St. Pizzaburg Reviews, Explained

OK, so before I publish my first official review, I feel I should lay down a few ground rules and expectations.

First, I typically only eat, and will only review, cheese pizza. There are a number of reasons for this:

1. I grew up Catholic, so my first introduction to pizza was as a meat-free option during Lent. Dinner on any given Lenten Friday was typically either fish sticks or cheese pizza, so that pretty much set the tone for my pizza preference. And rest assured…there are no plans for a fish stick blog any time in the immediate future.
2. As a kid, I was a picky eater, and vegetables just didn’t make the cut (in pre-school, I would lick the peanut butter off the celery and trash the vile weed). Fun fact: my grandparents actually stopped eating dinner with us due to my dietary eccentricities. I can’t say I blamed them…who wants to watch some scowling little brat push peas around his plate for an hour every night.
3. A pizza cannot be great without a well-balanced crust: not too soft, not too crispy. Vegetables are full of water, and meat has water and fat (which becomes oil when baked). This excess water and oil conspire to upset the delicate balance of an ideal crust, tipping the scales to the soft side, resulting in a soggy mess. Don’t look at me like that. It’s science.
4. And lastly, let’s be honest: If you can’t get plain cheese pizza right, no amount of toppings is going to save you.

So we’ve now established the “what” and the “why”, lets delve into the “how”.

I’m neither a foodie, nor a gourmand. I’m reviewing pizza, for heaven’s sake. It ain’t fancy. It’s the Food of the People. You can dress it up all you want and top it with farm-to-table mutton chunks drizzled with an elder berry compote, but you’re not fooling anyone. And, quite frankly, you look ridiculous!

Though I adore the term “mouthfeel” for its utter pretentiousness, don’t expect me to use it with any sincerity. I also won’t be addressing “notes” of flavors we all know aren’t really there, or engaging with any type of “melanges”. I’m not that kind of guy.

No, in my reviews I’ll be addressing a simple food in a simple way. A perfect pie has perfect proportions of crust, sauce, and cheese. It’s all about the quality of these three ingredients, and how well they work with each other. Simple balance.

At the end of the day, I firmly believe there’s no such thing as a bad pizza (except, of course, the big chains…they’re mostly garbage), just varying degrees of good pizza, with a few great ones out there waiting to be found. The main goal of this blog is to let you know which is which. Sure, I’ll have to eat A LOT of pizza to make that happen, but I’m willing to do that…just for you.

See ya ’round…