In Defense of Pi

...the pizzeria, not the number. I suspect 3.14159...can hold its own.

So, Pi is a pizza place in St. Louis that specializes in deep dish. You may recall the kerfuffle back when Obama shanked Chicago in the heart by calling it the best deep dish he'd ever had. Pi is pretty damn good, so we were happy to hear that Pi would be opening a DC outpost around the same time we moved out here.

We ate at Pi DC a few weeks ago. To clarify: I, not a Chicago native, ate there with three Chicago natives. Who love their deep dish. We all found it extremely tasty, though I thought they were still ramping up to full Pi deliciousness as compared to their St. Louis locations. I didn't take any photos, and didn't blog about it. So why now?

One of my fellow dining companions from that night emailed me the WaPo food critic's assessment of Pi DC.

I generally appreciate food critics in the cities we've lived. We've been lucky to have a slew of good ones- Jason Sheehan, before he moved on to Seattle; Katharine Shilcutt in Houston; Ian Froeb in St. Louis. You may note these are all the alt paper critics: somewhere along the way, we discovered they represented our food interests better than the newspaper critics. Perhaps that's my problem with Mr. Sietsema. I'm still trying to figure out the DC food scene, and what perspective everyone brings to the table. But this review just leaves me puzzled.

First, I think there are some unreasonable expectations. We're talking about deep dish born in St. Louis, purporting to be Chicago-style. As anyone familiar with restaurants should know, cuisine is a product of where it's created. Go try some Italian food in St. Louis, for example. No Italian would ever mistake it for their cuisine. Frankly, I'm from America and had trouble recognizing it as Italian food. It's not Italian food; it's St. Louis-style Italian food. Think deep-fried, breaded ravioli ("T-ravs"), pasta cooked to death, thin, sweetish red sauce on everything. It's peculiar, and some of it is disgusting, but you can see clearly the blending of Italian ingredients with Midwestern sensibilities.

Now let's talk about deep dish. I've only had it in Chicago a few times, but it has a few distinctive characteristics. The biggest one, I think, is density. Chicago deep dish is a meal. Eating an entire pie might kill you. They're laden with cheese and meat, and collapse into an oozy, artery-clogging pile on your plate. The crust is crisp, and has a deep-fried appearance that often spits grease as you bite in.

If we're talking "authentic", I'd say the best deep dish in St. Louis is actually from Black Thorn Pub. It's dense, it's oozy, one slice hits you like a load of bricks to the head. Jon had two, and had to go home and pass out afterward.

I guess all this leads up to the big tell: Pi isn't really Chicago-style deep dish. It's *better* than Chicago-style deep dish. If St. Louis didn't already have an eponymous pizza style, this stuff could hold its own. Maybe a better name would be "St. Louis deep dish"?

So what's different about it? It's less dense. It's a drier pie. Less sauce, less cheese, but still more of both than a conventional pizza. It tastes healthier, even if it's probably not. That alone to me means it's not real Chicago-style deep dish. The crust is better, too- it keeps the crispiness, and a light greasy sheen, but it's no longer soaked in the stuff.

So why do these dumb Chicagoans in DC seem to love it if it's not Chicago-style, and if it's allegedly *SO* awful? I have two theories that I think explain it better than delusional "homesickness".

1)The urban professional class (ie, Pi DC's target market) is more concerned about their health, generally speaking, than Midwesterners. Pi's pizza has healthier topping options, and tastes less greasy, than most of what's available in Chicago. Chicago transplants enjoy the nostalgia of deep dish, in a tastier, possibly healthier package, maybe more than they would enjoy the real thing if it were available.

2)Expectations. I've lived in Texas, I know great barbecue. Do I expect to find it in DC? No. Would I be really happy to find good barbecue, even if it's not Luling City? Would I maybe go a little crazy and evangelize about how awesome it is? Um, yeah.

And sure, there's a little homesickness wrapped up in it, too. I can't help but wonder what Minnesota-raised Sietsema's review would look like should a hot dish place open in the District.

Funky Pizza at Home

For dinner, I had homemade pizza and beer from TJ's.



The pizza started as an adventure, and ended as an adventurous mistake. I didn't feel like opening a can of pasta sauce, or using the sketchy ("craz-ee"?) HFCS-laced tomato sauce can leftover from a Chef Boyardee Pizza Kit. Instead, I attempted a sweet-savory sauce by mixing dijon mustard with boysenberry preserves. I topped it with pesto chicken sausage from TJ's and some Kraft sprinkle cheese (I know, I know, naughty food blogger). The whole thing looked a little sparse, so I poked around in the refrigerator. I try not to keep cheese in there, because I love it way too much- I could live happily forever on a diet of cave-aged Gruyere, dark chocolate, and red wine. As you may have guessed, I used the Kraft cheese because we had none. Except. There, in a back corner, I found a plastic tub of blue cheese left over from this Superbowl weekend dip. I dumped the rest on my pizza. MISTAKE.

I hate blue cheese. Jon hates blue cheese. Tangy blue cheese + tangy dijon= FAIL. It was kind of overwhelming. On the good side, the dijon/boysenberry mixture would've been really nice without it. And my beer, TJ's Vienna-style lager, was pretty decent as well- we bought their 12/$12.99 mystery pack, and were not disappointed.

PIzza at Home

For dinner, I had homemade pizza with some arugula and a glass of red wine.



On a whim, I decided to try TJ's white (as opposed to their whole wheat) pre-made pizza dough. I'd tried their whole wheat dough before, with unimpressive results, so my expectations weren't high. In my mind, the mere act of making pizza is an apathetic way to clean out the fridge, so my expectations are never terribly high.

I had a disastrous time finding toppings (turns out my fridge wasn't as full of leftovers as I thought), and an even worse time wrangling the dough onto the pizza stone and topping it (as you may recall, I do not own a pizza peel).

And yet, it turned out reasonably well. The crust was perfect- crisp on the outside, chewy and fluffy on the inside. I was very impressed, and wonder if I hated their whole wheat crust because I followed their cooking instructions rather than my gut pizza stone instincts. Next time, I'll try their whole wheat crust, but bake it at a higher temperature and see if it yields better results.

Ooh, pretty crust...



I topped it with a garlic/olive oil sauce, smoked chicken sausage from TJ's, and some baby Swiss left over from a fondue experiment a few weeks back. I wish I'd had another, more assertive cheese to blend with the Swiss. I was trying to get rid of the chicken sausage, because it tastes like hot dogs. Gourmet or not, kosher or not, I do not and have never, ever liked hot dogs. The sausage is slightly better than a hot dog, and tasted fine on the pizza, but it will not be a repeat TJ's purchase.



The wine was Albero tempranillo from TJ's. It's inexpensive(under $6), and made with organic grapes. It's also weird. My best guess is that it's too young to drink. I like tannins, but it's downright bitter, after two hours of breathing.

In other news, I made some muffins this evening. Chocolate chip mini-muffins, with white whole wheat flour. They turned out nicely, except that it is impossible to thoroughly grease my mini-muffin tin without significant effort. And I am lazy. Hence, decapitated mini-muffins.



Also, I am still grossed out about the crappy butter I have.



Yuck. This is the butter with "natural flavors" added that make it smell and taste like movie popcorn butter. Even Jon noticed the weird smell, and he has notoriously bad smelling acuity. It's not terribly noticeable in baked goods, but I'm still irate with Cabot's.

Pizza at Home

For dinner, I had pizza and a glass of malbec.

Pizza is a great way to get rid of lingering leftovers. Plus, I'd heard good things about Trader Joe's pre-made pizza dough and wanted to try it. I chose the whole wheat dough- my whole grain obsession rears its head once again- and paired it with garlicky, herby olive oil. I'm not a huge fan of tomato sauce. I added some chopped roasted red pepper, black oil-cured olives, goat cheese, parmesan cheese, and spicy italian-style chicken sausage.

The toppings were good, and the dough didn't stick to my pizza stone as much as I thought it would. But the dough was barely ok- really dense and grainy. Moreover, it smelled like wet paint when I first removed it from its plastic bag. Too much fermentation? I'm curious to try their white flour dough, but I can make tastier whole-wheat pizza dough at home with my white whole wheat flour.

The malbec was La Finca, also from TJ's, $3.99. There are a lot of gorgeous Argentine malbecs in the $7-10 range, and next time I might just spring for one of them. The La Finca wasn't bad, but it was watery and undistinguished. It reminded me of bad California Pinot Noir.

In other news, I ordered a DSLR. It should arrive tomorrow. I have high hopes for more impressive food photography, and hopefully fewer battery issues. It's used, but 6.2 megapixels is still a step up from 3.1 megapixels.

Pizza in St. Louis

For dinner, I had quasi-homemade St. Louis-style pizza with arugula and red wine.

First, let me digress to point out how ridiculous this article is, particularly in light of its title. More than anything, I think the technique of cooking has been lost. We don't need more recipes, we need explanations and education. Good cookbooks teach technique. If you buy all your cookbooks for recipes alone, perhaps the problem is yours and not the cookbook's. Moreover, if you are a new cook scared off cooking completely by Julia Child's lengthy, detailed recipes (rather than, say, finding a less onerous cookbook), perhaps you are the problem.

So, dinner. I have a fondness for Chef Boyardee's pizza kits which predates both the presence of a Trader Joe's (hello pre-made pizza dough) and also my own extensive pizza-dough-making capabilities. Dates, actually, to the mid-Eighties. Thanks, mom.

The pizza kit, if you are not familiar, consists of a box with crust mix, can of tomato sauce, and Kraft parmesan cheese. It's maybe $2-3 at your local non-posh grocery store. My camera battery died, again, so no photos. The idea is to mix the crust mix with hot water, mix, let rise a few minutes, press into pan, decorate, and bake.

My cooking proclivities, much like Julia Child's cookbook, are not that simple. I modified the process by actually kneading the (very sticky) crust mix, and using olive oil to keep it from sticking. I wanted to use my pizza stone to cook it, but lacked a pizza peel to transfer it into the oven without incident. I improvised by patting the dough out onto the underside of a pan lid, then flipping it upside down over the (pre-heated) pizza stone and peeling it off. I then topped the dough with Trader Joe's rustic pasta sauce (better than the crap tomato goo it comes with), cheese, and vegetarian Italian "sausage", and put the stone back in the oven. Speaking of cheese, St. Louis has its very own pizza cheese. Provel is a processed cheese blend of swiss, white cheddar, and provolone. It melts into a gooey, smoky, buttery mess reminiscent of really, really good spray cheese. Useful but plasticky. Kind of like Velveeta, but tastier. The pizza turned out well...the sausage wasn't quite dry, crispy, or flavorful enough to truly imitate Italian sausage, but it wasn't bad for soy protein, and the pizza stone created a nice crust. The arugula salad nicely balanced the processed cheese's sweetness, and the wine (Nero d'Avola, $6, Trader Joe's) was very jammy, if a little too sweet. Not bad.

Salad isn't always awful

For dinner, I had a summery salad with pizza. They were both from Whole Foods' prepared section. Maybe Whole Foods should hire me to blog for them, it seems like I don't eat anywhere else...

The pizza was ok. It was a personal pizza with goat cheese, mozzarella, and sun-dried tomatoes. I am quite possibly the least observant person alive, so I was halfway through my pizza when I fully realized why it tasted 'different' from normal- I usually get it with fresh tomatoes, not sun-dried. Not a fan of sun-dried tomatoes- too sweet, and they're usually dry and gummy. These were no exception, but I could deal with them.

The salad, however, was fabulous. I wanted a veggie to go with my pizza, and the asparagus-mozzarella-fennel salad looked interesting. I was put off at first by the fact that they used all the stalky chunks of asparagus they probably had leftover from making their roasted asparagus spears. I should probably be happy to see them using their produce efficiently, but god knows what their profit margins are on the $11.99 roasted asparagus already- why must they compound it by putting the leftover stalks into my ($9.99/lb) salad? In any case, the stalks were not woody, as I'd feared, and the salad was perfectly balanced- bright and acidic, with lemon and shallot. It was a little heavy on the onion, and they could've perhaps blanched the fennel to make it less mouth-numbing, but the overall effect was happy and sunny.