Transcript of EP. 87 Slice of Wisdom: Navigating the Pizza Industry
Mon, July 1, 2024
0:00 – Jim Serpico
My name’s Jim Serpico and this should I start with my name or should I start with this is bread for the people? Do you like it like this? Welcome to bread. Or do you like it like this? Welcome. Ready? Welcome to bread for the people mind. Is there a script?
0:41 – Jim Serpico
Welcome to Bread for the People. I’m Jim Serpico. What a special show we have today. He’s a beloved member of the pizza community. Chef Leo Spizzeri is here. I’m honored to have him as a guest today. I even changed up my opening theme music a little bit to give us a little metal feel. But before I bring on Chef Leo and give him a proper introduction, I thought I’d keep my listeners up to date and let you know how my weekend went in my pizza and bread making journey. It was a little bit of a mindfuck.
1:24 – Jim Serpico
We had four outdoor events between Friday and Sunday. Two of them were on my pizza truck and two were at outdoor farmers markets. But I was very excited because Saturday afternoon I had my biggest catering event I’ve ever had. And I’m gonna tell you a little bit about how I got it, because I think it relates to the mind and how my mind is playing tricks on me. So about three months ago I started doing a wine blending class at a place called Wine U Design. So members join up for a year and they go through the winemaking process and they go, they have their own barrel and the owner walks them through the steps of making wine. And that’s a private membership. Now, in addition to that, every two weeks he does a wine blending class open to the public. It costs $129 ticket. And they bring me in to make Neapolitan pizzas on my truck. And it’s a very intimate evening. It’s about 25 people. And because it’s $129 and they like wine, it’s kind of like the target audience, like the people who have enough money to make it worthwhile, to take your food truck out, and go on. So I got, since I’m doing this in the last three months, I booked about four of them. And this was my first big one out in the Hamptons. And I’d also like to say that my son was involved in all this. He’s 20 years old. He’s off for the summer. So he does the baking with me. Friday morning, we did 150 loaves for the farmer’s market on Saturday. Saturday morning, we woke up early, did another 150 loaves for the next farmer’s market. Then we balled up our 40 doughs. We baked four sheet pans of scotchata so that we can make focaccia sandwiches to this place that was supposed to have 50 people in the Hamptons. And I was ready to impress them. Now, one of the things I love about doing the wine blending class is they bring me out at the beginning. And I do an introduction. I give my history of how I fell in love with bread making at the pandemic. I left my career as a successful television producer to make bread. And two years after that, I got on planes and I took a class with pizzaiola from around the world, Tony Gemignani being one of them. And I learned how to make pizza. Halfway through the night at the winemaking class, I come out and they’re applauding me. They’re going, Jimmy, Jimmy. And they appreciate my food. And then I’m telling them jokes. I make them laugh. And I realize I like my ego to be stroked. And I probably could be making more money in TV, but I love what I’m doing. I love interacting with the people. So now here I go to my biggest catering. I pull up this place in Hampton. There’s bushes and trees and we see the driveway. And right behind me is, There’s a taco truck that’s two times the size of my pizza truck. Turns out he’s a nice guy, he gets in there, and we decide to walk down this stone driveway. And we’re like, how the fuck are we gonna get in here? Because we’re both trailering things. And we have to back in through bushes and we realize he needs to go in first. So he’s trying to go in and for 45 minutes I’m holding back bushes and limbs so he could get in. He’s turning, doing this. I get in finally. Now we set up our stuff. I do a six foot grazing table. It was beautiful. Uh, it’s on my Instagram if you want to see it. Uh, he starts firing up his tacos and he’s passing to the people in the backyard. Meanwhile, When we pulled up, I forgot to mention this, they’re eating hors d’oeuvres. How they got there, what they were, I don’t know, but they’re all pounding food and drinking shots of vodka, and there’s only 30 people here. And now there’s a taco truck who’s got food for 50. I got pizza, grazing table, scotchata sandwiches for 50 people, and they got food dribbling from their mouth. I put out the grazing table, they’re freaked out, they come and take pictures. Then we start doing the food, put my pizzas out on the table and no one comes out. So I start passing them and they’re full. They’re already full. So I’m trying to do whatever I can to pass a sandwich, do this. And at the end of the night, we only made 18 pizzas. They barely touched any of the food. And what I was excited about turned out to be an extreme disappointment because nobody paid any mind to all the preparation I did, all the studying I did, and I realized that the next day, Sunday, when I was standing at the farmer’s market by myself in 100 degree weather, kibitzing with my regular customers, making them laugh, them telling me how they love the bread we make and they can’t wait to come back here every week, was more satisfying to me, even though I made 25% of the money, than the big deal catering, which I always dreamed of getting. Because to them, I was the hired help, and the icing on the cake was I got a Google review that said, this guy should make bigger pizzas. So, here I am, mind fucked, I got what I wanted, But I’m not sure what to do with myself in this business. And without further ado, I’m going to introduce a maestro pizzaiola, a dough specialist, a restaurant consultant, a mentor, Chef Leo Sposiri. Leo, welcome to the program.
7:24 – Chef Leo
Hey, Jimmy, I love that story, man. That was really the visual of that whole thing. Anybody who’s ever done a mobile event knows exactly the struggle that you went through from loading in to doing all the prep for probably days to get ready and show up, set up all your stuff, and then nobody eats. And then on top of it, this small pizza comment, you know, I guess it’s the best way. So you got your stones twisted pretty good. But I think that at the end of the day, as an educator, I consider myself an educator, these are those teachable moments, those learning moments. And more than the money, the experience that you went through, Is something that’s going to change the way you look at your business from that day going forward so use it like that Don’t take it as a disappointment take it as what did I learn from this and how do I react next? Could it be asking better questions when you get hired for an event? Prepping differently Understanding who else is going to be there with you I think that it’s a it was an amazing thing that you went through and to say that you know to do a 50-person event next time when you get that wedding for 300 people you’ll remember that little 50 person event and you’re going to do a better event at 300 than you did for 50.
8:44 – Jim Serpico
I think that’s true. I could tell you I did learn some things, and I’ll try to go through them right now, maybe you could help me figure out what I should be learning, but first of all, logistically, we should have known, I had no idea it was gonna be so hard for us to get these trucks in. I mean, we almost couldn’t, we almost gave up.
9:13 – Jim Serpico
But we did it, we were determined to make sure that this party went on and was a success. But a lot of people would have given up. And it’s too far for me to drive and do a walkthrough You know, they’re not paying us enough to drive the two hours each way to just do a walkthrough But I guess I could have asked for photos Where the trucks would be right?
9:33 – Chef Leo
Yep All those things and then you know the other one too that I get this a lot because you know in I’ve been doing consulting for it’s got to be at least 15 years and Even consulting at a point where no one really knew who I was or what I was doing like outside of let’s say the Midwest or Chicago and one of those things that I get a lot are people who are just getting into doing their first mobile events or They’ve just bought their first truck right and they’re scaling up from saying. Oh, yeah, I could bring out a You know four six-foot folding tables put them underneath a put them underneath a couple ten by ten tenths and Come out there with like four Rooney’s right or four guys knees or whatever they are and I’m gonna do my first event What do you think I should charge? Right. Yeah, and I think that that’s another big one that I I’ve spent a lifetime, literally a lifetime, I started making pizzas when I was a kid, right? And I went through the school hard knocks, I never went to culinary school. I went to pizza school, like professional pizza school. You know, I went to Italy and studied and all that kind of stuff, right? But the other side of it is that being a kid from the Midwest, and I bet your background story, even though you came up in the television world, right? You kind of came up from that school of hard knocks, you know, where, you know, my parents are right off the boat, first generation Italian Americans, and we came up with nothing. Right. So we always feel, I always feel like we always undervalue our work. Right. And for me, it’s like, you know, go out and look at what everybody else is charging. And a lot of times when you see that these people are charging top dollar, and then you see the photos of stuff that they’re giving. And it’s like, man, this is garbage. I could be doing better than that. And I think that this is where you start to see that you charge a little bit more money and guess what? Your clientele changes a little bit. And then all of a sudden your clientele changes a little bit. The parties get a little better. The referrals get a little better, right? And that little bit of extra money kind of weeded out everybody at the bottom. I hate to say it like that because I think everybody deserves a good time and to be entertained and to eat right. But, to me, it’s always those smaller parties, the ones that you get for that, like, you know, Italian family that wants to do, you know, 35 people in their backyard for their kid’s birthday party, right? And those ones become more intricate and complicated than sometimes the larger events that are clean cut. This is what we want. This is how many pizzas we’re going to make. This is what you’re going to serve. Go in there, do the job, clean up and go home. I think it’s the easiest way to say it.
12:10 – Jim Serpico
So again, I struggle with that mindset a little bit. I have to get better at that. And especially when I’m putting my time, I guess, as I grow and try to build You know, however, I’m trying to build, I do have aspirations of having some version of a brick and mortar. But maybe if I’m sending out a crew and my son instead of me being there, my ego won’t be so bruised. But I guess I have to go get rid of the ego thing, too.
12:37 – Chef Leo
You know, how do you how do you how do you accumulate? Like, put a number on the amount of time in prep that it takes, you know? Your doughs, I’m sure, are not direct method that you made the dough today and then you’re going to use it tomorrow morning. It’s 48 hours. So think about that. All the time that was spent in getting the doughs, just the doughs alone ready. And then all the other prep work, right? You said you’re making schiacciata and you’re making sandwiches and you’ve got a grazing table and all this other stuff. I’m sure that it wasn’t anything that you’re going to see at you know, your local whoever’s doing catering company.
13:12 – Chef Leo
No way. You did it on another level.
13:14 – Chef Leo
So I think you got to think about that. For me, like, and this is the hard part for me, because I get scrutinized, like a lot of my colleagues that do what I do, because we’re at such, let’s say, a higher level, right? We’re scrutinized even more. So then all of a sudden, it’s like, You know, if I charge what I am worth, right? A lot of people are like, oh, well, this guy’s just a whore, right? There’s no, there’s no way I’m going to pay that much money for this. And it’s like, you don’t have to use me. I’ve got two other guys like, and I refer a lot of business out to a lot of smaller guys that are just getting started. I’ve got a few wonderful, wonderful pizzaioli that have been products, let’s call it of the pandemic and COVID that really got their chops in their backyard, figuring it out. That were in other industries and learn how to make beautiful, yeah, absolutely. And I think that this is why there’s, it’s such a, to me, it’s such an important position to take. And I was one of the first ones that really said, look, we got a lot of people that are making pizzas in their backyards. And if we don’t cultivate these people, this is the next generation that’s going to have a brick and mortar, or this is the next generation that’s going to carry the torch when a guy like me decides that I’m ready to hang it up, or I’m in a box and I can’t give anymore, right? So there was a lot of criticism. I remember even going to, like you’ve been around at Pizza Expo, you know a lot of the same guys I know, right? And going to Pizza Expo a few years back, and I remember hearing for the first time, like, oh, well, Pizza Expo was turned into Comic-Con, right? That’s bullshit. I don’t think it’s turned into Comic-Con. I think that we’ve got enough people looking in the same direction as us that if we’re professionals, we should be supporting an industry, right? And I’ll tell you like this. I’ve been in this business all my life. That’s all I know is to make pizzas. I make bread. I’ve done a lot of things, but it’s always been around this industry. And I can never remember a time that I didn’t have a job, that I didn’t have money, that I wasn’t working as much as I wanted to work. And it’s one of those things that you get out what you put in. So it doesn’t matter where you came from If you’re interested in what we’re doing, you have every right, or that person who came out of the pandemic that’s baking with a backyard oven, has every right to see what the pros are doing. Because the only way to improve yourself is to see where the bar is. If we’re going to call out a gold standard, Right. Everybody should be shooting for that level, no matter if you’re a novice, a home baker or a seasoned pro. Right. And I do classes all the time for, you know, groups of, you know, 25, 30 executive chefs. And you think that’s the home baker is a hard one? Try teaching a bunch of chefs about dough and pizza in a world that they consider an afterthought.
16:10 – Jim Serpico
Right before we get to that because I want to dive into that a little deeper I want to go back to the pizza con comic-con comment.
16:16 – Chef Leo
Yeah, cuz I haven’t heard that Well, I’m telling you to I’m telling you at a high level it was out there and there’s a lot of guys like doing what I do that got criticized that we’re spending too much time on the little guys and we’re turning it into again almost like an amateur trade show and by spending time on the little guys and Like these little guys, the people that are coming in that are home bakers, right? Saying that, you know, I heard one comment. This is probably the one that stuck with me the most and it’s for two years. And it’s something that when I wake up in the morning or when I’m going to do a class and I gotta literally get on a plane to go do a class for a group, right? It’s one of those things that you wake up in the morning, it’s like, man, I got a ton of other things that I should be doing right now than getting on this plane and going to teach this class, right? But as an educator, that class is probably more important than anything else that I got going on in my life, right? So I heard a guy once tell me that just because you’re interested in seeing lions and tigers and giraffes doesn’t mean that you should get on a plane and go to Africa. Right? And that was what it was referring to as leave the professional stuff to the pros and let’s dummy this thing down for people who are just coming there to maybe show up and wear, you know, a suit that looks like a pepperoni pizza and, you know, their brand new custom vans that they got that, you know, look like pizza slices and all this other show. Well, to me, it’s one of those things that, you know what, there’s people that are more hardcore, or they’re turning out to be more hardcore than we are. And who am I to say, or somebody else to say, that that person doesn’t deserve to keep that fire going in them to get them to the next level, right?
18:13 – Jim Serpico
I’d like to make some comments on this.
18:16 – Chef Leo
To see Pizza Expo, for example, we’re talking about Pizza Expo, right? To see Pizza Expo, for example, All of a sudden, what do we have coming up in a few months? For the first time, everybody’s showing up in Philly, and we’re having the first ever Pizza Con, right? Which is kind of cool, because I think that The people that are like maybe not interested in ever opening up a mobile catering business or opening up a brick and mortar, maybe they’re the ones that want to see what are the new generations of, you know, whatever the hottest backyard oven is that they’re going to hook up with a propane tank. And hey, these are some cool pizza peels that you can have your name engraved on it. You know, whatever it turns out to be. But again, I think that that could also be a stepping stone to the next generation saying, you know what? I’ve been here. I’ve seen enough that I know that I can hang with the bigger guys and I’m ready to scale up, right?
19:11 – Jim Serpico
Yeah. Plus, listen. What a pro is is relative, because there are people who grew up like you in the pizza business, but didn’t go out of their way to learn baker’s math. I know a lot of guys that own pizzerias that could only mix a 50 pound bag of flour. I’m only in this five years. I can mix anything from one unit to a thousand.
19:40 – Chef Leo
Or that have never seen anything more than maybe a Hobart, or at home, they’ve never seen more than a KitchenAid mixer, right?
19:48 – Jim Serpico
And when you go to Pizza Expo, I’ve seen both types, right? I went there, first of all, yeah, I wanted to see guys like you in the flesh, to be honest.
20:00 – Jim Serpico
But I did want to learn from you. I went to one of your seminars with Peter Reinhart. I went to Bausch’s seminar and we took it, my wife and I took it very seriously because if we’re going to put a bunch of our savings into a restaurant, which we know is a very difficult business. We want to try to do it with best business practices, not just we make good pizza. So we really went there as like graduate school and education to try to take that out. And I do know plenty of other people that just went to party.
20:34 – Chef Leo
Jim and some of those people, you nailed it because this at the end of the day is exactly what I’m talking about. Right. Um, you mentioned Reinhart. Peter Reinhart was one of my mentors before he even knew who I was, right? I could probably recite Peter Reinhart’s TED talk on sourdough. I listened to that easily a hundred times. And every time I listened to it, I wrote something down. I took a note. I took it and thought of it from a different angle, right? And I’m not known as a sourdough baker, but to be able to talk about dough chemistry and what’s happening and, you know, different let’s call it bacteria than just saccharomyces in your commercial yeast, right? I think that to me, that was one of my first guys that I saw as a pro that knew how to bake and saying, hey, growing up in Chicago, you know, we were making tavern pizza before tavern pizza ever had a designation of what it was, right? Think about that. And there’s a, there’s probably a dozen of us that all came out of the same pond. Like, Tony Trajano, Gino and Lenny Rago, Bruno Brunetti. There’s a lot of us that started out very young, right? And we all knew each other. And back in the day it was funny because we all had like the side job, right? And they all had the same side job. We got out of the restaurants from making pizzas and we were all like DJs on the weekend. So the restaurant owners that we knew and the banquet halls that we all knew We’re like, hey, you know, I got so-and-so. They’re looking for an Italian DJ. You want to come spin some records, right? Hell yeah, I want to come spin some records. So it was funny because we all had the same, that whole same lifestyle. We always ran into each other, right, back in the day. And thinking about how we all came up, guys like us never knew more than what we knew. And who do we learn it from We learned it from whoever we were working with. So, I had tons of influences from southern Italians that were immigrants, that were bakers maybe back in Italy. And that kind of was what I guess I caught the bug from, because it was relatable. It was something that I saw my grandmother and my mother doing at home. I couldn’t believe that people were actually going to pay me money to go and do that same sort of thing in a kitchen, right? And all of a sudden, these people that as you start growing, you start getting older, you started encountering all the secrets. Right? And people who were keeping things very close to their chest. That they didn’t want to share the secrets. And they didn’t want you to know how they were mixing the dough. And they didn’t want you to know some of the other things. Right? And this is the age before the internet. So all of a sudden, as the world starts opening up because of the internet, like I got my first exposure to Gemignani through one of his first classes. And he was coming out to Chicago because he was getting ready to write this book called The Pizza Bible, right? It is my Bible. Who at that point ever could even pronounce the name Gemignani, right? It’s a goofy looking name, just like Speaker, right? We have a lot of weird names that we say that nobody could even spell them, right?
23:57 – Jim Serpico
Right.
23:57 – Chef Leo
But at a time when he was getting ready, he’s like, look, I got to come out. I’m going to write the Chicago section. I need to write the Chicago section. I was running Giordano’s at that time. I had 46 restaurants that I was a corporate chef for and came out to Chicago with his wife, Julie. I just met my wife. We were just starting to date, believe it or not. And we I never forget that weekend. It changed my whole look at things because here’s Gemignani coming to Chicago. We ended up eating pizza everywhere and then He’s like, Hey, I got this crazy idea. I’m going to open this kind of gangster Al Capone style restaurant called Capo’s and I want to start eating some beef sandwiches. So like I took him to Portillo’s. We went to Al’s beef, like all the historic joints. And that was the beginning of my friendship. I should say my brotherhood with Tony. And it was shortly after that Tony’s like, Dude, there’s like an entire world of pizza that you have no idea about. I had never been out of Chicago. I didn’t even know what a New York pizza was in my mouth to taste it, let alone…
24:59 – Jim Serpico
But that’s what’s going on here in New York. People don’t know Chicago style pizza. And I, there was a pizza shop by me that was closed on Sundays and they allowed me to rent it.
25:10 – Chef Leo
Yeah.
25:10 – Jim Serpico
And I did it for eight weeks and I started offering Chicago deep dish and Cracker Style, Tavern, all from Tony’s book, by the way. And it was perfect.
25:23 – Chef Leo
You know, that’s another thing that I think that as that book is celebrated and it’s like, you know, now it’s its anniversary, how many different languages has it been rewritten in? And you know, you see he’s all over the world with this book, right? It was made for home bakers. So that we could give home bakers another look at how to make dough, how to buy the right equipment, how to speak our language, because it was very obvious at that point that we’d get together, all of us pizza guys, whoever you want to name out from back at that time, we’d all get together and we were all talking a certain language to people that, you know, you ask them what you know, what the protein of the flour they were using, and they had no clue, right? Or, you ask them about hydration of adult, and which, you know, has now turned into a cool kid’s term on social media, right? It’s, hey, what’s your hydration, man?
26:19 – Jim Serpico
It’s bullshit. My joke is, I have to erase my captions a lot, because I always tend to write 2,500% hydration, because I just want to fuck with them all.
26:32 – Jim Serpico
Yeah.
26:32 – Jim Serpico
You know, like, Oh, three day hydration is so much better, told to me by a guy who doesn’t know if it’s true, which by the way, usually isn’t, but he wouldn’t know why it is. So what are you saying?
26:47 – Chef Leo
This is a, again, going back to like this whole thing about how, how we all started and how we got to where we’re at today. It was a point that we all got together and said, look, Everybody else is trying to keep all these secrets. And all of a sudden, we started giving some of the secrets to the people, right? At trade shows, all of a sudden you got Facebook coming out. I remember all these different platforms that we were all part of And you start showing people like, hey, I made this style pizza. And people asking you questions, serious questions. And you’re answering them seriously. And all of a sudden the other side of the world coming and saying, how dare you share that information. You’re giving all the key components to my business. I’m a pizza guy for so many years, right, and now you’re going to cause competition for me because these guys are going to start opening restaurants around me. And I’ve always come from that school saying, you know what, if you’re going to compete with me, you better get up really freaking early in the morning and you better plan on going to bed really late at night because there’s not a lot of guys that can outwork me. I’m up at 3.30, 4 o’clock in the morning and I’m like, I’m that guy that’s notorious. If you know people that know me, right, I’m notorious for that guy who’s making phone calls at 1, 2 o’clock in the morning or sending emails and then all of a sudden it’s like 5 o’clock in the morning and I’m waiting for answers saying, oh, lucky I didn’t need bail money. By the way, that goes for any business.
28:22 – Jim Serpico
That’s what I used to do in the TV business. I think I was an unlikely success story in television because I worked hard.
28:30 – Chef Leo
I hate to say these people because it’s not everybody, but there is a handful that are really a majority of the conflict. So you have people coming at you about things like that and all of a sudden it’s like, you know what, I could care less because the way that I’m teaching it, is what it took for me to learn it at a time when there was no tools. And I think that that’s why, I’m not saying that I’m a better teacher than anybody else, but there’s something there because when I put on a class, my classes all sell out. Why? I just think that no matter what walk of life you came from, if you’re interested in listening to me talk for a day or two days or three days or a week or whatever it is, I feel that I break stuff down so granular that anybody can grasp what I’m talking about. And that’s the way, I think, back in the day going to school, I was horrible in school, I hated school. But I think I was one of those kids that was undiagnosed ADHD, right? Because I just couldn’t sit down long enough. And I think that was another reason why the kitchen really appealed to me. But all of a sudden, to say I teach the way that I needed to learn it, And then once in a while, I’ll go to somebody else’s class where they’ll call me and say, hey, can you be an assistant? Yeah, no problem. I just did one for Reinhardt. I was in a class at Pete’s University. I just took a role a couple months ago as Director of Education. I took over Pete’s University, which is in Beltsville, Maryland, which is probably closer to Washington, D.C. Than it is Baltimore. I’ve been going back and forth there for two years doing guest appearances, right? And then all of a sudden, it put me in front of a lot of people that were like-minded. And guys like Reinhardt all of a sudden came up and said, hey, you know what? I’d really be interested in doing something with you over there. Is there any room for me? It’s like, are you kidding me? I’ll give you my key. What do you mean, is there room for you? But being able to sit on the other side, like in the seats, and listening to the questions, or looking at what the students were looking at. It’s really obvious that, you know, there’s some teachers that blow right over everybody’s heads, right? But then there’s other teachers that slow things down a little bit, break it down so that it’s easy to digest, and then you’ve got to get your hands in it. That’s the other thing, right? So, I learned a lot in that respect. And guys like Reinhardt were a huge, huge influence to me. I was artisan baking. I’ve been trying literally to get out of the pizza business all my life. Like I always said, this shit’s too hard, man. The restaurant business, it’ll eat you up. And I just turned 49, consider now I’ve got over 30 years in, man. Like, I feel it, my shoulders are hurt, my knees hurt, everything is screwed up.
31:28 – Jim Serpico
I think part of it is just the age we’re at, because I’ve been doing it less than you, but I swear to God from this weekend, it was hard for me to get out of bed this morning. I think it’s partly the age.
31:39 – Chef Leo
I think it’s the age too, but at the end of the day, as we get together in these groups and we start talking, people are now starting to get smarter, because they’re able to take the information that we’re giving them, and then going home and continue to explore. I call it, these are like the Willy Wonka moments, right? That now I’ve given you the keys to the city, what are you gonna do with it, right? And my phone is literally always on. My email address, I give it to everybody. It’s very, it’s actually really easy to get my phone number, like that kind of stuff. And I’m one of those guys that it might take me a couple days to get back to you, but I always will get back to you. And I’m never gonna leave you hanging. When I’m consulting a lot of my like this story about you and your wife going there with your last penny to a trade show Because you needed to get every bit and piece that you could to make sure that you were successful Like that’s my mantra people will call me up and saying hey, I’m looking to buy a place This is all the money I got and I need to launch this thing. Right? What can you do or I? The other side of it is like Gordon Ramsey style where they’re calling me and they’re on life support and they might have another two months, three months in the bank to get them through and then they’re done. So how do you rebuild those guys, right? Or how do you build them back up where they’ve just been beaten down and say, you know what, how do we pull you out of here for a while? Let the dust settle and then rebuild this. Can you afford to be closed for a month? That’s usually one of those kind of things that we start out with. But all together, once you give them the tools and they say, you know what, I’ve got a fresh start, I’ve got a new outlook, or I’ve never done it like this, I’m going to go home and start practicing. All of a sudden you see these amazing pizza makers coming out of this. And this is why I started my sentence saying, or my conversation with you saying, I think it’s an important role That we’re trying to inspire the next generation no matter if they’ve you know been in the restaurant world or their parents were in the restaurant world or a cousin or They came from a different industry and all they like to do is just make some good pizzas on the weekend for their friends and family, sit around and drink some beer and have a cocktail, whatever. And maybe that’s all they want to do. But to me, it’s really important that we give those tools that they can be the best that they can or continue to take that and build off of it and make something great.
34:09 – Jim Serpico
Now, I have a question and a fear when I look at the pizza industry and the people taking the classes at the Pizza University, which I know is an amazing school. My son, who’s 20, really into this and he’s a good pizza maker.
34:30 – Jim Serpico
And he worked, he said to my wife, I was standing there, I just did two 12-hour days in a row, but I loved it. And I said to myself, oh shit, is he gonna wanna go into this?
34:49 – Jim Serpico
And, you know, it seems to me that there’s a little bit of a work shortage at people, at least where I live in Long Island, New York. The trained people. It’s all over. So there’s two things. There’s trained people who you have to pay a lot. And then there’s people just off the street trying to take a job. And there’s a big pay disparity between the people who work in other industries and can live within miles of a big city and make 250 grand a year as a family and Somebody who becomes a pizza worker that doesn’t own the shop and that scares me and that’s why I said, oh shit with my son It it’s it’s tough, you know, how do you really make a living and as a blood and guts pizzeria employee as an adult, not a kid passing through. Yep.
35:48 – Chef Leo
So this is, this is also like, you know, setting up for another argument that I’ve had over the past year and a half or whatever it’s been like ever since this show, um, the bear came out. Right. Yeah. Like I never got past the first couple episodes because I was like infuriated because it was like the restaurant. Atmosphere that they’re portraying on television, guys that have been doing this as long as I have, right? We’ve fought so hard to get away from that appearance, right? That all of a sudden it’s going to Hollywood and now we’re glorifying it. Like there’s yelling and screaming and throwing and stuff like that. If you acted like that today in a professional kitchen, Half your staff would walk out, and then the ones that walk out, they’d probably get sued because you have to put them through counseling and get them back on the track again. It’s a different world now, right? So I believe two things. Number one, I came up in that world where I think that we were overworked and underpaid, right? And the money that we were making, we were just making money for an owner, right? Right, right. All of a sudden we get to a point like today in Chicago we’ve got $30 dishwashers over here. Really? Think about that brother. $30 dishwashers. Now and I don’t know like the guy’s probably pretty well known and there’s not he’s not the only one anymore but the first guy that came out was a guy named Jonathan Goldsmith who owns Spakanopoli in Chicago. Very historic Neapolitan pizzeria. He was one of the first in the country to have a wood-fired oven, let alone an AVPN and APN certification, right? So all of a sudden, a guy like this is putting it out there that he just put $30 dishwashers on. And everybody in the industry is like, how the hell can you pay a dishwasher hour $30 when I got saute guys that are making $20, can $21 work a range on a Friday, Saturday night and every single one of those burners is full. How are you going to pay your dishwasher more than that? And Jonathan was, was amazing because it was very simple. He’s like, look, I’m not going to be the guy that’s after going to jump into that pit and finish up the dishes. I’m not going to send my saute guys after a crazy night shift into the pit. So we got everybody together in the kitchen and we talked about the dishwasher shortage because it was a big thing in our world. It’s hard to find dishwashers, right? And it was almost unanimous, give these guys the money because we don’t want to be the ones doing it. Now, don’t get me wrong. We all started out washing dishes, right? And we all know, yeah, absolutely. You’re in a business, you’re gonna wash some dishes. It’s not above anybody, right? But to be, like to get your ass handed to you on a Friday Saturday night and now all of a sudden it’s like 11 o’clock and things are starting to slow down the kitchen is starting to get knocked down and you can’t see the dishwashing area or scullery because there’s mountains of stuff that need to still go through the system right and you know you’re going to be there till 2 a.m you know what are you going to do you’re either going to jump in right or You’re going to get a couple rock stars that are really good, give them the money, and at the end of the night, guess what? Everybody’s happy. Jonathan, just in his case, as soon as he told his guy, the guy that was going to get the money, the guy looked at him and says, you know what? I’m going to take all the shifts, and by the way, Don’t hire anybody else because it was a family member a cousin a brother whoever it was He’s gonna take all the shifts that I can’t take and between the two of us We’re gonna handle the entire week and you never have to think about a dish in this place So thinking about it in that respect is 30 bucks an hour a lot. I don’t think it’s a lot No a job that’s critical just as critical as I would say a front of the house manager and I would say as your rockstar skilled line guy, right?
40:15 – Jim Serpico
They’re all critical in that business because it’s a, again, there’s such an analogy to making TV shows in this business. You can’t get through the night without someone doing that role.
40:27 – Chef Leo
That’s right. And you need it all day long, all night long. It’s the guy, it’s a critical piece of our business, right? So to say that everybody collectively got together and said, give the guy the money, All of a sudden, if you are sitting at two o’clock in the morning as an owner in the dish pit, you’d be like, you know what? For five extra bucks an hour, I’m the asshole for not giving the guy the money, right? And you’re cutting through it. Well, let that alone. All of a sudden now, You’ve got a lot of people in our world that are a lot of really great workers. You’re making the analogy about your son, right? You have a lot of great workers that all of a sudden during COVID were at a point where they got sent home, right? There was no job. There was no work. A lot of the heroes in the industry didn’t rely on PPP money. They gave their employees that security to say, I’m going to cover you. To get through this. Now, nobody knew how long it was gonna take, and a lot of them ended up saying, you know what, I can’t sustain this anymore. I’m gonna have to pull back. And a lot of those employees went into other industries, and they figured out that if they stayed home, they could hone another skill, or realize that they were good at something else, right? And everything started opening back up again. They went into the workforce as newly educated or inspired somewhere else, and they went into other industries that welcomed them with open arms. And unfortunately in the restaurant business, all everybody ever heard was, it’s dirty, nobody speaks English, you’re working when everybody else is having fun. And again, unless it’s in the fabric of your soul that you love to cook or you love to do this industry, if your son’s got it in you, you never think about anything else because it’s always like, like it’s me when I’m home on a Saturday for some reason, right? And I’m going through Costco with my wife and kids and I feel that guilt, right? It’s like 11 o’clock. I should be prepping something, getting ready for dinner, right? Or a Friday or Saturday night when you’re not working and it’s that guilt that you feel because this is something that’s part of us. It never goes away. So how do you inspire your son to say you got to gain your chops. You got to grind it out. It’s going to suck. Right. But if you can get through this part that we’re finally paying people what they’re worth. Right. Because the reality of it is nobody’s coming to work for 12 to 15 bucks an hour anymore. Right. So if it’s somebody that has skills, they know how to make a pizza or they know how to hold a knife. Let’s call it the most basic thing. They know how to hold a knife and they’ve been around before. They got the right shoes on. Let’s talk about how we’re going to inspire that guy to get him to the next level. And this comes down to the professionalism of the chef, the executive chef’s role, the ownership, the management of those restaurants. And I know people like Going back in Chicago guys like I don’t know if you know who Derek tongue is he owns Pauly G’s here in Chicago, right? I know Pauly G’s but I didn’t know his name So Pauly G’s in New York Pauly guy Pauly stepped in shit when he found Derek or Derek found him Derek was a guy that started out in the the medical world he was studying to be a doctor or maybe even was a doctor already and decided that he wanted to get into the pizza business and I made friends with Paulie G and said, I’m going to open up a franchise and opened up in Chicago. Here’s a guy that not only survived COVID, right? And the pandemic and pivoted, he closed his dining room, redid the entire front windows of his restaurant, boarded things up, recreated windows and went to a slice counter and had people six feet separated down the freaking street to get slices, right? And on top of it, I can remember Derek telling me stories that he made friends with some of these doctors from his past life that went and told him how to separate his employees inside the building so that nobody was cross-contaminating each other. And you remember all that crazy, we were all gonna die, remember? It was so nuts, we didn’t know nothing, right? But he was one of those guys that figured out how his people were his most important asset, right? And then all of a sudden, it’s like Derek’s employees are like family, right? And everybody walks around with that same thing. And I guarantee, at least I don’t know of them, but I guarantee that there’s not one guy that’s gonna leave Derek and Pauly G in Chicago, Logan Square, to go for a dollar more down the street to somebody else. Right? Because it’s that culture and how you’re treating. And again, the world you’ve built that person or that security, you’ve put that roof over their head saying, look, we’re going to have good days and bad days, but guess what? We’re all going to do it together. Right? And if you need a shoulder to cry in, I’m here. Remember back in the, you actually don’t know back in the day. Back in the day, we say, you know, if you’re going to go cry, go cry in the walk-in. Right? And if you’re going to be upset, are you going to have a screaming match with somebody? The walk-in was like our war room. Because nobody else could hear you. And nobody else could see you. And if somebody opened the door, literally it’d be another guy saying, close that freaking door. So again, this is where it comes down to the brotherhood and now sisterhood. So how is your son, if he’s truly got it in him that he wants to be in this, I think it’s more important to say, how did you find a home that can groom you and teach you enough to get you to the next level. And it might not be in that same restaurant, but it might be that the next one he goes to, now with a new set of skills, that now that next restaurateur is saying, man, this guy’s already been in. He knows the ins and outs. He knows what he has to do this time and where to go here and where to put his feet now. If it’s in front of an oven making pizzas or if it’s in a kitchen or prepping, that next guy is going to say, this guy’s worth the money. Give them the money, right?
47:10 – Jim Serpico
Let me ask you a question. I don’t mean to cut you off, but how important, and when you do Pizza University and teach, because I hear people say that the food is a given that it’s going to be good. That’s the price of entry. Then there’s the whole other side of the business and even the management of the employees that you were just talking about. Do you guys get into that?
47:35 – Chef Leo
Absolutely. We actually, uh, it’s, it’s sold out class. You can’t even get it anymore. Even the waitlist, we actually stopped putting people on the waitlist. Like, um, next week, this coming week, actually this week, um, we’ve got, um, John arena, Giulio Andreani and Scott Weiner. Doing a class called Smart Start. And it’s a business class. Yeah, they’re gonna teach you pizzas and they’re gonna do New York and Julio’s gonna, you know, John’s doing New York and Julio does, you know, Neapolitan and pre-ferments and Scott talks about everything. Scott’s amazing too, he’s a freaking brain. And they spent three days talking about How to look at your PNL or what’s a P mix report or how do you sign a right lease? Right and when I talk about like and I had my own school, right? I had I had what was considered the greatest school in the country I just had an asshole for a business partner, right and I don’t know what they’re doing over there now They still got the doors open and they’re still taking people’s money. Don’t know what what’s going on in there But I can just tell you like this The level that I play at and the level that I want to put things out to the public at, all of a sudden Pizza University has turned into the all-star game, right? And there’s a reason why everybody rallies around that because we’re not talking about a flour company or an oven company or a brand. As educators, if you’re going to teach people how to do something the right way, you have to be neutral and you got to give them enough information and enough tools so that when they leave your class, they can go out into the world and start now educated looking into what they like the best. It doesn’t matter what I like, Right? And there’s always different needs. Like, it’s impossible to say, I use one kind of flour, or I use one kind of oven. You can’t, because it’s not, the world isn’t built like that.
49:42 – Jim Serpico
Our world isn’t built like that. That is one of the problems I have, though, with some people at a high level. Because they’re sponsored, and I’ve seen it happen recently, all of a sudden, Stanislav saw sucks because they were dropped by them or got a new sponsorship deal. But it’s disingenuous to the people watching them on social media.
50:08 – Chef Leo
And I think that this was a big thing for me as well. And I wasn’t aware of it until other people made me aware of what was coming down the pipe, right? The higher you get or the more people that watch what you’re doing, the more value you have to a lot of these companies. And I can remember, I can remember days when I would have, at my school, a UPS package show up with my name on it, right? I wasn’t expecting a package. You open up a box, and there’s another box inside. And it’d be like a case of tomatoes with an envelope taped to it. And you open it up, and guess what? There’s a little note and a check. And we’d love for you to use these in your next class or tell us what you think. And if you wouldn’t mind, would you put something on social media for us? And I would literally put everything back in a box the way it was. I’d walk outside to the dumpster and I’d throw the whole thing in because there’s no integrity in that. Right.
51:09 – Jim Serpico
And if I’m going to have deals, don’t you?
51:12 – Chef Leo
I make, I have deals, yes. But when you come to one of my classes, unless you specifically ask me about something personal that I’m doing, I’ll tell you what it is. But when you come to my class and if you ask me a question about tomatoes, guess what I’m going to give you the answer on? I’m going to let you know what the difference is between a San Marzano tomato from Campania to a Roma tomato that comes from Parma, right? And the difference between a domestic tomato from California that comes from Modesto County, right? And if I do my job right, all of a sudden when you go out into the world and you say, hey, I’m going to make this next pizza, right? And I’m going to look at all these tomatoes that came from Modesto, right? Or now there’s other places that they come from, right? In the States. And I’m going to get a bunch of samples. Or I’m going to buy a can of this, I buy a can of that, and I’m going to make some sauce. At the end of the day, you’re gonna know specifically what you liked and what worked best for you Without me having to push somebody else’s agenda on you, right?
52:21 – Jim Serpico
I don’t believe any of these people tell me I use Muti Muti is great.
52:27 – Chef Leo
I mean, I tell you this I grew up on Muti and coming from Italy this is Let’s call it 2014, 15, when I started going to Italy, taking classes, started getting into stuff, right, before I got hardcore. Coming back to the States, and really, the only guys that were here were Stanislav. We saw Eskalon once in a while, right? You know, the difference between, what’s the difference between a 7-11 and a 6-1, right? They’re both basically, they come from a, they’re separated, the farms are separated by a dirt road. It’s like wine.
53:03 – Jim Serpico
It’s like wine. It’s like Sonoma region.
53:05 – Chef Leo
And exactly right. So when you get into tomato country, right? How do you say that one is better than the other? They’re not that one is better than the other. They all have a certain need. They have a certain use, right? So to me, it’s if I could tell you this is what you should be aware of Do you like a tomato with a skin on it or not? Do you like seeds inside there or not? Do you want them ground fine, smooth, or do you want a tomato that’s got some pulp in it, right? When I came from Italy, The closest thing that I could find at that time to an Italian tomato that I saw there was Mutti. And it just happened to be in every grocery store that I was at. Right?
53:46 – Unidentified Speaker
Right.
53:46 – Chef Leo
So Mutti’s great. It’s got its purpose in the market. But if you know the difference between a tomato from Parma, which I’ve got a giant tattoo on my neck that says Parma on it, right? I spent a lot of time in the region of Emilia-Romagna as I went to pizza school and learned. I mean, if you’re into gastronomy, this is the center of the universe for us, right?
54:11 – Jim Serpico
Wow. I would love to do something like that.
54:14 – Chef Leo
It’s an amazing experience if you haven’t traveled, not as a tourist, but as a student, right? Right. And to learn what the difference between that Mutti Tomato is that came from Parma versus a tomato that comes from Campania that’s sitting right on the border of the, right on the equator that, you know, it’s a totally different climate. It’s dry, it’s hot, right? The variety of tomato is different than the Roma tomato, which is this cousin of, let’s say the, or the plum tomatoes, kind of our cousin of our Roma tomato. You have things that have affected the climate, right? So when you get to Parma, right, that whole, That whole area sits kind of like in this valley. And up above you’ve got this cool air that comes in through the trees, through the forest. And all of a sudden that cool air ends up in the valley where you’ve got all this intense sun on top of it. And it causes a lot of fog, a lot of rain. Travel through Bologna any time of the year. Right? And you better have an umbrella with you just because it rains a lot. It’s cold. It’s humid. Climate is different than it is in the Southern part of Italy. Why does Modesto County work so well for growing tomatoes? Because it’s got a lot of that, um, a lot of those conditions that are already there. No different than growing grapes, right? When you’re in wine country. So, that tomato that comes from Northern Italy is sweeter, right? It’s a different type of tomato. It doesn’t have that acidity in the background, right? Right. So a lot of people love Mutti tomatoes, and there’s a bunch of others, and the Mutti’s not the only one, right?
55:58 – Jim Serpico
Sure. There’s a lot of other varieties. That’s what I was introduced to early, and I loved it.
56:01 – Chef Leo
Yeah, and because it was a good Italian tomato, right? Yeah. When you all of a sudden, you get a real San Marzano, a real San Marzano, not a scam Marzano, right? That tomato has acidity to it. And people aren’t aware that that’s the way that tomato is supposed to taste. And when all of a sudden you start telling them about Mount Vesuvius blowing up, and all that volcanic material ended up in that soil, and now those tomatoes are growing, it’s a very different fertile soil. There’s no cool weather. It’s hot. Even in what we would consider the wintertime in Napoli, it’s still hot, right? So you’ve got a different climate in the South. All of a sudden, make a margarita pizza with a real San Marzano tomato. It balances out with that Fior di Latte, that fresh mozzarella, and it kind of yin and yangs each other. Right? Right. Where you make the same exact margarita, same oven, same flour, same everything. Just change the tomato to something that’s more Northern Italian. And the whole profile of that pizza changes. No different than if you ever got like a, there’s tomatoes out there from Sardinia, right? Sardinia is a little island and there’s so much salt inside that soil that if you ever ate a tomato from the ground in Sardinia, it almost tastes like raw tomatoes taste like You’ve put some salt on it that you could taste the salt, right? So it’s like those are the types of lessons that I think that people need to learn about and not so much about the brands, right? Yeah, a brand like you start talking about Stanislaus, it’s been around for 200,000 years, whatever it’s been there, you know, when I was a kid Stanislaus was around, right? So why have they been around so long? Well, all of a sudden you start to see that the technology as it evolved and how they’re able to get a tomato from the plant and into the can in like hours. It’s amazing.
58:01 – Jim Serpico
Or the bag.
58:02 – Chef Leo
Or the bag, right? A lot of those things. And there’s a lot of companies that have gone through the bag. We’re even seeing flour in bags now. I like the bag, personally.
58:09 – Jim Serpico
I don’t use it, but if I had a brick and mortar, I’d rather save space and use the bag. Sure, sure.
58:14 – Chef Leo
And this gets into, again, a whole conversation about why you chose to go with something over another, not because all the cool kids are pushing it down your throat, right?
58:25 – Jim Serpico
Well, I also, I don’t trust people’s agendas. Some people just were told by someone else who had an agenda and they believe it. Like I just had someone tell me, oh so-and-so says Pizza Master sucks. You could only go with the other, who’s it, Mar Forney?
58:45 – Chef Leo
There’s probably at least a dozen of them.
58:50 – Jim Serpico
But I think it’s the same thing. It’s like, what was that person’s actual agenda? Do they have a sponsorship deal? Are they just shitting on the oven? I think it’s the same thing. You have to try it yourself and make your own decision and not believe everybody.
59:01 – Chef Leo
I think that this is where you get into the point of, can you buy a car for $15,000 could you buy a car for $50,000?
59:15 – Chef Leo
And the argument’s like, well, I’m just going back and forth to work. I need to turn the key. It’s got to start. All I want to do is put gas in it and I’m good. Right. Is that car just as good as the $50,000 one? Right. And it’s the same thing when you talk about equipment, right? When you get into like that, well, caterers, caterers, what I was thinking.
59:36 – Jim Serpico
Sure. I mean, you could get a regular.
59:39 – Chef Leo
So talking about ovens, right? When you get into it, now we start talking about. This is another core piece of your business. It’s a piece of equipment that’s probably going to be on for 12 hours a day. And everything that you do is probably going to pass through it or a majority is going to pass through that oven. So if you built your restaurant to be gorgeous, to look like the Taj Mahal and you spent all your money on decor and now you’re coming back saying, you know what, I’m on a budget and I only got this much to spend on my equipment now. There are brands that are considered more value, right? That we say, all right, why are they more value, right? If it’s an electric oven, let’s stick with the pizza master, right? And Mara and Moretti and Castelli’s and there’s so many, we could probably name a dozen of them if we put our heads together, right? But then all of a sudden we say, well, why is this one oven 50, 60 grand and this other one’s And then you start to look at the way they’re built, right? And now you start to see, well, this one’s all stainless steel and this one’s galvanized aluminum. And this one, the floor is two and a half inches thick and the elements are actually inside the stone on the floor, right? And all of a sudden you start doing all those comparisons and you can start to see, well, I know where I’m spending my money when I spend it on and it’s because dot dot dot, right? What’s the benefit of having an all stainless oven compared to something that’s aluminum, right? It’s heat retention. At the end of the day, that heat is costing you money. The more you have to keep heating that oven up, the more money it’s going to cost you, right? So either you’re going to save some money up in the front and pay in the long run, or you’re going to buy it the right way up front, make an investment, And now the return on your investment comes every single day when that oven is running more efficiently. Right. So the correct thing is not to say, Oh, I use pizza master because whatever reason or pizza master pays me or whoever it might be, which I will tell you that a lot of those companies don’t pay guys. Right.
1:01:55 – Jim Serpico
So they give them the ovens, right?
1:01:58 – Chef Leo
Not always. Not always. Sometimes you see that deals are being made that it’s like, you know what? Send me 10 referrals, I’ll give you 500 bucks for every referral you send me, like a bird dog, right? And then I’ll give you a credit when you go to buy yours. Or I’ll give you a really nice discount, right? Because of who you are. But to me, every time I’ve done stuff, I know a lot of people will say in the contrary that, oh, we all get free equipment. It’s not always like that. A lot of times when the free stuff comes, it’s, you know, what do I have to do? Is it really free, right? And if I gotta go and pour myself out and say that, oh, this is the best of the best, blah, blah, because, right? I know guys that go to trade shows and they gotta work then. Those deals that they’ve made, they have to put their face in front of whatever they said, right? And all of a sudden you see the magic that they have to do to make those ovens perform the way they have to perform, or to make a flower perform the way it has to perform, or a tomato, right? And all of a sudden, it’s like, you know what? This is not the professionalism anymore. This is just you being a whore, right? Exactly.
1:03:13 – Jim Serpico
They’re out there.
1:03:14 – Chef Leo
They’re out there. But again, I think that this is why we see that people have the reputations that they have. Sometimes if a guy looks and sounds like a used car salesman, guess what, right? And a lot of people will say that to me because I can go in front of two, three hundred people and talk for two and a half hours without stopping. And people will tell, oh, this guy’s a, you know, all he knows to do is just talk, right?
1:03:40 – Jim Serpico
Right.
1:03:41 – Chef Leo
And on the other side of it, though, it’s like, you know what? But if you listen to the message, I’m not I’m not selling you anything. I’m giving you the keys to go out and figure out somebody’s trying to pull the wool over your eyes and how to figure out, hey, that’s a myth or I’m going to help you debunk it, right?
1:04:00 – Jim Serpico
That’s awesome. That’s it, man. Chef Leo, I got a couple quick questions before we wrap it up. Go ahead, man. I want to get into some actual baking questions. Awesome. In terms of Neapolitan or margarita pizza, basil, pre-bake or post-finishing?
1:04:20 – Chef Leo
So this is funny because I get this question a lot, actually. I’m an ambassador for the United States, for the AVPN, the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana, right? The traditional method, according to the disciplinaria, is to put the basil on the pizza and bake it with it. But you have to remember that we’re running our ovens between 850 degrees Fahrenheit plus, right? When I’m working an oven, when I’m a fortnigho, which is actually my favorite role on the pizza line, I feel like anybody can make a pizza. To me, I get off on being able to work at 1000 degrees, 1100 degrees. So my margarita is not baking in 90 seconds. I’m probably closer to 65, 70 seconds. Right? Wow. Multiple pizzas in an oven at a time. So think about this. If you were to take fresh basil, take a pot of boiling water, and throw that basil in the water for 30 seconds and pull it out. What color is the basil?
1:05:18 – Chef Leo
Bright green. I would think green. Yeah, bright green. Because like when you blanch anything, it doesn’t matter if it’s basil or if it’s broccolini, rapini, whatever you want. Throw it in some boiling water for 30 seconds, pull it out, and all of a sudden you’re going to see that that color green has become more vibrant. So as that pizza goes into the oven, the pizza’s not coming out at 850 degrees, right? It’s just very intense heat. To get us to the finish line. So to me, when you see that basil on top of the pizza, it looks like it’s bright green, right? And it’s cooked properly, and it’s part of the pizza. The problem is, is when you see somebody doing, let’s say, a Neo Neapolitan, which all, it’s the same exact dough, same exact everything, but we’re turning the oven down to 700, 750 degrees.
1:06:07 – Chef Leo
Right? Why? Because in the American market or in most markets outside of this, outside of Napoli, people like a pizza that’s more brown. It’s more crispy. So going from a 90 second bake to a two minute bake, right? That extra little bit of time is making that crispier pizza. But that extra little bit of time will also give you some charred looking edges, maybe to the edge of your basil.
1:06:35 – Jim Serpico
Or if you go on Breaker’s Pride 500 degrees, it’s actually burning the basil.
1:06:40 – Chef Leo
Yeah, because now you’ve gone from two minutes to six to eight minutes at 500 degrees. It’s a totally different pizza, right?
1:06:48 – Jim Serpico
So that’s where the finishing comes in.
1:06:50 – Chef Leo
Yes, but it’s also one of those things that it drives me insane when I see that somebody will take a pizza out of the oven and then they lay those three or four leaves of basil on top of the pizza. First of all, when you cut that pizza, who’s eating that whole leaf of basil in their mouth? Right? But, when you see it, by the time it hits the table, the residual heat from that pizza has actually turned that basil grayish brown. Right? Black. So, to me, it’s not appetizing anymore. It’s not appealing. So again, I would rather say that I took the basil, put it on top of the sauce. Now if I’m using Fior di Latte, fresh mozzarella, I’m going to lay those bits of mozzarella on top of the basil, kind of protecting it a little bit more. Right? So I still am one of those guys that prefers the basil to go on during the bake. You get the flavors, the aromatic of the basil. Right? Instead of as a finishing step where it’s treated as a garnish. Right? And most of the time, by the time it gets to the table, those people who are putting that full leaf of basil on top of that pizza and sending it to the table, what’s the customer doing? They’re usually pushing it to the side and not eating it. Right? It’s like curly parsley. It’s a garnish. So, I think to me, I would rather say treat the ingredient as an ingredient. If you’re going to put bacon in a Baker’s Pride or a Blodgett or, you know, a Marsala or whatever, and it’s going to take six, eight minutes on top of a cheese pizza, well then just put it on top of the sauce. Cover it with the mozzarella. It’ll be still bright green, colorful, flavorful, everything you want. Right? And at the end of the day, it’s now treated the best way that ingredient can be treated.
1:08:41 – Jim Serpico
That’s awesome. Now, uh, another issue. I have $20 left over from that party. Can I freeze them?
1:08:53 – Chef Leo
Yes.
1:08:53 – Jim Serpico
And can I feel good about using them this Wednesday?
1:08:56 – Chef Leo
So, if you had, uh, your party was yesterday, it was on Saturday, and now that dough is all sitting left over.
1:09:04 – Jim Serpico
We actually froze 14 of them as a test. We put them in pint containers.
1:09:09 – Chef Leo
If that dough ever came out of the cooler and was proofed, some sketchy stuff’s going to happen by Wednesday. The biggest things that happened is that that yeast was active. That yeast only knows how to do one thing. Yeast eats sugar. And if you know anything about fermentation, what’s fermentation? Fermentation is literally yeast eating sugar to give off carbon dioxide and ethyl alcohol. Right? Very different than maturation. Your dough sitting from Saturday to Wednesday is the total maturation. 5 days, 7 days, whatever it might be. Right? So, when we start to hear on social media that somebody’s like, oh yeah, I got a six day fermentation and all this other stuff, and it’s like, this guy’s an idiot, you don’t know what you’re talking about, right? Because fermentation is physically talking about yeast eating sugar. It’s got nothing to do with time, right? But, getting back to that comment, if you had that dough sitting out now for six hours, until you got it back into the cooler, that yeast has been eating sugar. If you have a flour, that’s not malted, meaning that there’s no barley malt to help color at the end as a reserve, all of a sudden you can bake and bake and bake that pizza and it’s never going to turn brown because there’s no more sugars to caramelize. They call it the Maillard effect. Right? So in that same breath, could you say that, yes, I’m going to take my dough from Saturday, put it back in the cooler. The dough balls still look like they’re nice and puffy. I’m not going to disturb them and use them on Wednesday. Yes, you could try it, but what’s going to happen is two things. Number one, you’re probably not going to see a lot of color during your bake. Number two, if you haven’t selected a flour to do that job, meaning that it’s not high enough in protein, right? It’ll probably end up just collapsing itself and then looking kind of gummy on the inside, right? Or undercooked. Um, as far as baking goes, I’m sorry, as far as freezing goes, the rule that I teach everybody is that if you’re going to freeze dough, it’s always better to freeze a dough with fresh yeast as compared to dry yeast because fresh yeast is made up of 80% water and that water is helping protect that yeast to survive the freezing process. If you were to call your, um, uncle Red Star, and ask one of their techs what they’ll say, they would probably tell you that a frozen dough is only good for about 30 days. Because it’s very difficult for all that yeast to survive that extreme cold.
1:11:49 – Jim Serpico
Right? So a week is okay maybe.
1:11:52 – Chef Leo
A week is fine, up to 30 days is even fine. But it’s always best to take that dough when it’s at its peak, that if it’s never left the cooler, freeze them flat. Yeah. What does that mean? It means like if you don’t have a giant walk-in freezer, put the doughs on a sheet pan, cover them with plastic so they’re not going to get a skin, probably put a little bit of oil on the top of each dough ball, almost like when we do a New York dough, and then stick it in the freezer in a single layer. Once they’re frozen solid, stick them into individual portion bags, tie them in a knot, Now you can load them up in a box to save space, right? And then the night before your event, right, take those doughs.
1:12:34 – Unidentified Speaker
Now they’ve got a flat side on them because you froze them flat. They weren’t sitting like on a bag of peas that’s all kind of like distorted and deformed now. Put them inside the dough box exactly in the pattern that you would have put them in. Leave them in the cooler overnight and now the next day they’ll be just like a pretty close to a fresh dough. The same thing I do if I’m doing a mobile event, right? How do you extend the shelf life of a dough when it’s 85, 90, 100 degrees outside, right? Well, sometimes that frozen dough could be your best friend because that frozen dough, if you left it on a sheet pan on a bakery cart in your kitchen, will probably, I don’t know, probably thaw out in about three hours, four hours. Well, now you pull them out of the freezer, you put them on a truck, at 8 o’clock and you say look I gotta be ready for service by 11 well guess what the first dough balls are probably thawed enough for you to get into them and now throughout the rest of the day you’ve extended the life because you’ve got this beautiful cold dough that’s slowly warming up the same thing goes how do you keep If you don’t have access to refrigeration, you can figure out all your dough balls. How do you refrigerate your dough balls? Another trick that I do is take your dough boxes, right? You need a surplus of extras, but put ice packs or ice in between every layer of dough, right? That’s good. So ice, dough box, ice, dough box, and keep alternating them like this. And it’ll act as refrigeration for you too. And then you’re still going to have to take it because it gets really cold, right? So your dough stays really cold that way. But in that same breath, now take three, four dough boxes at a time, pull them off the stack and put them on the line. And they’ll be at their peak when you’re ready to start stretching them. That’s good stuff, man. All right, Chef Leo, I think we could go on and on, but we’re going to give it a wrap up right now. Nice to talk to you, man. It’s been a pleasure to talk to you. You as well. I’m sure I’ll see you around, and I appreciate you coming on, buddy.
1:14:39 – Unidentified Speaker
This episode of Bread for the People was brought to you by Side Hustle Bread, Long Island’s handcrafted artisanal bread company. Side Hustle Bread is a family-run business that’s bringing the neighborhood feel back to Long Island, one loaf at a time. If you like what you’re hearing, don’t forget to head on over to iTunes and rate and review this episode. Reviewing and rating is the most effective way to help us grow our audience. This episode was produced by Milestone TV and Film. I’m your host, Jim Serpico. Blessed be the bread, everyone.
