Propeller Anchor Commentary

Dakota:
This popular pizza web site is run by Jeff Varasano, 40, a software business owner from Atlanta, Georgia. “If you Google ‘pizza recipe,’ it’s all the same recipe," he tells Netscape News. “Mine is complicated, but it’s authentic, and I have had many people tell me that they have been looking for years, and then they found mine."

Key to a Neapolitan pizza is heat, says Varasano, pointing out to the Verace Pizza Napoletana, the U.S. trade group for Neapolitan style pizza states that true Neapolitan pizza must be cooked at 800 degrees and higher.

While Varasano jiggered his stove to be able to achieve a higher heat (“I was a little leery of telling people how I did it," he says), he advises that people use caution if also attempting to manipulate their ovens. Easier would be to buy a brick stove. “You would not believe the number of people who have brick stoves now," he says.

Besides heat, key to making the perfect pizza are the dough-mixing technique (which he outlines on his site) and using the right yeast. One can’t use the “packet of yeast that you find in the supermarket," says Varasano, who suggests buying yeast at retailer Sourdough.com.

While Varasano says Atlanta’s pizza offerings are pretty dismal, he suggests Luzzo in New York as the city's best pizza place.

2006-09-25 17:49:22