Why I Oughta...

As I continue to hone my craft, I'm learning that there are a few category-wide characteristics of Bar Pizza.  Those are things like: perfectly round, crisp, holds a good amount of toppings.  But, in looking at some of the other 'touchstone' pizzas out there, there's something else that seems to exist.  Pockmarks.  Look at this photo of a pizza from Colony Grill .  Pockmarks, for sure.   As part of the class from Slowrise, they provided a cheese blend that, when combined with the right heat in the oven, leads to those pockmarks.  At least, I think it is the cheese blend - that includes cheeses that oil-off at different points that cause the pockmarks to show up.  Some of my initial pizzas that I pulled out of the oven were showing signs of these pockmarks, but I wasn't able to reproduce them all across the top.  Until this past weekend.  I was using an away-from-home oven, set to more than 500 degrees.  And I pulled out pizzas that looked like this: Plenty of pockma

In the Winters since we moved in (and after we planted our Saucer Magnolia tree in our front yard), I've looked at the buds as they are set to burst ahead of Spring.  It started in our first Winter with this post in February of 2018 .  In January of 2019, I posted a series of photos with all of the different front yard tree buds.  And last Winter (January), I decided to wire-up one of the trunks (this is a multi-trunk tree) and posted about that decision and included photos of the buds .  With all of the DEEP snow in our yard, I haven't been able to get close enough to this tree to catch some photos.  But, now, with the temperatures rising and the snow melting, I wandered out to check in on the tree.  And, the fuzzy buds are big and bulbous.  And about the burst.  This tree has, seemingly, grown in height.  Being planted in 2017, it navigated that initial transplant stress.  Then, entering the second and third year of the cycle , I'm thinking it went: 2017: sleep 2018: cr

The post I put up yesterday regarding how Aurelio's pre-pans their dough and then racks them up pre-service time was drawn from a tip they provided on their Instagram handle.  A few posts back, they shared a photo of their founder - Joe Aurelio - in his red and white striped shop shirt . View this post on Instagram A post shared by Aurelio's Pizza (@aureliospizza) That image deserved a post here in the [ pizza dreaming ] category.   Aurelio's has a whole history section up on their site and there are a number of photos with Joe Aurelio wearing this same striped shirt.  Serving beer, visiting a table and in the kitchen. I've posted a number of times over the years here on the blog about the not-going-to-happen pizza parlor spot dream.     It starts with the look of this vintage Little Caesar's Pizza Treat location with a window into the kitchen and side-by-side prep and waiting room.   Just about everything there - the paneling, the seating,

Back in  this post from October of 2015 , at the very end, I mention that in a video , the franchisee of the Aurelio's in Geneva "points out that they roll/sheet their skins out ahead of time and let them kind of dry out. They don't want the top 'sticky'. Not 'doughy'."  I thought that was interesting.  They pan their doughs ahead of time.  That kinda makes sense in terms of a production environment, right?  But, I wasn't sure if that was just unique to the Geneva franchise.   Welp, over on their Instagram handle , the folks at Aurelio's pizza confirm for me - as fact - this pre-panning of the dough that I've been thinking about for years.   View this post on Instagram A post shared by Aurelio's Pizza (@aureliospizza) I've been making Bar Pizzas the past few weekends and this is something I'm going to incorporate into my tests to see what impact it has on the finished product.  Also, note...they use cutt

Over the weekend, I posted a vintage photo of my family 1 at Walt Disney World back in the early 1980's and talked about how I wasn't sure EXACTLY where the photo was taken nor was I sure why my sister and I were wearing these white tags on our clothes.  Here, again, is the photo in question below showing three of us wearing Mickey Ears and my mom looking very chic in the Florida heat. See those tags on me and my Sister next to me that seem to be pinned or tied to our shirts?  Earlier this week, I posted about the details and solved *that* part of the mystery:  those are "Lost Parent" Tags with Mickey and Minnie Mouse on them .    But, I still didn't know the location.  Of course, we're in a hat shop.  And, the cast member is wearing some sort of lederhosen-like outfit.  But, was it in Epcot @ the Germany pavillion?  Was it at The Chapeau in Magic Kingdom?  I wasn't sure.   But, I knew that someone WOULD know the location.  And, the first place I turned

Like a lot of you guys, the year of working-from-home caused me to have a little work plant casualty.  On the ledge at the Aon Center, I was keeping a couple of pots/containers of a Burro's Tail succulents that when we SUDDENLY decided to just stop going into the office were mostly abandoned.  The last time that I posted about them was at the end of October 2018 here on the blog .  Well, thanks to our office services team, one of those containers somehow survived the Spring and Summer, so when I ventured into the office in Fall of 2020, I was able to bring one of them home and nurse it along this Winter.   I mostly neglected it the past four months, giving it occasional water.  And, here's what it looks like now: The container that I have on hand is the very one that I started with cuttings from the parent succulent that I was given by a co-worker who was leaving .  If you look at the bottom of the green bin that this container is sitting in, you can see a bunch of lobes of th

This is the third year of publishing these yard and garden to-do lists here on the blog. This is an attempt to FORCE myself into focusing and prioritizing my approach to the yard and garden in terms of what I buy, where I work, what I do in terms of the yard and garden. In 2019, I published my initial list on February 23rd and an addendum in April . In 2020, I published my list on February 22nd . As recently as February 6th of this year, I published a "draft" list that had 15 items on it and just last week - in a post about bonsai - I created a second list of eight items related to bonsai. Just between those two lists, I'm already at 23 items. And, I try to keep my list to 25 items, so I have some, ummm, pruning to do. My 2019 list started at 10 items. I added 7 with the addendum. That was 17 total items for 2019. Last year, I had 25. And I didn't get them all done. Some of the already identified 23 items are on not up for debate. But you'll see t