Inspired by Scott

So after our tour on Saturday (with the Amazing Scott of Scott’s Pizza Tours), Rich was totally inspired by Scott & his love of pizza AND all of the new techniques/ideas Scott is trying & suggested that Rich try. (I know – this is just another teaser for you!) Lots of things were kinda obvious, but just not the way Rich had done it while others were “hmm” moments! We also were told about the oldest Italian cheese shop in the city, Alleva, (so we had to visit, even though after tasting their fresh mozzarella which was “good” I fell in love with Calandra Cheese even more – and they are less than a half hour away)!

Since Rich was so inspired and it was a weekend and my parents have heard about his pizza for almost a year but still never tasted it – we decided to have them over (after the guys finished putting a railing up on the stairs so that it is not a safety issue anymore) to taste the experiment(s)….

Technique #1 – Pizza Stone

This worked GREAT… except that our brand new stone broke just by being seasoned in the oven & my parent’s [well used] stone broke after it was cool and we went to scrape it clean – we are currently in contact with Pampered Chef to hopefully get them replaced, but if anyone has any insight on this, it would be greatly appreciated! Anyway – these two pizzas cooked this way were my personal favorite on the day 🙂

Technique #2 – Cast Iron Skillet

After visiting the flea market and coming home with 2 different skillets ($15 for both, not too bad) and having my dad teach him how to care for them (after the cooking they bonded over cleaning it some more) we were ready to go. The smoke alarms going off & dogs freaking out while the pan was heating up (it SHOULD have been: cook it on the stove, then broil with the cheese in oven – yeah, this was a fail on try #1 – I don’t think we could even pass it off as a tomato filled bread thing, it was bad – BUT also the first attempt at the new method) were a bit annoying (until we finally turned off the breaker for the smokes & took out the battery!) But the 2nd attempt on the Skillet was much better (on the flat one, instead of the “skillet” one)