quick rec: monday, tony's on graham

It was the old one-slice-turns-into-two routine today at Tony's on Graham.  I followed up on the plain with a slice of fresh mozzarella. Wilted basil leaves blended with a floating pool of extra virgin olive oil and created a pesto effect ― but sans pesto.  I like!

Based on details I received from food writer Rachel Wharton, I pictured the Tony's guys as old school Brooklyn types.  They pretty much were, although I didn't engage them too much― since it was my first visit.  I noticed they did not pause conversations for customers.  Pretty awesome.  I don't remember exactly exactly how it went, but it was something like this:

Customer: "I'd like a slice of regular and ―"
Counterguy: "[conversation continued, I think it was about the competition pizzeria across the street, brief pause]"
Customer: "and I'll try that thick slice with the eggplant, to ―"
Counterguy: "[conversation continues, oh maybe he's talking on his phone via Bluetooth to someone, not sure about what, brief pause]"
Customer: "to stay."

Counterguy picks up the two slices from display trays, tosses them in the oven to reheat, and continues his conversation.

Excellent slices.  Next time I will pay a  more attention to the words from behind the counter.  Future report possible. 

Map Tony's.  Call ahead for days/hours.  Tel. 718-384-TONY.

pizza it is a-changin'

At some point during my unhappy junior high years ― I think it was 1980 or ‘81 ― my family visited New York for a weekend.  Aside from hitting certain predictable Midtown attractions (hansom ride in Central Park, Fifth Avenue, watching ice skaters) -- we went down to the Village for Ray’s Pizza ― ie. THE Ray’s Pizza ― the one at the corner of 6th Avenue & 11th Street, which served a stretchy, artery-clogging, oozy and indulgent slice of pie.  The cheese per slice must have weighed at least a quarter-pound ― it was disgusting.  And it was my favorite part of the weekend.

The Ray’s phenomenon ― dozens of New York pizzerias called Ray’s (or some mutation of the name, like Famous Rays or Famous Original Rays) ― has perplexed many a soul who’ve set foot in Manhattan.  In 2006 a reader posed a question to the New York Times’s “F.Y.I.” column: “The city is filled with Ray’s Pizzas.  Where was the first Ray’s Pizza and what’s the story behind it?”  The answer given was that Ray’s Pizza on Prince Street opened in 1959, but it otherwise did not offer much detail on the saga.  (Many articles and posts have since elaborated.  I especially like pizza historian Scott Weiner’s 2011 rendition.)

I would guess that the Ray’s at 6th Avenue & 11th Street must have garnered more fame and bigger crowds during the 1970s-‘80s than any other Ray’s ever.  (Its ascent may have begun when in 1973 a “Talk of the Town” piece in The New Yorker called their pizza “reliably and famously delicious,” and pointed out that while living in London, its owner had been second chef at the American embassy and head chef at the Italian and Greek embassies.)

In the pizza business, endurance and consistency are not guaranteed.  The last time I ate at the Greenwich Village Ray’s, I found the weight of the cheese unbearable and its texture like rubber.  Maybe it was an off day.  But, however it happened, that particular Ray’s ― famous in its past ― closed for good in October 2011.  According to the Village Voice, the owners faced a rent increase and lost their lease.  (Soon to open in its place: Famous Original Ray’s ― not kidding.)

The truly-true original Ray’s (at 27 Prince Street) also closed in 2011.  Its owner, who shares a stake in the building with family, told me that her they voted to raise the rent.  Her pizzeria couldn’t afford to stay.  (The space has since been divided in half and replaced with a new pizzeria called Prince Street Pizza and a soon-to-be spa.)

Of course it boils down to economics.  

The owner of a well-revered-but-small pizzeria on the Upper West Side told me that he must sell 300 slices a day to break even on the rent alone ($9,000/month).  That’s before all of the other costs ― like ingredients, gas & electric, salaries, and taxes.  Sure, in New York a good pizzeria can sell many pies, but at what point does high rent make a small (but worthwhile) business no longer viable?  If, as the owner fears, the rent increases $12,000/month when it expires in five years, the city will lose yet another valuable pizza asset.

We can’t fight this.  But we can elect to support good places.  Manhattan residents may have the most to worry about since that’s where rents are highest.  (Of course, the success or failure of a business depends on more than the cost of rent.)

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It’s not just closings.  The upscaling of pizza has long been underway.  In the last five years, we’ve seen many new places opting to sell $14 individual pies rather than $3 slices.

A $14 margherita is made with imported (or fresh/local) mozzarella, naturally sweet tomatoes, and a dough made from premium flour.  It serves one.  Di Fara Pizza, deep in Brooklyn, charges $5 per slice for pizza made with generous portions of fresh mozzarella, Italian parmesan, and extra virgin olive oil.  $14, $5: these prices may seem high, but compared to non-pizza restaurants a cheese and tomato pie remains a budget-worthy fresh food option.

Occupying the middle price tier of New York pizza are artisanal shops that have ― sometimes for generations ― served homemade pies with a level of pride and class well beyond that of the cheap eats spots.  To me, these “old school” places define New York pizza ― an institution that has dominated the city’s affordable food landscape for over 50 years.  They include slice spots like Joe’s on Carmine Street and whole-pie-only restaurants like Totonno’s in Coney Island and John’s on Bleecker Street.  

At the bottom end of the spectrum, 99¢ slice spots move hundreds (or is it thousands?!) of pies a day, employing minimal craftsmanship and using low-cost, low-quality ingredients.  We should be concerned that as rents and costs continue to climb, these types of pizzerias could continue their campaign against quality.

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In an earlier post, I published data on New York’s mid-century pizza boom.  According to my count from old phone books, the number of pizzerias in Manhattan grew from ten in 1958, to 165 in 1970.  As the pace of city life increased over time and the array of quick food options broadened, fast food gained an increasing foothold in the city.  But unlike much of the competition in this category (for instance, hot dogs from a cart), pizza has long stood out as more homemade than most other quick food options ― a good pizzeria prepares its dough and sauce from scratch, uses a minimally-processed low moisture mozzarella (or fresh mozzarella), and cooks pies to order.

In a 1985 New York Times article entitled “Pizza Chains Toughest Turf,” the growth of national pizza chains was cited as a threat to established NYC pizza shops.  Godfather’s had opened a few branches in Manhattan and had promised to open more; and though neither Domino’s nor Pizza Hut had yet opened, plans were in the works.

Dennis Riese (of the Riese Organization, the conglomerate that operated Godfather’s restaurants in Manhattan at the time), said about the coming storm of chain pizzerias: ‘We will probably change the pizza industry in New York City.’”

As a response, the article quoted Vito Bologna, manager of The One and Only Ray’s Pizza in Greenwich Village: “‘They could have over 200 stores and it won’t matter to us,” he said.

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I haven’t yet gone to the pizzeria that replaced the 1959 Ray’s on Prince Street, but I’d venture to guess prices will be higher.  The city’s first slice was probably served at Patsy’s in Harlem, where owner Patsy Lancieri sought to bring pizza (and many other varieties of affordable food) to the Italians who lived nearby during the the Depression years.  Even Gennaro Lombardi, who may have been the first to make a round pizza big enough to cut into eight slices did so with economy in mind.  Pizza ought to be affordable.  When the price of pizza gets too high, it’ll be clear that it’s time to get out of Dodge.  That is, unless you can afford to stay in Dodge.

notes on process: cookies & confit

Many pizzamen I’ve met have described dough-making as a nuanced process.  If the goal is to make a quality product that will bake to chewy and crunchy perfection, they say you can’t follow an exact recipe because variations in humidity and air temperature affect the outcome.  (In fact, bakers prefer the word "formula" to "recipe.")

Only experienced hands can make dough come out year-round within a narrow range of uniformity, and only a bread guru could transcribe that process into a set of reliable instructions.  Jim Lahey, the celebrated owner of Sullivan Street Bakery, did just that.  His bread cookbook (it also has pizza recipes) emphasizes a no-knead, 12-18 hour rise time process that culminates in awesome good bread. 

A few weeks ago I visited Jim at the bakery and watched him work.  As I arrived, the Hobart was churning a beige mass of butter, sugar and flour. The project — chocolate chip cookies — has been on his plate since early July, but he didn’t seem flustered by the amount of effort it has taken so far.

“What’s the goal?” I asked him. 
“Crisp and chewy at the same time,” he said, adding, “I’m never happy with anything, Michael.”
“But at some point you let it go.” I said. 
“Kind of,” he said.  “A bit.  I want to hypothesis-test and this is a hypothesis.  The issue is an execution issue.  I wasn’t really paying attention to weight.  I prefer using a spoon to do this — like old school — like Mom-in-the-kitchen school.”

I watched as he and his pastry supervisor addressed questions of leavening, spacing on the pan, flour on the board, rolling vs. spooning, bake time, cold dough vs. dough at room temperature, and size.  Jim won’t settle for a partway result.  He liked (but didn’t love) the cookies.  So he asked an employee to refrigerate the remainder of the dough for later testing and he moved on to sandwiches.  (Rollover above photo for a slideshow of Jim's cookie-making process.)

Most of us do not have the time or wherewithal to chase recipe perfection.  It’s tough enough to get dinner on the table.  We may adapt to failings over time by using less salt or reducing a bake time by five minutes, but we strive to improve — not to perfect.

I recommend the Jim Lahey approach: make something, be happy with it, also try to improve it, and savor the process.

I’ve bought plenty of cookbooks that feature great ideas but mediocre recipes.  If I decide to remake an average food because I like the concept or the picture, I tweak it on my own.  We can’t all own Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking, an expensive multi-volume cookbook ($451 from Amazon) that presents science and recipes together.  But centrifuge and sous vide preps notwithstanding, a desire to experiment can feed the mind as well as the belly — and lead to obsession. That's what happened to me this November with duck confit.

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One summer many years ago Kristin and I visited Paris and stayed with our friend Sharon.  As we discussed where to have dinner one afternoon, Sharon raised the topic of duck confit.  “What do you mean you’ve never had duck confit?” she said.  “You have to have duck confit.”

She brought us to some restaurant and we sat at a table outside.  As we awaited our food, she worked to manage my expectations: “This is a good place for duck confit.  I doubt it’s the best in Paris, but it’s good.”  Brief pause.  “You know this isn’t the right time of year to have it,” she said, “It’s a winter dish.  But you have to have it.”

Melt-in-your-mouth tender briskety-but-soft duck meat with buttery warm richness and a hint of garlic and thyme.  I think there were potatoes and beer too but I can’t remember for sure — I was swooning in duck.

For the next eleven years I didn’t think about confit, but it returned to my consciousness this November when my friend Laurent served it bone-in and skin-crisp, straight from a large black can he had brought to the US on Air France in August.  To prepare it, he wiped the fat off each leg and browned them together (one can contains 4-5 pieces) in a skillet.  Even the kids ate it; we told them it was “juicy chicken.”

For several weeks after, I couldn’t stop thinking about duck confit.  The only option was to make it from scratch.  Without researching recipes, I committed myself with no turning back: I spent $25 on duck legs at the farmer’s market.   (Above photo shows my homemade duck confit — mid-eating.   Rollover it for a slideshow of my process.)

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Duck confit (confit de canard in French) sounds fancy, but it is and always has been a people’s food.

First, the price is low — even from a pricey NYC farmer’s market: $6-7 per portion (though you must also invest in a $7-10 container of reusable duck fat).  Second, confit — which is salt cured and then slow-cooked in its own fat — evolved as a method for preserving meats for winter eating.  It’s like canning okra, but with duck: which would you prefer?!  Third, it’s easy to make.  I researched recipes, processes, storage, and cooking minutiae from multiple sources (including a helpful query on Facebook) and I made excellent duck confit in one try.

For benchmarking, I also purchased and prepared two ready-to-go confits.  D’Artignan’s (available in gourmet markets, or via www.dartignan.com for $9 per piece) resembled mine in flavor, but was not as meaty or rich.  The one from Dickson’s Farmstand Meats in Chelsea Market ($10 per piece) was too salty and chewy.  Lesson learned: DIY is worth the effort.

Preparing duck confit does require a few decisions and I made one mistake worth noting. It occurred when I was preparing to fry them for dinner.  As I inverted my duck pieces — still straightjacketed in their Tupperware-shaped block of solidified duck fat — into a saucepan for warming, I discovered a ½-inch-thick “duck jelly” coating.  Gelée. It shimmered and glistened and grossed me out, so I threw it away without thinking.  What a mistake.  It was liquid gold: a jus that I should have served over the mashed potatoes as gravy.

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A few days later, I travelled to Washington, DC to cook Thanksgiving dinner for 13.  I had read about the challenges of roasting a whole turkey — how it’s an imperfect bird because the dark meat needs more cooking time than the white.  I brined, I basted — I even iced the breasts before cooking.  Still, dry. 

No such problem with duck.  The confit cooked for over six hours with no maintenance and came out juicy and tender.  I won’t succeed in persuading Americans to eat duck on Thanksgiving — I tried with my family and it didn't work.  Americans may never embrace confit de canard en masse. The should know what they're missing. Below is my recipe. Embrace the process.

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Duck confit, serves 4.  (Modified from the Thomas Keller recipe, which I found posted here.  Cheers to Hudson Valley Duck Farm, from whom I purchased four superior Moulard duck legs.)

Ingredients.

4 fresh duck legs with thigh joints attached
16 oz rendered duck fat
½ cup kosher or coarse sea salt
2 bay leaves, crumbled
3 tablespoons fresh thyme leaves
⅓ cup Italian (flat) parsley leaves
2 teaspoons black peppercorns
4-5 cloves garlic, smashed

Equipment.

An ovenproof pot into which duck legs can fit in a single layer
Metal tongs
Mortar & pestle (optional)

Process.

Day 1.  Wash duck legs and dry thoroughly with paper towels.  Mix salt, garlic, and spices by hand, or mash together with mortar & pestle.  Rub spice mixture onto duck pieces and arrange tightly into the bottom of a glass or ceramic container.  Cover and refrigerate for 24 hours.  (Or, separately wrap duck pieces in plastic and refrigerate for 24 hours.) 

Day 2.  Preheat oven to 200 degrees F.  Warm rendered duck fat in ovenproof pot over low heat.  Do not boil.  Wash spice rub off of duck legs — make sure to remove all salt — and dry thoroughly with paper towels.  Add dried duck pieces to melted fat in pot, place in oven, and cook uncovered for 6½ hours.  Remove from oven and allow to cool to room temperature.  Use tongs to transfer duck pieces to storage container, preferably glass.  Pour liquid fat through a strainer into duck container until all pieces are immersed.  Cover and refrigerate.  Pour remainder of fat through the strainer into a separate container.  [Note about the fat: you’ll have ~40% more fat than the beginning amount.  According to the duck farmer, you can reuse the fat twice, and then discard ⅓ of it after each new batch.] [Note on use-by date: most recipes suggest using duck within 6 month, but one stated that less intense salting limits preserve time to 1 week.  Feel free to comment on this.]

Meal day.  Invert duck-and-fat mold into pot.  Use spoon to transfer layer of “jelly” to a small saucepan.  Warm over low heat to use as gravy.  Heat nonstick or well-seasoned iron pan over medium flame.  Add duck pieces, skin side up, and cook until browned on bottom.  Turn pieces and repeat.  Serve and enjoy.

fluff piece

grabbing a slice in new york for the first time 
whenever that is whoever you are 
is a transcendent experience 
a life event with details you may or may not remember 
but know this 
to me it means freedom.

endless pies 
who could try them all who would try them all 
even the average spots they still make me smile 
at least momentarily they fulfill my yearning 
to relive that virgin slice experience 
and to reach higher plateaux along my trail toward pizza heaven.

you can go nearby or venture somewhere by train or car 
follow up on a review utilize a tip from someone you know 
find yourself feeling hungry in an unfamiliar area 
pizza is there.

in excess not so healthy but shit it’s gotta be better for you  
than fast food hamburgers 
myself i try to limit it to 1 slice at lunch 
dinner is another story.

must check out super thin cracker crust or thick square sicilian style 
naples plate-size circumference fork and knife focaccia sfincione 
grandma brick oven staten island bronx gas oven coal-burning wood-burning 
900 600 500 degrees 
bubbly charred bottom original famous rays stracitella robiola truffle 
it’s only a matter of time 
before the 5 inch foie gras caviar pie will debut at $79 a pop 
or perhaps it already has 
the food writers and gourmets will talk it up 
wealthy people love pizza too.

must check out the classics 
places that claim to be the first 
families that have known cheese for decades descendants churning out pies 
sometimes at odds over whether the business should expand 
to accommodate all the cousins 
first they must remain true to the ideal the quality and the history 
and to that framed picture of grandpa and great uncle up there on the wall 
men who wore black bow ties fedoras and white baker’s aprons.

neighborhood joints where owners still work dough 
remind me of old town bars only the counter is formica not mahogany 
the bartender is spreading sauce baking pies not straining vodka 
and the habit of course 
is pizza 
cheesy saucy crunchy chewy dime-saving Italy-beckoning all-empowering pizza pies.

new york (pizza) city

It’s no debate.  Pizza rules the New York cityscape like no other food.  Stand at any Manhattan corner and look around.  Chances are you’ll see pizza.  In the outer boroughs — places where people often have cars — density is a bit lower, but still: pizza.

And it’s not just magnitude.  The pizza you find is nearly always decent.  Even the 99¢ spots that have riddled Manhattan with snaking lines during the past few years of "economic downturn" produce edible specimens.  Of course, side by side with a slice of quality pizza, a 99-cent jobbie does not compare (doughy crust and cheap cheese: no thanks!), but for a buck who would complain?

It wasn't always this way.  Pizza first arrived in New York (and the US) sometime around 1900.  The earliest US pizza shop on record (Lombardi's) began as a small grocery whose owner (Gennaro Lombardi) topped scraps of dough (he was a baker by trade) with tomatoes and/or cheese.  For a couple decades, one could find pizza only in Italian neighborhoods.

In the 1930 eating guide "Dining in New York," intrepid food writer Rian James described the pizza at Moneta's (an Italian restaurant on Mulberry Street) as "an inch-thick potato pan-cake, sprinkled with Parmesan Cheese and stewed tomatoes."  Yuck!

On September 20, 1944, the New York Times's triple-row front page headline read:

BRITISH NEAR RHINE IN 37-MILE SWEEP NORTH AFTER AIR ARMY JOINS IN                 CAPTURING EINDHOVEN; RUSSIANS 7 MILES FROM RIGA IN BALTIC PUSH.

Buried on page 19 amongst mainly stories of the war was a piece entitled "News of Food: Pizza, a Pie Popular in Southern Italy is Offered Here for Home Consumption."  In it, food writer Margot Murphy (aka Jane Holt) offered a thorough and enticing description of pizza:

One of the most popular dishes in southern Italy, especially in the vicinity of Naples, is pizza - a pie made from a yeast dough and filled with any number of different centers, each containing tomatoes. Cheese, mushrooms, anchovies, capers, onions, and so on may be used.  At 147 West Forty-eighth Street, a restaurant called Lugino's Pizzeria Alla Napoletana prepares authentic pizze, which may be ordered to take home.  They are packed, piping hot, in special boxes for that purpose.

Pizza had expanded beyond Little Italy to Midtown!

I romanticize New York's past, especially when it comes to steam rising from manholes, crisp metal skyscrapers, the endless shuffle of all kinds of people, and (of course) neon pizza signs outlined by flashing yellow bulbs.  But as fast as New Yorkers may hustle down sidewalks today, I imagine an even brisker pace in 1944 — fedoras and all. Murphy wrote that "after five to seven minutes of baking (the oven is kept at an extraordinarily high temperature) it is ready to serve, the whole operation having taken not more than ten or twelve minutes."  Two pies to go, please!

I spent some quality time in the microfilm room at the New York Public Library, thumbing page by page through old phone books.  "Pizza" as a separate category first appeared in 1958, but has never included certain full-fledged restaurants that happen to serve pizza.  (Lombardi’s, over the years, appeared under "Restaurants - Italian," but not under the “Pizza” heading.)  

The count is not definitive, but the results are telling: the greatest decade-over-decade citywide increase came between 1960-1970 (+231%).  Factoring in the two years of available data prior to 1960, the 1958-1970 increase was 735%. Wow!  (Click on the graph at the top of this piece for raw data, &/or scroll to bottom for count methodology.)

A number of factors contributed to pizza’s incredible ascent: celebrity enthusiasm, Americans' increasing curiosity in and willingness to try different ethnic foods, and a national trend toward convenience (eg. TV dinners, fast food).  But none had as much of an effect as did changes in pizza oven technology.

Leading the charge was Frank Mastro, a restaurant equipment shop owner who tinkered with ovens, converted them to gas, and together with a thermostat company developed the gas deck oven (the oven used by most pizzerias).

Gas made pizza-making much easier.  A craft that was limited to bakers skilled in working very hot, huge, and finicky coal ovens became a career for people without baking or pizza skills.  Instead of stoking coal, pizzaioli now had only to turn a dial.

In 1957 a Saturday Evening Post article entitled “Crazy About Pizza" asserted that Frank Mastro had “done [the] most to popularize pizza.”  It described a “model pizzeria [he had] in his store to show prospective pizzeria owners how to run their operations."  According to his daughter, Madeline Mastro Ferrentino, Mastro also financed oven purchases from out of his own pocket.  The dude believed in pie.

Fast forward to today, through decades of continued growth for pizza — more Italian immigrants, Greek-owned shops, the thick-crust Chicago-like craze, haute and pricey pizza, and the more recent surge in "new Neapolitan" restaurants (pristine ingredients, wood fired ovens, single-plate pies, and accomplished chefs as owners) — and yet the endless array of slice joints still dominates.  Thank heavens — who doesn't love a meal for under $10?

The other day, I spent a little time during lunch hour at My Little Pizzeria — a good place located in a busy area of downtown Brooklyn, close to city courts and a number of office buildings.  I was there to document the preparation of their amazing "Supreme" pie for a future piece.  For a while, I zenned out on the long line and how the staff of five churned out pizza with such flair and efficiency.  And this sort of thing is going on all across the city, every day: people making pizza, people eating pizza, people loving pizza.  By the thousands.

I made a short video of pizza in action.  View it by clicking the above photo.

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Notes on the counting method:

I went page by page through Yellow Pages books from each of the five boroughs.  I counted every pizzeria listed under "Pizza" but avoided double counting any same-named listings at the same address.

On the "Yellow Pages" website, a search for the business type "Pizza" in Brooklyn today yields a list of 1,149 pizzerias — a number far greater than the 475 I counted in the 2010 print Yellow Pages.  I cannot explain the discrepancy because I do not know the criteria for listings inclusion with either resource.  The website may allow broader criteria (perhaps the keyword "pizza" is enough to merit inclusion); it may not have purged pizzerias that closed two years ago; and may include redundant or non-Brooklyn listings (#114, for instance, is Famous Rays of Greenwich Village in Manhattan).  The print Yellow Pages might be missing listings — I imagine that today its production is limited to a small staff — and in years prior, it's possible that many pizzerias were omitted.  Therefore, I've called the results of my count "unofficial."

The only way to tally pizzerias in the past is to use the print Yellow Pages.  If, over the deades, the Yellow Pages employed an even methodology to the compiliation of its listings, then the proportionate growth in the number of pizzerias should be statistically accurate.