Brian's Pizza Recipe

Every recipe on the internet these days is legally required to start with a 10 paragraph essay/backstory about the food/dish. So here we go.

I'll freely admit that during the great quarantine of 2020 l, like so many other Americans, began baking at a feverous pace. But I only found I was interested in baking one thing. That thing was pizza.

It's already established that I like pizza. Even though our local pizza joint was still open during the great quar, I thought to myself "you got a 25 pound bag of flour, if you love it so much why don't you try making it you big doofus". So I did.

At first it was bad. Like inedible. But even the early bad ones made me want to try it again and see if I could make it better/edible. From the time I tried my first pie, I was hooked into pizza making. I read articles, watched videos, became a fanboy of Tom "The Dough Doctor" Lehmann (R.I.P.), and started tweaking variables. Little by little I started to hone things in. I actually kept a pizza diary that served like a chemistry notebook of sorts where I'd track things like the amount of salt I used and the output dough temperature along with how it came out and ideas of what to tweak the next week. I invested in a pizza stone, peel and a reverse spiral dough hook (a must have).

Every Friday I'd make a pizza and learn a little. Slowly I started to understand the things that seemed nebulous months before (e.g. how to judge when the dough has achieved full gluten development). My dough stretching technique got better. I experimented with different cheeses and topping strategies. I discovered that where the pizza was placed it the oven could have a major impact out the outcome depending on the pan/stone.

It was sometime towards the end of 2020 that I made my first pizza that I wouldn't have been disappointed with if I had paid for it. By mid-2021 I was making pizza that I thought was on par with the best pizza places around.

For Christmas 2020, I got a Detroit Style Pizza Pan. I found Detroit Style is a bit more forgiving, and an easier assembly than the rounds. I also benefited from eating it my entire life so I knew what it should taste like, along with the 9 months of dough making that I had under my belt already. In no time I was cranking out excellent Detroit style pizzas. I'll admit that it's not on the same level as Buddy's or Jet's but it is very good.

I think I've made well over 100 pizza's in the past 27 months, and often when eating them people ask me for the recipe. So here it is, but remember, I'm a total amateur who has no real understanding of baking sciences. For real advice ask someone who knows what they're doing, or at least has worked in a pizza place before.

Brian's Traditional Round

Dough Ingredients
Flour - 400g (I've actually not found much difference between high gluten/pizza/all purpose flour)
Yeast - 4g (1% of flour amount)
Water - 252g (63% of flour amount). Use room temperature or slightly colder water. You don't need warm or hot water to activate the yeast. It's an overnight ferment, they yeast will do their job if you trust them.
Salt - 4g (1% of flour amount)
Vegetable Oil - 8g (2% of flour amount)

Process
The night before making pizza make the dough.
1) Add all ingredients except the oil into the mixer bowl (I use a stand mixer). I recommend starting with the water for better mixing.
2) Turn on the stand mixer using a spiral dough hook and let it run on the lowest setting until all the flour is hydrated and the dough has picked up nearly everything off the bottom/side of the mixer bowl into a big blob.
3) Turn off the mixer and let the dough rest for 10-30 minutes depending on how busy you are. When you come back, you should pinch the dough and already see it starting to get doughy and stretchy as those gluten bonds start forming and aligning.
4) Add the oil. I make a little hole like you do in mashed potatoes before adding the gravy. That way it just doesn't coat the bowl making the dough a slide around the bowl.
5) Continue mixing on the lowest speed for about 10 minutes. Once you make a few you'll notice when the dough gets nice and smooth and you've achieved full gluten development. You should be able to stretch it thin enough to see light coming through without it tearing.
6) Pat into a smooth doughball and put it in a covered container. Put it in the fridge until it's pizza time the next day. I don't coat my dough in any oil during the overnight ferment, I did this for awhile and then stopped and didn't notice any difference.
7) Take the dough out a few hours before making the pizza to let it relax and get up to room temperature.
8) Watch a YouTube video on how to open a dough ball into a pizza and then do what they do. 
9) Assemble the pizza with sauce, cheese and toppings. Put the toppings that need to cook the most (mushrooms, green peppers and onions) on top. I used to use a peel and pizza stone but had too many issues transferring between the two, I went back to using a steel pan with holes in the bottom which seems to work pretty well.
10) Bake in a 500 degree oven for 8 minutes or until cheese has brown spots and the crust is golden brown. If the bottom of the crust is too brown, try putting a baking sheet on the rack below, or moving the pizza to the top of the oven. If it's too soft and white, move it to the bottom directly above the heat source. Convection ovens seem to work well too.

Sauce
My wife makes the sauce using a recipe she found online. I don't know that it is or how she does it. So I guess that's the secret ingredient and why your pizza will never be as good as mine. Try adding a bit of black pepper for some extra zest. Seriously.

Cheese
This is open to preference, but I've found the best cheese to be a mix of about 75% mozzarella, and 25% Munster. The Munster really adds a nice nuanced flavor, especially on a white pizza where the cheese takes center stage.

Toppings
Do your thing.

Brian's Detroit Style Pizza
Essentially the same as the round with one major difference - for the amount of water use 68% of the flour weight instead of 63%, I'll also sometimes add a bit extra yeast. It should really rise and double in size. Put the dough in the Detroit style pizza pan (A Detroit style pan from Lloyd's is a must) at least an hour before baking and stretch it to the edges/corners every 10 minutes or so. Remember; dough, then cheese to the edges (for that nice crispy crust), then toppings, then sauce. Bake 24 minutes at 425.

Brian's Breadsticks
Use the traditional round dough recipe, but I usually half it to around 200g of flour. Take the doughball and press it out to a 5x7 rectangle. Use a dough scraper/cutter to cut into 10-12 pieces. Gently roll them and put them on a pan. Cook on an upper rack at 425 for 5 minutes or until golden brown. Once cooked, melt some butter in a small dish and add a shake or two of garlic salt to the butter. Brush on the butter mixture and then liberally apply grated parmesan cheese. For a real kick to the mouth add some powdered ranch dressing seasoning.

Pizza Gallery
Here's some pictures of my pizza making progression from March 2020 until now. They are in reverse order, so they get generally worse as you scroll down.

Coronavirus Part 9

Today marks 2 years since the beginning of the pandemic in earnest - at least for me. I still remember the night of March 11th, 2020 when it felt like the world came to a halt and every institution was shutting down for three weeks in an effort to contain the virus. What a wild ride it's been.

In Coronavirus Part 8, I anticipated that my next entry would be a victory message. At this point cases counts are way down - back to pre-delta levels - and there doesn't appear to be any new variants on the horizon. The CDC even announced that unless there is a high rate of local transmission, we no longer need to wear masks - even indoors, even if unvaccinated. So in that regard it seems like COVID is over, at least when it comes to our day-to-day lives. 

But on the other hand, nearly 1,500 people are still dying in the US every day of COVID. But I believe most of those death are the unvaccinated which only goes to increase our vaccination rate. 

The case count in our county is so low that we took the whole family out for pizza on my birthday and it felt like COVID was over. I don't think it's going away completely, but at this point I predict it will linger in small pockets and localized outbreaks, but we won't see another major wave like delta or omicron.

I've made a fair number of predictions and open questions so far in this series. Let's check in and see how I've done so far:

Coronavirus Part 1 - March 2020
Question: Will this be a minor scare ala Y2K, or something future generations learn about in school.
Result: I think this one is making the text book. This is probably the biggest global event since WWII. But in truth I answered that this would be a major event in Coronavirus part 2 less than a month later.

Coronavirus Part 2 - April 2020
Question: Would this be a 6 month event or a 2 year event.
Result: Almost exactly a 2 year event.

Coronavirus Part 3 - June 2020
Prediction: This isn't going away anytime soon and the worst is ahead of us.
Result: Uh yeah, that was spot on. For context this is when things started to reopen and people were protesting the restrictions, so this might have been a somewhat contrarian opinion at the time.

Coronavirus Part 4 - August 2020
No predictions. Smart move on my part.

Coronavirus Part 5 - October 2020
Prediction: A fall spike is coming. It'll be 6 months until vaccines are widely available.
Results: Both were true. The late fall of 2020 was a bad time and while the first vaccine became available at the very end of December, they really weren't widely available until March/April. So that was spot on. But both those predictions we're gimmies and basically what everyone believed.

Coronavirus Part 6 - March 2021
Prediction: "It's hard to say when we'll finally be able to declare victory over COVID. That's probably a ways away until kids can be vaccinated, but even then I'm sure there will be pockets of cases in the news for a long time to come."
Results: A year ago I thought there will be pockets of cases, so I whiffed on the idea of the variant surges, but that might be true now. I just made that prediction too soon. 

Question: "It'll be interesting to see what the long term impact of this will be on American society. Part of me thinks things will spring back to normal and people will carry on as they always have, but I also wonder if this will result in some major changes in how we value in-person events and activities like traveling to weddings or attending work conferences. Only time will tell."
Results: Inconclusive? I mean there have definitely been shifts in the workplace that are likely to be long lasting. But I get the feeling that people are still wanting to travel and see each other in-person. The jury might still be out on this one. 

Coronavirus Part 7 - August 2021
Prediction: COVID will still be a thing for at least another 6 months.
Result: Pretty spot on, as the Omnicron variant died down almost exactly 6 months later, and is pretty much no longer a thing. At least for the moment!

Coronavirus Part 8 - January 2022
Question:  "I think we'll get to the point where it's better contained and we can go back to life as normal. The question now is how many variants and how many surges will it take to get there." 
Result: Hopefully just that last one. It's only been two months, but that was written at the height of the biggest case spike of this whole pandemic. Since then the variant has pretty much been stopped. We're back to life as normal. I'm back to letting strangers sneeze directly into my mouth! Who knows what happens next - and I guess we could get new variants and new waves of cases, but it really feels like this spike was the last one.

Here's to hopefully not making it to Coronavirus Part 10!

Birthday Post #12

Another birthday has come and gone, which means another birthday post. I met up with a few fellas in Vegas the weekend before my birthday, but didn't do anything too wild for the actual big day. In fact, I spent the day building a new enclosure for my compost heap - fun stuff! But we did all go out to dinner for pizza and beer.

Let's see how we did this year:

There's not too much surprising in the data this year. I did manage 27 facebook posts, which is a very strong number, but I attribute some of this to having a birthday on a Saturday when people probably spend more time on social media.

I'm also relieved to get called fartface after not getting a fartface last year. That felt really nice.

The other surprising thing is that my facebook fried count has stayed level for the last 4 years. I'm not very active on facebook, and I feel like as I get older I hear of more and more people deleting facebook. I maybe accept 2 friend invites a year, so I keep wondering if my facebook friend numbers will go down like it did in 2018. I must have been a huge asshole that year and everyone unfriended me.

Thanks to everyone who reached out on my birthday. It really made me feel good, and provided some much needed content for the #blog.

On Alcohol

I enjoy alcohol. I like sipping on a beer while grilling, or drinking a pina colada at the beach, or just bellying up to the bar with a tall beer and some chicken wings. These and the hundred of other scenarios that involve drinking all make me happy. 

I didn't begin drinking in earnest until college. In high school my main group of friends didn't really drink. I had a few friend circles that would imbibe, but it always seemed very risky while I was still living at home. The most drinking I did in high school was when we would go up to either U of M or MSU to visit older siblings or friends who had already matriculated. From those visits I went into college with a mindset that drinking was at the forefront of college social life. And anyone whose been to a midwestern college can probably agree with that statement.

Me at college orientation, before I learned my drinking boundaries

Once I got to college I no longer had to worry about my parents catching me or anyone driving, and it was the main thing to do. My first semester of college I once got written up twice for drinking in the dorms within 24 hours. But going out and drinking was also how I made social connections.

Is that a keg in our dorm?

What I quickly learned in college was that drinking until I blacked out or puked was not that much fun, and there was a sweet spot of getting pretty drunk without being that guy passed out in the corner. I crossed that line from time to time, but I really got the hang of knowing when I needed to slow down or just call it a night, and that skill has served me well over the years.

College

Nearly all drinking in college was binge drinking. Whether it was a football tailgate, a declared Drunk All Day Day (DADD), sitting around watching Gettysburg, before going out to a party, the beer Olympics or the actual Olympics, there was usually copious amounts of booze being consumed. Honestly, I think this blog post best summarizes my college drinking.

At the time everyone knew we were binge drinking, but it was college, and it's hard to call someone an alcoholic when everyone is drunk all the time and you're 20 years old. Alcoholics were old and drinking in their car in a 7-11 parking lot, that couldn't have been us. Even though everyone was drinking a lot there already were a couple of friends who seemed to have less control, and in later years a few of those friends would develop serious alcohol issues. I think we all walked a fine line, and some were able to pull back and some walked right over that line into alcoholism in their early 20s.

After college I started working and really stopped binge drinking as much. At first I lived alone and drinking usually meant crashing at a friends place since I'd have to drive. During this time is also when I first had money to spare so I started drinking slightly nicer stuff. Bud Light instead of Natty Light. I also started drinking just after getting home from work and this is really when I found my love for Rum & Cokes. I'd make a couple over the course of the evening, but since I had work in the morning it'd just be enough to get me a mild buzz before bed. I still like to drink alone. I know that's an indicator of sorts, but I still really enjoy a night just hanging out solo and making a few cocktails.

Then I moved to place with a roommate where we could walk to the bars of the quaint fishing village we lived in. This is the first and only time I've ever become a "regular" at a bar. I also got a girlfriend who lived in Seattle so I no longer had to worry about missing the last ferry back home. Still being in my mid-twenties, I was trying to keep living that college life on the weekends. I also spent more time seeing my college friends or going to weddings and bachelor parties where there was mucho drinko.

Post-college Edward-40-Hands.

For the last 5 years I've had kids, and that's made me re-evaluate my alcohol consumption. Before then if I was three sheets to wind it wasn't a big deal, and had the time to spend a Sunday nursing a hangover. But kids need care and attention 24/7, and all the sudden being a bit tipsy on the regular wasn't a great idea. But I still liked booze and it became the time when I really had to think about whether I was drinking too much, or on a slippery slope towards a drinking problem. I thought about it a lot and I think there are a lot of people who are on a slow but steady path to alcoholism, and I I decided I didn't want to be one of them.

I was still thinking about it in March of 2020 when all the sudden we were stuck at home with not much else to do besides drink. Those first few weeks of lockdown were a lot of fun. Working from home, making some cocktails or splitting a bottle of wine each night. But I soon realized I hadn't been sober for an entire day for like 20 straight days. So I decided to not drink at all two days of the week. For the past two years I haven't drank at all on Mondays and Thursday - with a few exceptions for special events. I've slowly tried to work in not drinking on Tuesdays as well - and eventually I'd like to only drink on the weekends. Even with these self-imposed limitations I'm still right on the edge of consuming 15 drinks a week which is what the CDC calls a heavy drinker - but it's really just getting a buzz in the few hours between the kid's bedtime and my bedtime.

Even when I don't drink I still look forward to drinking which I take to be another negative indicator. If I'm not drinking that day, I'll tell myself how I'm really going to cut loose the next day. But then the next day comes and once I'm done with work then I need to watch the kids, and then it's dinner and I can maybe down a beer or glass of wine with dinner, but then it's like an hour of putting the kids to bed, and once they're down I go to make myself a cocktail and I'm already getting a little tired so I'll have one but then I have to really convince myself to make a second, and then it's late and I'm not feeling nearly as good as I wanted to be and I go to bed - but that's good right? 

I don't think I have a compulsion to drink, but sometimes it's takes more willpower to not drink on Mondays and Thursdays then I'd like. And that scares me a bit. This leads me into this prolonged battle to be able to enjoy alcohol without fear of falling into alcoholism. It's a bit of an internal tug-of-war. While I don't think I'm anywhere close to it, I'm a tiny bit afraid of becoming an alcoholic. But the reason I'm afraid of becoming an alcoholic is that it would mean that I flat-out couldn't drink anymore as the only true solution to alcoholism is total abstinence. The thought of going to Vegas sober, or not drinking a beer around a campfire, or not having a cold one in the shower after working in they yard all drives that fear. It's a very circular logic to think that if I enjoy this vice to much I won't be able to enjoy it at all.

I hope that being aware of my drinking habits, putting some healthy limitations in place and being honest with myself will allow me to keep enjoying one of my favorite hobbies.

Cheers!

Happy 15th Birthday to the Blog!

I've been blogging for 15 freaking years. Can you believe it? I certainly cannot.

While I can't say that I'm a good blogger, or even a regular blogger, I can say that I'm enthusiastic about the concept of blogging. I like the idea that a blog represents. A modern day public diary - what a concept! Anyone else, anyone?

While I'm enticed by the idea that my thoughts and writings could live on well beyond me, I'm also loath to put my opinions on the internet for anyone to read. Especially since the opinions I've posted to this very blog in the past have proven - with the benefit of time and self-maturity - to be very very bad opinions. For example, just 2 years ago in January of 2020, I wrote that the Australian Wildfires would be a bigger story in 10 years than Coronavirus would. What a terrible projection!

In truth, my blog is more for me as a way to remember my own life, but I don't do a great job of posting things about my own life. In some ways the never ending coronavirus series is as close to a diary as I've done on the blog, and that was specifically the point as I immediately realized COVID would be a period of my life worth remembering in detail. So I wrote it down.

There are other things that are worthy of writing down and documenting for my future self to enjoy and reflect upon (and opinions to be disgusted by). I do think I should do a better job at putting those things on the blog.

15 years seems like the right time to also change the title of the Blog again. Against The Wind served me well in my younger bad boy days. But now I'm settled and I've come to the conclusion that my previous anti-wind opinion was wrong. I'm now pro-wind! So a new name it is.

Coronavirus Part 8

Welp, it's been 6 months since my last Coronavirus post. In that post I wrote about how a hot new variant dropped (Delta) and that I thought COVID would be a thing at least through the holidays. That has proved true. But we recently got another new variant (Omicron) which has quickly spread throughout the world. This variant seems to be the most contagious yet, and even people who are vaccinated are getting it at a seemingly high rate. The only good news is that it seems that this variant is somewhat less severe. It looks like we're on the uptick for another surge. The other news is that they started rolling out booster shots for adults and vaccines for children 5 and up. So now only our youngest is unvaccinated, so we're feeling pretty good about not dying from COVID, but we still aren't enthused about the idea of getting very sick for a week or two, so we're doing our best to avoid it. 

But life continues to be mostly back to normal except with more masks and not as much in-person interactions. We hosted my sister and my folks for Christmas, and luckily Omicron didn't impact us like it did for many others with flights and trips cancelled due to the virus. 

Going on two years of the virus, I'm starting to wonder if the people saying "COVID is just something we have to learn to live with" might actually be right. It seems like if we haven't gotten the vaccination levels needed to kill it off, we're just going to be in a never ending battle to respond to variants that evolve to defeat our vaccines. But even so, I think we'll get to the point where it's better contained and we can go back to life as normal. The question now is how many variants and how many surges will it take to get there. I'm not even going to venture a guess about when that might be. But I hope my next post in this series will be a victory message.

UC Davis College Rating

I love college towns. I think they are the best type of towns. I think it's the combination of the energy that students bring to a place along with anchor of a campus and the the types of businesses that typically surround colleges. As a deli and pizza guy, college towns suit my palate.

In San Diego we lived about 2 miles from San Diego State. While I don't consider big cities like San Diego to be college towns, we did live near enough to the campus where it did feel a bit like a college town. I loved driving through campus, seeing the kids on their skateboards, and telling Carly that Sig Ep was throwing down that night with a double kegger (which was probably true). SDSU has a reputation as a bit of a party school and in all the years we lived nearby it seemed to make sense. There were times that I found myself jealous of the young and beautiful college kids having the time of their lives.

Now we live in Davis, which is also a college town. Technically we live adjacent to campus, but it's about a mile to where the academic and residential buildings are. It's more of a college town that reminds me of Ann Arbor with the big tree lined streets and the campus integrated into the city. But the students here couldn't be any more different than those of Michigan or San Diego State. 

During what would be considered welcome week Carly and I were out in downtown Davis just blocks from campus and their was nary a stumbling student anywhere. We were on the South U equivalent of Davis and it was kind of dead. I couldn't believe it. Then a few weeks ago my buddy Dave came to visit and we went to a Aggie Football game. We were tailgating a bit in front of the stadium and watching the students arrive. It was a night game, and having been to a few college football night games I was expecting a shitshow. On the contrary. We didn't see a single student that looked even a little inebriated. I've yet to see a yard littered with solo cups. For shame.

The students here also dress very differently than those of SDSU. On the SDSU campus the kids looked so fucking cool, and the all had the bodies to back it up. Here in Davis it's a lot of unwarranted midriff that no one wants to see and guys with t-shirts tucked into cuffed jeans. I don't get it at all. Sober and poorly dressed is no way to go through college.

Now this blog at one time had a feature where I rated colleges on 4 key areas. It's been awhile since I've done one, but I think I'm ready to rank UC Davis.

Campus layout:
The UC Davis Campus is actually pretty good. It flows nicely into the the downtown and the students all ride bikes. The buildings are mostly postwar architecture and not very classically collegiate. Rating: B+

Student Population:
Total nerds. Rating: D

Night Life: 
I've seen zero evidence of any house parties. Frats seem small and not very wild. Off campus bars mostly cater to townies. Rating: D

Food, Stadium, Bus System, Other:
Food is fine. Big international student population means a good variety of restaurants, mostly cheap, nothing that I'd consider a "must try". Great bus system with the old London double-deckers. Stadium is decent for a FCS team. Tailgate scene was marginal, but again... FCS. Rating B-

OVERALL RATING: C+