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A Pizza Story

I was 7 or 8 years old when I got my first taste of life in a pizzeria. My mother had gotten a job there to bring in extra money for our family. I stayed with her at work most days and was basically treated as family. I played with my toys in the flour that dropped out of the giant Hobart mixer and was swept into a pile for my trucks to drive through. The owner's son and I would have all sorts of fun. What good days.

 

It wasn’t always playtime though. I helped. You were an extra set of hands. Older Italians worked hard and so did the kids. The owner’s father, “Pop,” as we all called him, made dough every day at 3. Just in time for me to walk up from school. I was expected to help and never refused. My first experience of work. How wonderful the dough felt. Little did I know that I would spend the next 20 years of my life there.

  

I clawed my way up. From the bottom rung as a dishwasher, to the top as a manager. I learned to love the gritty life in the kitchen; the banter, the foul language and the uncut ways of being straightened out and kept in line. It’s hard to leave. I didn’t. It was competitive, it was a proving ground, not only to others but to yourself. Checks lined and stacked for what seemed like eternity. Sweltering summers, frigid winters. The kitchen was like a tide. Could you roll with it or be swept away? So many people came and went it was mind blowing. They couldn’t take it. I had the drive, the desire, to be the best I could be. I came home after work and read culinary books until the morning hours. I practiced outside of work. It was more than a job. It was my destiny.

 

About 10 years in, the opportunity to make pizza presented itself. Up until then it didn’t seem like a real chance. Pizza makers are a proud bunch, loyal not only to their employer, but to their craft. They took the utmost care of their tools, their duties and finally, their pizza. Once they settled in, they stayed. Theirs was a foundation made solid by the craft. They loved it. If you found yourself lucky enough to have stayed the course long enough, prove yourself by performing anything asked, and by showing a commitment to excellence in your own work, you might get lucky enough to be invited to make a pizza or better yet, be the pizza maker.

 

After all of that time, pizza was just part of the flow. Nothing special. Just another factor to time your own orders with so they were prepared at precisely the same time. That is, until you make one.

 

Something about it made sense, a connection, an energy. It’s unmistakable. It’s you, the dough, the oven. Nothing else matters. The dough is alive. You have to nurture it. Care for it and you will be rewarded. Ignore it and you will be disappointed. It’s an artist’s canvas, the peel is the easel, the sauce and cheese, the paint. It springs to life in the oven, reactions happen, colors blend and pop. It transforms into beautiful life. Once out of the oven, the maker looks upon it as if a child, proud and inspired. The cycle continues.

 

And now as fate would have it, I have found myself back to finish my career where I started. Fueled by passion and nostalgia for things and feelings once lost to time. Hoping to create as many memories for others as I have been so blessed to have received.

 

Anthony

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