figure 1. a photograph of the front facade of a house in san francisco. the house is stucco or some other flat surface with a staircase first rising to the right, parallel to the house that then turns and rises to the left parallel to the house. The windows are black aluminum and double-hung with no shutters. The inner wall facade of the lower staircase is bright yellow and presents as an arrow wedge pointing right because the outer facade is the gray again. A decorative yellow line along the barn style roof pitch is also the same yellow.between first first and second story windows, the owner (I presume) has affixed the word HOPE in raised 2’ high all capital san serif letters painted the same dark gray as the house. I don’t know what is going on with that, but I’m getting hippie shit vibes, on the hippie/punk spectrum.Anyway, for more on More Windows (high color), check out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xX9B_BYMXQE..
  2. Made three cup last night and mistakenly used rice vinegar instead of rice wine.

    given the sauce calls for two parts rice wine to one part soy sauce, this was a real mad-recipe-commentor’s-wildly-innappropriate-substitution, but it was kinda ok? but I also certainly won’t do it again.

    junior balked immediately after devouring just enough to not be starving anymore and pivoted to desert.

  3. Yesterday was a lovely day for a little municipal yachting, and hiking conditions on Angel Island were ideal, although we were dodging half-marathoners descending the north ridge trail, the sunset trail return was less trafficked.

    Sutro Tower from Mount Caroline Livermore on Angel Island. The bottom 1/5th of the photo is is a solid layer of clouds. In the center, the tiny “pirate ship” spires of Sutro Tower and the barest bit of the three horizontal braces peeks above the clouds. The rest of the photo is blue sky with a few much higher faint wisps of clouds.
    Figure 1. Sutro Tower from Mount Caroline Livermore on Angel Island. The bottom 1/5th of the photo is is a solid layer of clouds. In the center, the tiny “pirate ship” spires of Sutro Tower and the barest bit of the three horizontal braces peeks above the clouds. The rest of the photo is blue sky with a few much higher faint wisps of clouds..
    San Francisco’s skyline from the vantage point of a ferry boat half a mile from the coast. To the left, the residential towers of Rincon Hill, followed by Salesforce Tower, the Ferry Building we’d just left behind, centering on the transamerica pyramid, all backed by blue skies and high white clouds. The right half of the skyline is much more residential and lower, centering on the now modest Coit Tower, all backed by a low, gray fog bank enveloping the Outer Richmond.From the vantage point of Angel Island, all that was visible was the fog bank.
    Figure 2. San Francisco’s skyline from the vantage point of a ferry boat half a mile from the coast. To the left, the residential towers of Rincon Hill, followed by Salesforce Tower, the Ferry Building we’d just left behind, centering on the transamerica pyramid, all backed by blue skies and high white clouds. The right half of the skyline is much more residential and lower, centering on the now modest Coit Tower, all backed by a low, gray fog bank enveloping the Outer Richmond.From the vantage point of Angel Island, all that was visible was the fog bank..

    And then the Angel on my shoulder said, “It is more important that people who play music on bluetooth speakers on hikes in the woods with their friends are on hikes in the woods with their friends than that they are supposedly spoiling your supposed vibes.”

    “You get to decide if your vibes are spoiled, not them.”

    “Who are you to get bummed out by this, you use a bluetooth speaker biking in the city, how is this any different?”

    After which the Devil on my shoulder said, “You should get to tell the people at the ranger station that people under 30 were on the island, which will bum them out and they’ll say, ah, jeeze, we’re real sorry about that, they were probably talking to each other too? What a shame, here are the keys to our secret personal ferry boats, come out to the island any time you want to get it all to yourself."

    Or something like that.

  4. Pretending Bartlett street, the street I walk to get to BART, is named that because it is the street I walk to get to BART.

    an apple maps screen shot in my phone of the two blocks of barlett i walk to get to the 24th street BART stopBARTlett streetnominative determinism strikes again, etci'm very confident i discovered this, sike
    Figure 1. an apple maps screen shot in my phone of the two blocks of barlett i walk to get to the 24th street BART stopBARTlett streetnominative determinism strikes again, etci'm very confident i discovered this, sike.
  5. Tfw San Francisco texts you back

    a screenshot of imessage of a text message from Tacos El Patron down the street, where I’m about to walk to pick up lunch. They have another store that isn’t in SF so this one must be configured in their system as “San Francisco”
    Figure 1. a screenshot of imessage of a text message from Tacos El Patron down the street, where I’m about to walk to pick up lunch. They have another store that isn’t in SF so this one must be configured in their system as “San Francisco”.
  6. Had a bunch of people over yesterday and tried to replicate what we had at Oobatz. I went w/:

    90% zero zero

    10% whole wheat

    65% hydration

    1% sourdough starter

    8 hour warm fermentation with bowl folds between meetings when I remembered

    48 cold fermentation, 4 hour counter warm

    the zucchini pizza was incredible (not Oobatz incredible but, close maybe?), the sweet corn was missing something, maybe simply parsley (I forgot it), unsure.

    Fleur de sel on the crust is a pro move.

    a slice of neapolitan pizza on a fake paper plate made of melamine, drizzled with chili oilthe pizza is topped with micro-planed parmesan, smoked mozz, low moisture mozz, and fresh mozz over which are layered the thinly slice zucchini, smoked paprika, and minced flat leaf parsley. I salted the corniccione with fleur de sel
    Figure 1. a slice of neapolitan pizza on a fake paper plate made of melamine, drizzled with chili oilthe pizza is topped with micro-planed parmesan, smoked mozz, low moisture mozz, and fresh mozz over which are layered the thinly slice zucchini, smoked paprika, and minced flat leaf parsley. I salted the corniccione with fleur de sel.
    an uncut whole neapolitan pizza on a stainless steel platethe pizza is topped with micro-planed parmesan, smoked mozz, low moisture mozz, and fresh mozz, sweet corn sliced off the cob, and smoked paprika. I salted the corniccione with fleur de sel
    Figure 2. an uncut whole neapolitan pizza on a stainless steel platethe pizza is topped with micro-planed parmesan, smoked mozz, low moisture mozz, and fresh mozz, sweet corn sliced off the cob, and smoked paprika. I salted the corniccione with fleur de sel.
    a standard neapolitan margherita on a stainless steel platethe pizza is topped with san marzano tomato (I open a can, pour off half of the tomato juice down the drain, dump the whole peeled tomatoes in a blender with a pinch of salt and blip it very briefly), smoked mozz, microplaned parmesan, fresh mozz, and a few tears of basil leaf. I salted the corniccione with fleur de sel.
    Figure 3. a standard neapolitan margherita on a stainless steel platethe pizza is topped with san marzano tomato (I open a can, pour off half of the tomato juice down the drain, dump the whole peeled tomatoes in a blender with a pinch of salt and blip it very briefly), smoked mozz, microplaned parmesan, fresh mozz, and a few tears of basil leaf. I salted the corniccione with fleur de sel..
    the underside of one of the pizzas which I’ve lifted up off of a steel plate to check the crust, it is speckled with leopard spotting, many with tiny holes in the center, just like you want to see for this style
    Figure 4. the underside of one of the pizzas which I’ve lifted up off of a steel plate to check the crust, it is speckled with leopard spotting, many with tiny holes in the center, just like you want to see for this style.

    Ah, jeeze, I see now that my take on the sweet corn pizza was missing thinly sliced (probably mandolined) red onion, that’ll totally fix it. Welp, I know what I’m doing next Friday!

    Also, I made a batch a chili oil with simple red pepper flakes simmered in olive oil a while back and keep it in a deli container, it’s a big lift for anything it goes on.

    it’s a running joke in chat that we don’t own mandolines and anyone who uses a mandoline needs to be wearing safety gloves the entire time they handle the things and I’m pretty damn accident prone so I simply chose to never own one.

    Well, I really wanted to try take on this zucchini pizza so I bought a safe-design one ( https://bydash.com/products/safe-slice-mandoline) instead of a benriner and gloves.

    Mandoline Slicer | Dash Safe Slice MandolineWhen it comes to safer slicing, this food prep friend will be with you through thick and thin! Utilizing an intuitive, safety-first design, the Ingredient Pusher feeds food for slicing to the stainless-steel blades to keep hands and fingers far away from sharp edges. Slice, dice, julienne, and cut matchsticks & shoDash (opens in a new tab)

    It does the job! You end up with ovals where I guess you could get circles from a benriner. Oh well?

    I also started the night with two 100% cold fermentation 18" NY styles for the kids. Both were supposed to be 90% bread flour, 10% whole wheat, but I forgot the whole wheat in one of the dough balls so I labeled the tub on that side to see what difference it would make. I do the flour split calcs just in time, so they both had the same flour by weight, the only difference is which kind.

    Wheat made a big difference, look how big it is!

    two balls of pizza dough in a plastic tub with a little olive oil. the left dough ball is marked with a tiny pinch on the top which I then figured might get lost in fermentation, so I also wrote “10% whole wheat” on some yellow masking tape and put that next to the right dough ball, which, because it has whole wheat, is noticeably larger than the left.
    Figure 5. two balls of pizza dough in a plastic tub with a little olive oil. the left dough ball is marked with a tiny pinch on the top which I then figured might get lost in fermentation, so I also wrote “10% whole wheat” on some yellow masking tape and put that next to the right dough ball, which, because it has whole wheat, is noticeably larger than the left..
    two dough tubs with the lids off, photographed top downthe top tub has two dough balls for 18” NY style pizzas in itthe bottom has 6 dough balls for neapolitan pizza in it
    Figure 6. two dough tubs with the lids off, photographed top downthe top tub has two dough balls for 18” NY style pizzas in itthe bottom has 6 dough balls for neapolitan pizza in it.
    an 18” NY style pizza on a wooden peel, prior to baking. I make NY style sauce w/ san marzanos, salt, sugar, half a clove of garlic, and a dozen basil leafs in a blender. the pizza is topped with parm and low moisture mozz
    Figure 7. an 18” NY style pizza on a wooden peel, prior to baking. I make NY style sauce w/ san marzanos, salt, sugar, half a clove of garlic, and a dozen basil leafs in a blender. the pizza is topped with parm and low moisture mozz.
    a just-baked 18” NY style pizza on a steel platethe pizza is topped with tomato sauce, parm and low moisture mozz
    Figure 8. a just-baked 18” NY style pizza on a steel platethe pizza is topped with tomato sauce, parm and low moisture mozz.
  7. Home again, researching Oobatz’s pizza maker, Dan Pearson, who took a neat path to Oobatz and in which I learned that I probably need to buy a mandolin to slice properly (boo, I’ll probably shoot my eye out), and that in addition to using 100% sourdough, he uses population wheat, which I’d never heard of, explained by this unrelated producer: https://wakelyns.co.uk/yq/

    YQ Population Wheat at Wakelyns – Wakelynswakelyns.co.uk (opens in a new tab)

    warning: apple podcasts link, linking only because it has a text transcript, https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/106-the-american-baker-dan-pearson-behind-the-best/id1225708803?i=1000591392995&r=36

    bonus if you don’t follow the wheat producer link, this fun infographic of wheats in a population what that looks like a @paulrickards plotter postcard

    computer graphic detailing capitalized names of wheat grasses in two columns right aligned on the left column and left aligned on the right column in a black sans serif with solid thin color lines in a rotation of various primary additive printing colors like cyan, magenta, yellow, and black, cross linking every variety named on the left to every variety named on the rightBezostayaBuchanCadenzaClaireDebenHerewardHigh Tiller LineMaris WidgeonMerciaMonopolNormanOptionPasticheRenanRenesansaSoissonsSparkTankerThatcherWembleyThe 20 parents and over 190 crosses that make upORC Wakelyns Population
    Figure 1. computer graphic detailing capitalized names of wheat grasses in two columns right aligned on the left column and left aligned on the right column in a black sans serif with solid thin color lines in a rotation of various primary additive printing colors like cyan, magenta, yellow, and black, cross linking every variety named on the left to every variety named on the rightBezostayaBuchanCadenzaClaireDebenHerewardHigh Tiller LineMaris WidgeonMerciaMonopolNormanOptionPasticheRenanRenesansaSoissonsSparkTankerThatcherWembleyThe 20 parents and over 190 crosses that make upORC Wakelyns Population.
  8. Had pizza at Oobatz ( https://www.oobatz.fr) in Paris this week.

    4bis Avenue Jean Aicard4bis Avenue Jean Aicard (opens in a new tab)

    Holy moly it was great, like, wow, maybe my favorite pizza ever? I’m definitely going to try these tooping choices at home.

    we asked the server if they could give any hints at the what the “surprise” pizza tonight was, and no, they could not. great concept.

    two slices of neapolitan pizza topped with mozzerella and thin slices of zucchini, the crust is salted with maldon or similar large flakes of salt, and leopard spotted perfectlyin the foreground are two stainless steel hammered dishes of chili oil, one green, one red
    Figure 1. two slices of neapolitan pizza topped with mozzerella and thin slices of zucchini, the crust is salted with maldon or similar large flakes of salt, and leopard spotted perfectlyin the foreground are two stainless steel hammered dishes of chili oil, one green, one red.
    a phone camera pic of the menu at Oobatz, we got the deux, trois, sinc, and sixOobatz16UNSauce tomate, mozzarella di bufala, basilic19DEUXMaïs, mozzarella di bufala, oignon20TROISCourgette, mozzarella di bufala22QUATREMortadella, mozzarella di bufala22CINQSalsiccia, caciocavallo, sauce tomate16-24SIXSurprise du chef03.08.2025Les pizzas sont servies l'une après l'autre, pour l'ensemble de la tablPrix nets en euro
    Figure 2. a phone camera pic of the menu at Oobatz, we got the deux, trois, sinc, and sixOobatz16UNSauce tomate, mozzarella di bufala, basilic19DEUXMaïs, mozzarella di bufala, oignon20TROISCourgette, mozzarella di bufala22QUATREMortadella, mozzarella di bufala22CINQSalsiccia, caciocavallo, sauce tomate16-24SIXSurprise du chef03.08.2025Les pizzas sont servies l'une après l'autre, pour l'ensemble de la tablPrix nets en euro.
    a single slice of neapolitan pizza topped with mozz, sweet corn, and a few very tiny, thin red onion slices. I think it also has oregano flaks and chili powder and maldon on top
    Figure 3. a single slice of neapolitan pizza topped with mozz, sweet corn, and a few very tiny, thin red onion slices. I think it also has oregano flaks and chili powder and maldon on top.
  9. I really wish every recipe, but especially when fermentation, searing, boils, and active stirring are involved, were presented in expert tables of activity, duration, attention, and finally instruction, all preceded by plating time estimate. I keep all of mine in AnyList and I’m going to start appending this kind of information to the top of each, starting with when I need to have started today’s focaccia.

    "Begin $interval prior to serving.

    Bowl fold, two minutes, attentive, blah blah blah."

  10. Had nearly 5 hours of meetings this afternoon with no time to ball tonight’s neapolitan pizza dough, which I haven’t made in a month or two because Iv’e been working on 20" NY styles, but I did get it out off the fridge in time to warm up

    so as per, the first one I mindlessy stretched like it was tight and instantly had a razor thin 16" mess I couldn’t even get on a peel

    the second one I was “careful” and holed in the oven

    the third and fourth I just patted flat and baked and they were OK

    noticed a fav new spot (Hi-hat in SF, be warned, a little on the pricey side) uses a lot more sauce than I do, I leaned that way tonight, the fam liked it.

    anchovies, mozz, san marzano, olive oil, salt

    could have doubled the anchovies

    an irregular shaped Neapolitan pizza on a stainless steel 12” plate, topped mostly with red tomato sauce, eight white circles of mozzarella, and four anchovy filets
    Figure 1. an irregular shaped Neapolitan pizza on a stainless steel 12” plate, topped mostly with red tomato sauce, eight white circles of mozzarella, and four anchovy filets.
    close up of a slice of pizza, the crust is consistently one mm of bubbles thick
    Figure 2. close up of a slice of pizza, the crust is consistently one mm of bubbles thick.