Hey, I'm Bruce Weinstein, and this is the podcast Cooking with Bruce and Mark.

And I'm Mark Scarborough, and together with Bruce, my husband, we

have written 36, now 37 cookbooks.

The 37th is in editorial production as we speak, but we are not talking

about anything we've done lately, although we did do something about

it a while ago, and that is pizza.

We wrote a book called Pizza.

pizza, grill it, bake it, love it.

Oh, what?

A decade ago.

I think it's still out there around.

Uh, 17 years ago.

Oh, a long time ago.

Okay.

Um, a long time ago.

We wrote that book, pizza, grill it, bake it, love it.

I think it is actually still out there, but we're not actually

even talking about our book.

We're gonna talk all about pizza in this show.

We've got a one minute cooking tip about pizza.

We're talking about upping your own pizza game at home.

And finally, you.

Probably not pizza, but we're going to tell you what's making

us happy in food this week.

So let's get started.

Our one minute cooking tip.

Order two pizzas instead of one.

Why?

Because

you want to gain

weight?

It's a no brainer.

Look, you get a pizza, you get a second pizza, you eat one pizza.

And you freeze the second pizza.

Oh, yeah, that happens.

Okay, well, great.

Since I am dangerously under thin, I will order two pizzas in

the hopes of freezing the second.

I couldn't

even eat a second pizza if I won.

I'm so full after eating a whole pizza.

And I do eat a whole pizza, which is kind of ridiculous.

I don't.

And pizza reheats.

So well, and so fast.

And here's the trick of reheating pizza in the air fryer.

If you get an air fryer for any one reason, it's for reheating pizza.

Well, it's true.

You put a slice or two of pizza in there for, what, three minutes?

Five minutes?

Yeah, basically.

Once it's heated up, five minutes most.

And, uh, it gets crunchy again.

So here's how you do it.

You order this second pizza.

Pizza, as we said, and you want to freeze it whole in the box.

So just stick the whole box in your freezer.

If you can freeze it whole, or at least in halves covered.

And then after it is frozen hard, break it into its individual pieces and wrap Wrap

them tightly in a plastic wrap or whatever you choose to use, wrap them tightly

up and seal them against freezer burn.

Now they're ready and again, once you get your air fryer to about 375, 400,

then you're going to have about three to five minutes frozen right from

the freezer into the air fryer and it'll be crisp and delicious again.

Okay, before we get to the next segment of our podcast, which is all

about upping Pizza Game at home, let's say that we do have a newsletter.

It hasn't come out very often recently because, ah, sorry, the book has been due,

the latest book, and it just came out.

Let me say that the print out of the book, yes, you still print out

books on paper, believe it or not.

The print out of the book came out at two reams.

The ream of paper is 500 pages, so this thing came out at a two ream book.

That's the manuscript, not the size of the book.

Yeah, that's not going to be the size of the printed book,

but, uh, that's a difference.

Big honking book.

So, uh, I'm sorry.

There hasn't been a newsletter recently, but if you'd like to sign

up for the newsletter, which is not necessarily connected to this podcast,

but includes recipes, thoughts about life in new England, more things

about us and what we're doing in our lives, you can do that by going to our

website, cooking with Bruce and mark.

com or Bruce and mark.

com you can sign up there and let me remind you, I never capture your email

or your name, nor allow the provider to capture it or sell it in any way.

All right, up next, segment two, upping your pizza game at home.

Let's start out by saying something about the dough.

Every Reddit thread about pizza is about how to improve your dough.

Reddit.

Every Reddit thread.

Don't you love it?

I'm sorry, just to say, don't you love it that every single generation now has

their own basic social media platform?

Old people have Reddit.

Boomers have, uh, Boomers have Facebook, it's Gen Xers who have

Reddit, and then Millennials have Instagram, and now the kids have TikTok.

I mean, it's like, we're kind of siloed into these social media landscapes.

I am so proud to be on all of them.

Oh, so you go.

Well, there you are then.

Okay.

So, okay.

Every reddit.

How do we say every TikTok video?

Okay.

And but it's all about the dough.

It's about how to make dough more hydration, longer proofing,

add a little rice flour.

But you know what?

We're skipping all of that today because Mark and I don't

even make our own pizza dough.

anymore.

Why?

There are so many great options out there.

Well, yeah, there are.

And you overstayed a little bit.

Occasionally you'll make dough, but usually we don't.

And here's here's a little trick for you.

Did you know you can go into almost any pizza restaurant?

And now not speaking of the chains here, but smaller pizza restaurants,

you can go in and you can just Purchase a dough, an unbaked dough.

You can say, I want a one pound dough, and they'll kind of look at

you funny, but then they won't know how to price it, but you can, they'll

give it to you for a few bucks.

And you can walk out with already raised dough, ready to be made into pizza.

And even supermarkets now have pizza doughs in plastic bags.

Yeah, not the things in the tubes, not the plastic.

Popping fresh pizza dough.

No, yeast raised stuff that is in plastic bags.

You can find it actually around us in whole wheat and regular.

We often get whole wheat.

And also, just to remind you, you can use a lot of things for

pizza, like naan, like pita bread.

All of these things make really great pizzas.

Let me just say the one thing that I used to make as a kid that I do

not approve of anymore are pizzas.

Pizza bagels, . There's something about it.

It's too thick.

It's too chewy.

No, it's too thick for me.

And I mean, I suppose if you like Sicilian pizza, you know the thick,

thick, some places call it grandma pie.

Some people call like Chicago style.

Yeah.

But Chicago style is always thick.

Crossing around.

I know.

Sil.

I know.

Stop.

Stop being definitional.

Anyway, go on.

Well, the square slices I grew up with called Sicilian.

They're kind of like bagel pizza, and I'm kind of done with bagel pizza.

Well, okay, great.

Uh, so I don't know why we got it.

It's two food writers talking about food, and it all gets into micro definitions.

Sorry.

Anyway, so we're not talking about the dough.

We want to talk about how to get a pizza better.

And one of the ways that we have learned, and Bruce particularly has learned,

to make pizza better is on the grill.

And, um, this is a change since we wrote the book, Pizza,

Grill it, Bake it, Love it.

And that is, heat piles up pizza stones on the grill.

And I think this is really key.

Baking a pizza on a baking tray is all well and good, but the intense heat that

comes out of stone is so much better.

And not just one stone, as Mark said, I pile them up, get

yourself two, four, Six stones.

Pile them up.

They retain the heat.

They give off a beautiful, even heat.

Once they're heated up, the larger the mass of stone, the better the result.

And just

so you just put these stones, you have several of them.

I have four.

Okay, so just to be correct, you put the pizza stones on one side of the grill,

and you heat the other side of the grill.

Is that right?

I do.

I like

to do indirect heat.

Sometimes I might put a little bit of heat under them to get them started.

Okay.

But once they're hot, I turn off all the heat under them

and let it be an indirect heat.

Throw the pizza on.

It is such a beautiful way to cook.

And here's what's amazing.

We started doing this on the grill, as Mark said, and then I discovered.

Why am I not doing this in the oven, too?

So I tried it.

It works great in the oven, too.

Assuming

your oven racks can handle four stones.

If they

can handle a 26 pound turkey at Thanksgiving stuff, they

can handle four stones.

Okay, so that's the first thing, is that you need a really thick, reliable heat

source that retains a great deal of heat.

But there is a problem with doing it that way.

It takes a lot of time.

longer for it to heat.

Right,

right, right.

Because

one pizza stone will get to 500 degrees in, what, 45 minutes.

If I'm using four or six piled up, I have to have that grill or the oven

turned on for a couple of hours.

Right.

And that takes a lot of energy.

Right, right, right.

So, okay, so big, thick amount of pizza stones, this gives you a more reliable,

better, better, bigger, uh, more even heat and then you want to lightly oil

your dough before you add the topping.

So once you press it out, right?

Once you bubble, press it out with your fingertips and all that kind of stuff.

Don't roll your dough.

Don't

use a rolling pin.

It will never rise up again.

You

don't have to be like Lucy and throw the dough in the air and get

it on your hair and all that stuff.

Lucy who?

Lucy Ricardo.

I love Lucy when she makes pizza.

Um, anyway.

How

old are you?

Very.

Very.

Very.

Very.

Uh, would you like to hear my knees when I garden?

Um, so, do it with your fingertips.

You can put it on the board and you can, uh, use your fingertips to kind of

continually stretch the bubbly dough out.

But once you get it stretched out to your desired thickness,

now it's time to lightly oil it.

Of course, with olive

oil.

And the oil prevents the dough from soaking up pizza sauce.

It makes a barrier.

Right.

Because, let's face it, the sauce is fluidy.

Right.

That's a word, isn't it?

Fluidity?

Not really.

And the toppings you put

on.

How about fluid?

Isn't it?

It's a fluid.

So is it fluid enough of an adjective for you?

Do you need it to be more adjectives?

I like fluidity.

You want it more adjectives?

I want more adjectives.

Okay.

Oh, great.

Me too.

I think adjective is the best thing ever.

And

then you're going to put toppings on and whether it's peppers or mushrooms,

they're going to give off fluid.

E stuff as well, and so all that moisture is going to soak into the

dough unless you have a barrier, and we like a little bit of olive oil.

Right, so it, and once the dough gets wet from the sauce and all, it actually

will take longer to cook, so you want to oil the dough to put that barrier there.

And now, here's our advice, is that you skip the oil.

The jarred pizza sauce.

Instead, buy yourself a can of Marzano tomatoes and be really careful here

because there are some cans labeled Marzano and then in tiny, tiny,

tiny little words, style tomatoes.

So make sure that you actually get real Italian Marzano tomatoes.

Even find them at big box stores, which we have.

Yeah, we have.

Um, the real honest thing.

So get a couple and crush them up.

With your hand

right on top of that oil dough.

That writer will stop you.

With your cleaned and dried hand.

What's the matter?

It's going to go in a hot oven and be sterilized.

It's like autoclaving your pizza.

Do you know where people put their hands?

It's still autoclaving the pizza.

No,

you're not going to autoclave some things away.

So, um.

No.

Okay, so you're gonna crush one or two tomatoes.

If you're going for a tomato topping, a tomato sauce topping, that's all you need.

You don't need more than a couple of tomatoes.

But you should think outside the box in terms of sauce, right?

It doesn't have to even be tomatoes, right?

Right.

It

could be anything.

Pesto.

Right.

And one of my favorite, it could be, and one of my favorite things is to

put a thin smear of mustard on it and then add bacon and make the pizza and

then top it with, uh, chopped lettuce and tomatoes and you got this BLT pizza

with just a little bit of mustard on it.

Cooked bacon though.

Yes, that's right.

It has to be cooked bacon.

And, uh, you know, I mean, this is all ways in which you can alter it.

Barbecue sauce is a great topping too.

Um, we have made pizzas with a little thin smear of Dijon mustard

and then lots of compte cheese.

And then, believe it or not, put boiled potatoes and pickles on it

for a kind of raclette ish pizza.

Sure.

You can actually alter what is the sauce, uh, based on your tastes.

But again, the best thing is to buy a can of Marzano.

Tomatoes and crush one or two up and just spread them out as a sauce.

Okay.

Now here's another tip.

Don't overload it I know we all like a ton of toppings and I know we all

like a ton of cheese And we all know the problem of four cheese pizzas

that they won't hold their shape that they're greasy that they fall apart

Don't overload Overload the pie,

because if you do that, you're never going to get your toppings as cooked and

brown as you like by the time the crust burns, and it just doesn't really work.

You go out to a pizza place with your mom when you visit her in ST Louis, don't you?

And they even warned you there about not overloading.

We do.

We go

to this famous pizza place.

Family place in outside of St.

Louis in the expert.

My mom lives in now, uh, Fratelli's just to give it a shout out.

We go to Fratelli's and mom and I split a pie.

It comes out on a sheet pan, but it's not thick crust is

thin crust, but on a sheet pan.

And, uh, the, the, I ordered several toppings.

I think I put like four toppings on top of a pepperoni pizza, you

know, plus, or just plus, plus.

And the waiter, she said, no, don't do that.

She said, it's going to be gushy and it's going to not be what you want.

And I was like, Oh, okay, great.

So I even there was told by the Italian waiter not to overload my pizza.

So this is something that you should take to heart.

It should be.

Yeah, don't.

Overdo it or the pizza gets soggy and gushy and we just remember to when you're

adding the cheese Whatever cheese you add if you add mozzarella if you had parm

it, whatever you add Remember that the better the cheese the better the pizza.

Oh

my goodness.

Don't put on that parm from a can It's not even really parm get some real nice

aged parmigiano reggiano Put some aged Romano cheese as game marks that we did

a thing with Comte once if you're using mozzarella you Even though there's more

moisture in it, use a fresh mozzarella rather than the block of mozzarella.

And here's a trick.

When I make a pizza with fresh mozzarella, I like to slice it fairly

thin, and I blot it dry with paper towels before I put it on the pizza.

It helps get some of the excess water.

And also,

while we're on this, it's a little gross, but while we're on this, don't

forget that pre shredded cheese that comes in the package is often coded

in an anti caking agent, and it's done that so it doesn't all glom together.

That's why you can pick it up by the wad out of the package, and it's,

you know, in individual shreds.

So it's got this anti caking agent on it.

Many brands do.

And that anti caking agent is actually kind of good.

gummy on a pizza.

Once it all melts, it's not the greatest texture possible.

So again, better to grate your own than use the pre grated stuff.

I know it's an extra step and nobody wants an extra step, but

it's just the truth of the matter.

You want an extra step.

I saw a tick tock video where a woman was making pizza with

that pre shredded cheese.

She rinsed it.

Yeah.

She put it in a colander in a bowl and rinsed it.

And then put it out on paper towels and blotted it dry.

But aren't you defeating the purpose of the convenience of pre

shredding if you're doing that?

You absolutely

are.

I've seen a lot of that too.

In fact, I've even seen that from Italian cooks that they rinse,

especially Italian cooks who come and like live in Brooklyn or live in the U.

S.

somewhere or live in the U.

K.

somewhere.

And they actually rinse the cheese before they add it to the pizza

and blot it dry and all this stuff.

Which is, I'm like, what?

Buy a block of cheese and start creating it and not be worried about this.

Okay.

So we talked about the oiling the dough and actually this

is a little out of order.

So once, before you get the dough, I mean, once, no, I'm wrong here.

Okay.

Before you get the dough on to your, uh, pizza paddle or the peel, the thing

you're going to use to get it onto the stones before you put it down,

it's really important to do a step.

And this is a step that Bruce has learned.

So what's the step?

Okay.

Use parchment paper.

I know most people have been taught and I was taught.

And when you watch pizza chefs and pizza restaurants do it, all

they do is flour or semolina their paddle or sometimes cornmeal.

They put the dough on it and that shakes it around and doesn't

let it stick to the paddle.

I have found that It sticks more times than I could tell you.

So I put a piece of parchment instead.

I spread the dough, I press the dough, I shake the dough on the parchment.

And once the pizza's built, I slide the entire piece of parchment with

the loaded pizza onto the hot stones, and I let it cook for 10 minutes.

minutes.

At that point, the parchment slips right out from underneath the dough.

The dough is sitting directly on top of the stones and continues to cook.

It was a beautiful, beautiful discovery.

And finally, our last pizza tip is about the edges, and that is the burning.

Now, I will tell you that I like, uh, beyond well done pizza.

When I order a pizza in a pizza restaurant, I ask them to burn it.

So I want charred bits on the edges and around the edges, but

don't be afraid of the blackened or dark brown bits around the edges.

Let it go because the.

Even if you don't want to eat those you can mail them to me But even if you don't

want to eat them the center of the pizza will be better It will be it won't be

as gushy or as as slimy in the middle

Not only do I not trust people who don't like the burn bits on their crust I don't

trust people who don't eat the crust We've been out to dinner for pizza with friends

and I'm always amazed at how many people eat the middle and leave their crust Thank

you for offending most of the people listening to this podcast.

Thank you so much for that.

Um, a lot of people don't like things as Bernie and crunchy as I do.

And I like things very Bernie and crunchy.

And you know, I meet, uh, I'll tell you this story before we get on to

what's making us happy for this week.

I made toast for Bruce's mother once when she was spending the week.

with us in New England and she complained that I made her toast too well done

and I thought to myself, wait, there is such a thing as too well, okay,

there's burned toast, but there's not too well done toast is there?

Well, I have a suggestion for people who think they don't like crust or they say

they don't like crust because it's dry.

So if you're in a pizza restaurant, ask them for a little

extra bowl of marinara sauce.

And that way you could dip your crust in each bite and you have like extra.

They're trying to save the carbs and they see the cost is way,

way, way you're saving carbs, but you're in a pizza restaurant.

I

know, but I think this is the deal.

Um, and that comes because you know, if you go to a lot of the

big chains, the crust is really rolled up and thick at the edges.

So you are saving a lot of bread by not eating that the places that we go to,

we live in a part of New England has a lot of Italian immigrant culture in it.

And that we go to these really nice Italian run it to pizzerias.

And they're not a.

In restaurants, they're just really good at what they do.

And, uh, they have really thin pizzas, and the crust essentially is about the

same depth all the way out to the edges.

It's not that big, thick, rolled thing that you sometimes get in the U.

S.

and Canada.

True.

At the edge of the pizza.

And I think there you are saving carbs, but the pizza I order, it's

pretty flat right out to the edge, so.

Well

my answer is if there's crust on someone's plate, I'm going to eat it,

and if it's dry I'll wash it down with another beer, because you do know,

you do know that you are only supposed to drink beer with pizza, and if

you drink wine with pizza, you'll be yelled at by every Italian on TikTok.

You know what, um, let's just piss off all the Italians and say I really like

red wine with pizzas, so there you go.

Um, and furthermore, if I could even push it harder, uh, I like Diet

Coke with pizzas, so there you go.

Just, just don't write me.

Um, it's okay.

So, before we get to the last segment of this podcast, podcast.

Let me say that it would be great if you could subscribe to this podcast.

If you could rate it, if you can give it a rating on any platform, you're on Spotify

allows you to give it star ratings.

Apple podcast allows you to get as far as you can actually write a review.

Can I ask that you please do that?

Even just nice podcast are great to hear you.

That is fantastic for us in the analytics.

I know not your problem, our problem, but still it's a way you can help support

our otherwise unsupported podcasts.

So up next, traditionally the end segment, What's making us happy in food this week?

I'm gonna start.

Okay.

I get to start.

Alright.

So what's making me happy in food this week is Bruce went over to a friend's

house, a friend who had been very sick for a long time, probably with some kind

of RSV or some upper respiratory thing, and he made a load of chicken stock.

I mean, honestly, really old fashioned Jewish penicillin,

uh, what, ten carcasses?

I had

ten carcasses.

Chicken carcasses in the freezer that went into my 20 quart stockpot.

Okay, but that's not what's making me happy in the food industry.

So he went over to their house, he delivered matzo balls, of

course, and cooked noodles, and tons of this chicken soup.

It's not even soup, it's chicken stock.

You can stand a spoon up in it.

So, um, that.

And in return, they gave him fresh asparagus.

And this is what's making me happy in food this week.

I just want to say that I haven't had fresh asparagus in a while.

I will admit, I mean, I've had it from the grocery store, but I mean,

this came directly out of the garden.

They caught it and it gave it to him and he brought it home and we ate it.

And I just want to say that freshly dug asparagus bears no resemblance

even to grocery store, fresh asparagus.

If you can get yourself to a fresh asparagus.

farmer's market in the northern hemisphere right now and find asparagus or a local

farm stand or you know, go downtown and wherever you live, Dallas, Atlanta,

San Diego, San Francisco, and go to the big markets and Madison, the farmer's

market and find yourself fresh asparagus.

bears no resemblance to even what's fresh in the supermarket.

Even the thick stalks, and there were thicks and thins because these were

growing in a garden, the thick ones were as tender and delicious as the thin ones.

They didn't have a chance to dry out and get woody.

No, it was really astounding.

Okay, that's mine.

What's making me happy in food this week is a yellow Pepper

Sriracha.

Oh, it is really wild.

We found this, uh, we went away when we turned that giant

two reams of paper book in.

We wanted to go away for a week and, uh, first we thought we might

go somewhere exotic like Stockholm, but to be honest with you, I just

could not fathom getting on a plane.

So, we drove to Providence, Rhode Island.

Providence,

Rhode Island.

Providence versus Stockholm, but I can tell

you that Providence has become an astounding food scene.

We should do a whole podcast on the restaurants we ate in in

Providence because it is truly worth a visit if you just want to

consume yourself into oblivion.

It has become an amazingly young, this rusted hulk of a city has become so young.

Anyway, when we were there, of course, it's Bruce, it's my husband.

So we had to go to multiple Chinese markets.

It was very important for me to see what the Asian market

situation is like wherever we go.

This is

Bruce.

Bruce's tourism is going in grocery stores.

Well, there's not

much more for tourism in Providence outside of restaurants.

So No, there's RISD Museum.

RISD Museum.

Is beautiful, but we went to a number of Asian markets, one that touted itself

as the lowest prices in New England.

And I'll tell you their prices were, but the other one had bigger

selection, was, it was astounding.

It was like

a Costco of Asian supermarket.

The

fish was ridiculous, the whole fish wall that was like 300 feet long.

But what I found walking up and down the aisles was a yellow pepper

sriracha, which I'd never seen.

No, I'd never

seen

it.

And I bought it, and we'd been putting it on everything.

In fact, I made a separate video.

Singapore, my fun, Singapore noodles for dinner, which was something also

that made me happy in food this week.

And we squeezed all this yellow pepper sriracha on top of it.

It was so yummy.

If you want to find out more about this kind of thing and otherwise

connect with us, please check out our Facebook group, Cooking With Tim.

Bruce and Mark, or check out either of us on social media.

We are both on Facebook under our own names.

We are both on Instagram, Bruce's as Bruce A.

Weinstein, but I'm just my name, Mark Scarborough on Instagram.

And we do have a TikTok channel cooking with Bruce and Mark, and you can watch

videos of us making each other food there.

So check us out on social media and connect with us.

in any way that you feel that you want to.

And every week, we tell you what's making us happy in food.

So tell us what's making you happy in food this week at our Facebook

page, Cooking with Bruce and Mark.

We go through that, we find really exciting ones, and we'll talk about them

here on Cooking with Bruce and Mark.