America!

We are feeling very patriotic this week here at Blackened Out Lady Liberty Emporium, and it's not only because my search yesterday for the cookie cake with the most frosting at Rouse's ended with the purchase of one decked out in the Stars & Stripes. We have watched approximated 173 hours of the U.S. Olympic Trials over the past week, and I have not felt so heavily invested in women's gymnastics since 1996 when Shannon Miller made bangs popular with every New Orleans girl starting Catholic high school that fall. The Fourth of July holiday bifurcates the work week, creating a monumental decision for everyone who wants to get the hell out of this office: Do you take off the two days before or the two days after July 4th? All of this talk of the red, white, and blue has made me wonder: What other reasons do I have to celebrate our great nation?

The answer came at about 6:30 last night in the Bywater.

Where else in the world can two guys from New York decide that the only way to satisfy their craving for their hometown pizza in their adopted city is to make it themselves. So they experiment, trying to find the precise combination of water and yeast to produce a perfectly thin, crackly crust and eventually discovering the winning formula. They then enlist the help of their friends and start selling pies on Sunday nights from a communal kitchen deep in the Bywater, relying only on word of mouth as advertising.

But in the smallest big city in the nation, the legend of Pizza Delicious quickly spreads. Soon customers from all over the area are making the Sunday night pilgrimmage to pick-up a pie with sauteed mushrooms and pancetta (a personal favorite) or roasted cauliflower and balsamic onion. People are calling in at 7:30am to resever their pickup times 12 hours later. The mayor happens to stop by one night for a slice. A second night of service is added. Articles are written, and accolades soon follow.

Two years later, the little pizza pop-up the could is in the process of opening up a permanent location just a few blocks from where it all began. But even though some things change, others still remain the same. Owners Greg and Mike still wore smiles of enthusiasm on their faces last night when they handed over my order - their newest creation made of braised brussel sprouts, chunks of speck, and pickled red onion. Likewise, my first taste of the pinwheel filled with pepperoni and mozzarella brought a flashback of euphoria. And despite our attempts at self control in holding off on eating until we get back home, the car ride back is still spent fighting over the last garlic knot in the pouch of tin foil.

America: Home of the free; home of the brave; home of the delicious.

Pizza Delicious - Birdie

3334 N Rampart

(504) 676-8482

Thur & Sun: 5pm till 11pm(ish)

P.S. - Even though many of us (including Blackened Out) are taking off of work after Wednesday, the workaholics at Pizza Delicious will be pumping out pies this week on Thursday and Sunday according to their regular schedule.

The Beast Speaks

For the last few years, Nathaniel Zimet has cooked great food out of both a big purple truck and now a quaint purple hued restaurant on Jeannette St. In May, Zimet was shot outside of his house and his recovery is still ongoing. This Sunday over 30 restaurants, some brass bands, and more will gather to raise money to help Zimet cover his medical bills at Beasts and Brass. Let's put 20ish questions on the clock and speak with the chef known as The Beast.

Professional cooking is not a family trait, necessarily, but I come from a family who can cook. I've worked in kitchens my whole life. I always wanted to own a restaurant so it seemed to me working in kitchens was the best way to get into owning a restaurant.

Dropped out of college to attend culinary school. Started at Le Cordon Bleu in London and finished up in Sydney. Moved back home to North Carolina and started cooking at probably what is the best restaurant there, the Fearrington House. Everyone in that kitchen was British and it was a tightly run brigade. Then went to work with Shane Ingram of Four Square restaurant. Shane is my mentor. It was there that I developed my palate. Then I came to New Orleans, following a girl. 

Last restaurant I worked at before the purple truck, was Iris which I helped open. The most challenging aspect of going into the truck, wasn't so much having to do everything by myself, but the rogue nature of it. For instance to wash dishes, I originally had to rent an RV spot. Then it was a friend's driveway. Eventually, I wound up with a place in Gentilly where I turned a greenhouse into a dish pit. I installed a plastic pot sink, ran hot and cold water hoses...It was all pretty rogue, but the level of cooking always stayed the same.

I think about dishes a lot as I recover. We change the menu every month at Boucherie. Obviously since I was shot at the end of May, the May menu ran through June. We are currently switching out the menu. When I create, I am such a think about it, do it person  Right now my strength isn't 100%, which makes it tough to create. I'll go into the restaurant, but only be able to work for a few hours and then go home exhausted. Not being able to execute my ideas halts that process.

The July menu at Boucherie is going to have Summer Italian theme. One dish is going to be a warm polenta terrine where the polenta is surrounded by housemade Italian sausage, peppers, onions, and mozzarella pulled in house. This will be served with a salad of Creole tomatoes, mozzarella, and pesto. I am always trying to force a technique on my cooks in order to teach the technique to them. So with this menu, they are learning about making sausages, pulling mozzarella. 

James (Denio) has an interesting persepctive through all of this because I am so stuck in my own world. When I am able to eliminate the pain, I'm still very much stuck. It makes it very difficult for me to comprehend anything beyond me, right now. James has to work so much harder at Boucherie plus coordinate all these benefits and on top of all of that deal with the fact that his best friend got fucking shot. In a lot of ways, things are a lot easier on me than James. But he and the whole staff have excelled throughout this ordeal.

I couldn't be more proud of my kitchen staff. I've had many people call me and say, "I went to Boucherie tonight and it was awesome." This isn't an ego thing, but practically every chef in the city has called and offered to come in and work. And we've been able to tell them "Thanks, but we got it." I am just so proud of the way they have rallied around and come together to execute.

There is an impressive clique of us young chefs. This new crew, we all came up around the same time and pretty much all worked in at least one kitchen together. And now we all have our own restaurants and they are great. Chefs like Aaron Burgau, Justin Devillier, Dan Esses, we are all doing our own thing. Dan likes to tease me and say he taught me everything I know because I worked for him at the Bank Cafe.

I miss work a lot. Coming in here and only being able to work for a couple hours a day just isn't my style. Put it this way, if a stagiaire came in and worked like I am, I'd send his ass home. That is a very tough thing to deal with because cooking is the only thing I know how to do. I can't handle not doing it. My hands have been idle for what feels like forever. Also, I think one reason I was able to survive the shooting and go through this recovery is because I had begun doing Cross-Fit about five and a half months ago. I was in shape, losing weight, and really enjoying exercising. So I am looking forward to exercising again.

Knife. I have many, many knives. 3 weeks ago I got my new knives in. These are the first knives, I have ever had made especially for me. Guy named Alex Blue out of Seattle made them for me. They are true Damascus steel and have 412 layers of steel in each knife. Other knives, I use a lot, are made by Murray Carter in Oregon. Those are the thinnest, badest knives. I'm still getting used to the new ones though. I got my first knife at age 8. I became a chef in order to play with knives legitimately (laughs).

I did a soup once, more like a broth. The broth was kind of like pho, but not pho. I think on the menu I called it a kaffir lime fumet. I served it with a pork jowl dumpling. It was awesome but I couldn't sell it to save my life. Eventually ended up adding coconut milk and renaming it and then it sold. Fume just proved to hard to sell.

Picking a few cookbooks is tough because we change the menu a lot so I end up buying a lot of cookbooks. But two I really love are the Morimoto cookbook and Charcuterie. The Morimoto one, people say, "Ohh he is an Iron Chef, that is cool." But no, you read this guy's techniques and are in shock. It forever surprises me and impresses me. Charcuterie is a great book, very entry level, but an amazing resource for my cooks and I. 

Cooks going for the "Wow" factor. Strangely enough, because I'm so into it, cooks doing whole hog or nose to tail are some of the worst offenders. Sometimes people do whole hog or molecular stuff just to be extreme. When cooks do something hoping you say "Wow, look at that" instead of "Wow this tastes great" they are really forgetting about the act of eating. 

Most memorable meal was at Arzak in San Sebastien. That was the most badass meal ever because it was molecular gastronomy with bones. Things were fabulous but everything tasted fabulous also. I just love the way the Basque people rever their geography. At Mugaritz, I had a composed salad of 57 vegetables, 50 of which had been plucked off the mountain. They just care and are so proud about their land.

Dirtiness. Sloppy cooks, sloppy cuts, I don't deal with. When a stagiare comes in, I'll ask them to cut me some mirepoix. If not perfect, I tell them that I don't think we will match up well. Meticulous knife work is absolutely critical. Sloppy cooks make sloppy dishes.

Besides an alarm clock (laughs). My drive, I am always pumped and have a lot of energy. My mom had a friend who used to come stay with us over the summer. And she would always leave him lists of things to do. I remember being little and thinking that it must be awful to never be able to sit still. But now, I see that I am the same way.

Wine is traditionally the easiest to eat with. I love beer and sake as well. There are very few libations I won't drink. Last year we did a dinner with Don Julio tequila where each course had to be pared with a glass of straight tequila. It was difficult but I think we crushed it. In general though, wine with my food. This is because unlike beer, wine rarely offends. Sometimes beer and a dish can be polar opposites and wine has that wonderful quality of getting along with food.

I don't know why people call me The Beast. My cooks and I tend to work a lot and very hard. So maybe it comes from that. Or we have a roast beef sandwich on the menu called the Beast. So when they make a comment about the Beast in the kitchen, I never know if they are talking about me or the sandwich (laughs).

Pizza Delicious is awesome. Mike Friedmann. I love that kid to death. He worked for me for four months before I paid him. When he told me he wanted to cook, I sat him down and said everyone wants to be a chef. But you got to think about why you are doing it. You have to get to point of being exhausted and still wanna work. When people ask me if they can stage, I tell them they can't just agree to do it for one day, have to sign up for two. 

This is not a fun job, I work more hours than anyone I know. I am saddened by the things I have lost because of my lifestyle. Brittany, the girl I followed down here, and I aren't together anymore but she has been helping me recover. But cooking is what I want to do. Last week, my mentor came in town. Partly because I'd been shot and also because he had never been to my restaurant. So we went to eat at Boucherie, him, Brittany, and Mike. And that was a very cool thing to eat with my mentor and a kid who considers me his mentor.

Perfect day of eating in New Orleans would begin with eggs at my house cooked by me. Than a po-boy and some sushi. I refuse to name names (laughs). 

2010 Challenge: Pizza Delicious

Pizza. Maybe you get bored with it, but I can't. Everything about pizza seems tailor made for obsession. The way it fits in your hand, how it is equally good late at night as it is early in the morning, how it gets along with nearly everyone, and how it never gets mad if you don't call. But mostly because it combines flavors, textures, and smells in a most perfect bite.

Lindsay and I had another run-in with Pizza Delicious a few weeks ago, this time with their homage to the Beatles white album: spinach, ricotta, mozzarella, olive oil and these candy sweet red tomatoes. Instead of trucking back to Broadmoor, we just brought some beers and devoured the pizza on the truck of our car. With the sounds of a neighborhood ping pong game in the background and the evening's river breeze, the meal rivaled anything in Christendom.

First, you gotta make or buy dough. This time I went with a two day process to craft the dough. On the first day, combine half your flour (here 3 3/4 cups), yeast or starter, 2 cups of water, and a generous tablespoon of salt. Mix this until it is a paste, cover it and stick it in the fridge overnight. The next morning you add the remainder of your flour (another 3 3/4 cups) and knead until you get a nice, dense dough. Set it aside to rise. This will give you a lot of dough, so be prepared for pizzas for days, just like this one filled with everything we could find from the fridge at the end of the week.

Our main focus that weekend was to make calzones. A calzone is not technically a pizza, but it is not far off. Translated from the original middle English into Latin it means, "pizza that has been folded over to a neat package which one should keep in ye old pocket." Now if you poke a little hole in the crust, it becomes a stromboli. If you fill it with chocolate and cinnamon, you become an idiot.

Eventually, the unglazed ceramic tile which doubled as a pizza stone in my oven cracked. A trip back to Home Depot failed to produce another as the check out girl had never rang up just one tile. 20 minutes later, I gave up relishing the opportunity to allow necessity to give birth to another child named invention. Take a baking sheet and turn it upside down. On top of this, place a silpat - a silicon coated, non-stick invention up there with the wheel of Parm. Pop this in your oven and crank the thing to as high as she'll go. When ready to bake, just place the calzone or pizza directly on the silpat. Because the sheet is inverted, there is no lip to catch your pizza peel.

The calzones were no slouches either. We plied the countertop thick with mozzarella, pepperoncinis, mushrooms, olives, and pungent herbs like basil and oregano, then set to stuffing like grandma on Thanksgiving. Fold it over, crimp the ends, rub some egg wash on top, and sprinkle some salt on the crust. Be careful, this mother will shoot piping hot molten cheese if you don't let it cool. It is a risk we willingly take.

Your Call: Pizza Delicious

In college, whenever we drove from tiny Lexington to big city Charlottesville, we always tried to make a stop at Crozet Pizza. The legend went like this. The old hippie who ran it got his start cooking pizzas at Grateful Dead/Jefferson Airplane/Janis Joplin shows. One day his VW van got stuck in Crozet, Virginia, and so he decided to sell pizzas until he could fix his van. He has been there ever since.

His pizzas were very good. But in order to make sure you got one, you would have to call a day ahead and ask him to reserve you 2 or 3 doughs for your crew. Needless to say, we often forgot that step. However, when we remembered, the hassle was well worth it. Great crust, exquisite sauce, and careful use of toppings were hallmarks of a Crozet pizza.

Last week a reader emailed and asked us why we hadn't checked out Pizza Delicious yet. He then went on to explain the almost mythical ordering process of Pizza Delicious, which goes like this. Pizza Delicious is only open on Sunday nights. They are not a restaurant. They will deliver if you live in the Bywater. Otherwise, you pick it up.

On Saturday afternoon they release via the www, how many doughs they will have and what pizzas they are offering for Sunday. You call after 5 p.m., place your order, they give you a time, and an address. You show up. Your order is waiting.

Underneath all of this is the heightened excitement of dealing with what may or may not be an IRS, kosher organization. Because I hate taxes, I already loved this concept. And the pizza delivers. Thin, chewy crust (although it could have used another 2 minutes or so to get blistery), a spicy, fresh sauce, dollops of creamy mozzarella, and torn basil marked the Margherita as a winner. Also, scattered across the pie, freshly grated parm provided crunch and salt.

Now, the downside is this. We trucked this bad boy all the way from the Bywater to Broadmoor and by the time we got home, the pizza had lost some punch. But the garlic knots on the ride home did help with the pain. So next time (or for you, the first time), just eat it on the roof of your car.

Pizza Delicious - a fitting name.