Wheat-less Pizza

A good friend of mine has a terrible disease.  Worse than AIDS*.  She’s allergic to wheat.   Technically I think she has a wheat gluten allergy, but either way, she can’t consume anything with wheat in it.  This means no bread, no wheat beers, and no pizza!  My God…

She caught wind of this blog and told me she’d make a delicious wheat-free pizza for us to eat, and for me to humiliate on here.

I have to say, as much as I’d love to dog the rice based pizza crust on Pamparius, my obligations to provide a truthful account of my experiences prevent me from doing so.  I say this reluctantly… It was good.

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A Slice of Heaven

If you’ve been reading, you may have noticed that I’ve mentioned the New York based pizza blog, Slice.  It’s probably my favorite food blog out there, as it not only covers NY pizza, but its staff of writers is frequently aloof across the states to tell us about the best pizza joints in some cool cities.

I noticed one of their writers is also a contributor to the New York Times; a very popular food writer by the name of Ed Levine.  He wrote this book which I hastily ordered.  [hint: click more for more!]

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Pizza Party and Pepicellis

The pizza blogosphere is apparently a small, small world. Introducing Pizzalicious Blog. Another local bunch of pizza fans.  They gave us a nod over their way so we figured to do the same.  More importantly they posted some killer live footage of Turbonegro playing Age of Pamparius.

Now what the fuck is this? Pepicellis.  Are you kidding me?  This place is getting a Mulligan but it really doesn’t deserve it.  Ashland, VA has this block party a few times every summer and my good man Joel peaked my interest when he heard me rattling about pizza.  He informed me that there would be a few food vendors at the block party and Pepicellis would probably be selling slices.  Well, they had a food table set up, but I paid for a load of trash.  The pizza was hotboxed and obviously I didn’t expect them to have an oven hooked up in the middle of the street, but they were serving up $2 slices that were pretty similar in style to a Papa John’s thin crust, only not good.

I was pretty let down off the bat, but my buddy was even more disappointed.  He couldn’t even believe that’s what they were serving.  He said it was nothing like their normal pizza.  I did some looking on their website, and the few pictures I can find featuring their pie, looked night and day different from what I ate.  For a local place, they were definitely serving up a product that screamed chain pizzeria.  I wouldn’t be surprised if they ordered 150 thincrust pies from Dominoes to save themselves the trouble of cooking for the entire population of Ashland, which probably around 6000.

Not a great first impression.  Will I make the trip back and dine in?  There is a microbrew store up the street so chances are, if the pizza sucks on round 2, I can at least score some sweet booze.

2/10.

8 1/2 is too good

If you read my post a couple days ago you learned that I was attempting a no-pizza diet for the week; trying to make it to the weekend without eating my heart stopping favorites.  Well, my roommate came home with a pizza from 8 1/2 and the aroma filling the house was too much for my salivating glands.

I ordered two pies: 1 red Pepperoni and 1 red Green Pepper/Mushroom

As I walked in, noticed one of the employees rushing to the oven and removing a charred disc of pizza with what looked to be my green pepper pizza.  I also noticed a box sitting on top of the oven, a pepperoni pizza, waiting to be consumed.  I would have to wait for another pizza to be made while letting my other pie go uneaten for ten extra unnecessary minutes.

Worried that my precious pepperoni pie would suffer in quality, I raced home, driving faster than one should be through Richmond’s Fan, praying that I’d not hit any red lights.

How was the pie?

STILL. AWESOME. (pics after the break)

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Pizza & Friends

Last night we celebrated the birth of a friend with some good company and a few home-made pizzas, courtesy of Sykes, the birthday girl.  She used some dough from Trader Joe’s which ended up being too cripy and tough.  Its difficult to make a good pizza in a conventional oven.  I forget what was on them, but she did everything herself, and we devoured them in no time.

Happy birthday Sykes! -gRant

How It's Made

Here is some hi-tech mozzarella shit. Now you can make your own cheese as soon as you buy silos.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlg7SaR5UQE&hl=en&fs=1&]

Indian Pizza at Ipanema Cafe

Ipanema Cafe on Grace St. has long been one of my favorite late night hang-out spots, notorious for the huge Monday night crowd flocking to their $2 pints of very keenly selected beers.  Their food is excellent too, specializing in vegetarian/vegan dishes which are all very well done.  I am far from cutting meat out of my diet but I will eat here any day of the week, and I did so on Tuesday night.

On the menu?  Indian Pizza!  I’ve never heard of this kind of pizza before and was eager to try it out with a couple pints of Lagunitas IPA.

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Mojo's, Cary St.

Mojo’s on Cary St. right behind the GRC dorms serves up almost every kind of food imaginable, operates as a late night dive bar and does a pretty damn good job at it too.  From several types of cheese steaks to vegetarian humus plates and portabella mushroom wraps, they serve up every type of food imaginable.  Granted, none of it is really that great, but it gets the job done.  It blows my mind that I missed their pizza menu for the four years that I’ve lived here.

My roommate came home one day with a small pizza.  He told me it was good, not great.  Just as I expected from Mojo’s.  However, had I asked for a slice of his pizza, I would not have gone out on a limb to order my own and find out just how bad this pizza could be.

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Summer-time Pizza wrap-up

Well, summer vacation is officially over this week.   Kids will be back in school during the day instead of raising hell in the streets, and we’ll no doubt get several hundred (or thousands) of newbies (or n00bs) to the VCU area.   Their wallets will be no doubt loaded with their parent’s money and with what they think is an unlimited amount of RAMbucks, so it only makes sense that the area pizza joints are preparing to explode with college kids who are prepared to spend that money at the drop of a dime.

Most of these kids will without a doubt be hitting the pizza shops located on campus and the surrounding areas, but hopefully we can direct them to some other places that are worth the five-minute drive around the fan.  Continue reading »

Homage

We are long overdue for an explanation on our humble beginnings.  We are eternally thankful and in the debt of this great man.  If we believed in a pizza God, this might be him, and his pizzeria, our mecca.