New Pizza Gear: Stands and Pans

Thanks to Nat and the girls and what might be the best Father's Day gifts ever, I'm now the proud owner of these new stands and pans.  The pans you see above are from here on Central Restaurant and are simply called "Plastic serving tray", but if you've been to a southside pizza joint where they serve tavern cut thin crust, you know these as the 'anti-sogginess' devices.  You don't cook the pies in here.  Nope.  After you pull them out of your cutter pans, you cut them on a board, then slide them into one of these to make sure you keep your crispy bottom.  My favorite place Aurelio's uses these and that's where I started to chase them down.

The stands that the trays/pans are standing on are from Amazon here and cost about ten bucks.  The catch is that you have to buy these little plastic sleeves that kind of clip on to the stands.  They are here on Amazon and are just six bucks for a set of three.  

 Now, you're probably wondering...why would we want or need this stuff?

You guys know by now that while I keep making my Detroit-style squares, I've begun to move on to try to nail a Southside Chicago thin crust pie at home.  And those require multiple pies to be made to feed a pizza party.  And that means that we end up not having enough counter space to serve the pies in, hence...the stands.  I can now get 2 pies in the space where one was.  Also...they're just kinda fun.

The pans?  Well, they're just practical.  I'm aiming for a crispy bottom to my thin crust pies and why go through the effort to get the dough formulation and baking right when you just put them in a metal pan to lay around and get soggy before people eat the squares, right?

In our new kitchen, I'm hoping that Natalie will design me a 'pizza cabinet', so I can keep all my gear together.  A guy can wish, right?