“Bar Pizza” from “Brutto”

As I have written before, pizza is a religion in this house, and our weekly Pizza Night on Saturday is sacrosanct. (We do very occasionally veer from this schedule, but it’s usually for a very good reason, like Christmas or Thanksgiving.)



We’ve been having Pizza Night for so long that we now rotate the types of pizza we make: thin crust, Chicago Deep Dish and Detroit style all are in the regular rotation. Whatever takes our fancy on a particular day is what we eat that night.



We thought this would be a slam dunk. This cookbook has already proven to be reliable and delicious and we thought that Florentine-style pizza would be a winner. In September, we had some bar pizza in Florence in the shadow of the Duomo on a very hot and sunny day, so we knew what to expect. And to reiterate a very basic point: who doesn’t love pizza?



Well, I’m sorry to say this one didn’t really deliver. It wasn’t objectively bad, but it wasn’t objectively good either. We found the crust a little too chewy and thick, and everyone knows that the crust is essential to the success of any pizza. I examined my conscience and wondered if in fact it was operator error, but I don’t think so. I followed the directions to the letter. So I don’t think it was that, either.



Compared to the other pizzas we eat regularly, this one just didn’t fly. Like I said, it wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t for us, either.



However, I need to conclude with a very important point: Even bad pizza is a good dinner.