The Way of the Pizza Guy

If you are reading this it’s safe to say you are a pizza fanatic. You have probably traveled to hundreds of pizzerias in the quest for the mythological “perfect pie” You have spent hours debating the merits of different types of ovens, flour, cheese and tomatoes. Over time what becomes painfully clear is that there is no universal set of rules, recipes or agreed upon standards for what defines a great pizza. Of course it is human nature to try to find order in the chaos so there must be something that is common to all extraordinary pizzas, right? Well, it turns out that there is. Truly amazing, life changing, mind blowing pizzas have two things in common… two ingredients that are available anywhere but are only truly used and understood by a handful of pizza makers and pizza aficionados.

 The 2 special secret ingredients contained in every great pizza recipe are…wabi and sabi. Wait! Don’t rush out to the local Whole Foods to pick up these items. As they say in the infomercials, “wabi and sabi are not available in any store” That’s because they are not tangible ingredients, but they are, in my opinion, the crucial elements that can be found in any truly great artistic expression and, in any great pizza.   Wabi and Sabi , a Japanese principle, can be defined as “understated elegance and finding beauty in the imperfect and impermanent. This the reason that we are drawn to a simple Roman pizza bianca, flavored with just a light sprinkle of sea salt and some extra virgin olive oil. It’s also the reason why you can find 50 people waiting on line in front of Pepe’s on Wooster St. in New Haven on any given night. The irregular blisters on the crust of a pizza at Spaccanapoli and the simple choice of ingredients at Slice, that’s wabi and sabi. But of course there is more to it than that.

The real key to including wabi and sabi in your pizza recipe and in your life can befound in the completion of the definition “…things that resonate with the spirit of the makers hand” Think about it, whether we are talking about the tomato pies at Delorenzo’s in Trenton or the ever changing slices at DiFara’s on Avenue J. the one thing that all the pizzas that we love have in common is that they are a pure expression of the person who made them. Yes, the big chains have consistency and uniformity. I maintain that it is that generous sharing of self that truly connects people to the gifts that we offer them.