Perfection by the Slice

My first job out of college was as a frozen-pizza inspector. The company I worked for was concerned about freshness dating, and I was supposed to collar cartons past their prime. I suspected fresh and frozen were mutually exclusive terms, but I couldn’t let a college education get in the way of gainful employment. Well, not that gainful. My car was actually making more than I did. It got 14 cents for every mile we were on the road, driving from one supermarket to the next, while I got just slightly more than minimum wage. I did, after all, have to fill out forms and maintain a certain level of brain-wave activity. My car, on the other hand, did have more moving parts and a better sound system.

Never mind that the company’s product tasted suspiciously inorganic, as if outdated cartons were being recycled for crusts. I had a clipboard. I had a quest. I was the first line of defense against underhanded distributors, who might file the expiration dates off, and callously indifferent store managers. I guess. Whatever it was I was protecting the world from, I’ve tried my best to avoid frozen pizza ever since.

But it didn’t sway me from my mission to find the perfect pizza. I still believed such a thing existed and, in my youthful naivete, felt certain it could be found in New York. New Yorkers were always arguing about which of their pizzas were best. I’ve waited on line at John’s in Greenwich Village, for pizza cooked in a coal-burning oven, and Ray’s and Tony’s and Mama’s and Papa’s. They were all fine, but my most memorable New York pizza experience was the hole-in-the-wall, by-the-slice place where the fresh-off-the-boat counter boy asked in a charming Italian accent which subway train he should take if he wanted to visit California.

I’ve subsequently decided the perfect pizza is as individual as the person claiming it is so. It’s also highly dependent upon how hungry you are at the time. I would step over any of the esteemed California designer pizzas I’ve had, scooped bubbling from a requisite oakwood-burning brick oven, for another of the incredibly thin-crusted anchovy pizzas I once had, jet-lagged and ravenous, in late-night Rome at an otherwise undistinguished trattoria. My current close-at-hand pizza craving is for the house specialty at a nouveau Middle Eastern-Mediterranean restaurant in Glendale. Its thin crust is topped with a fine dice of musky Armenian sausage, caramelized onions and a feathering of fresh arugula.

Pizza lends itself to casual entertaining. My best-ever homemade version took me back to the frozen food department, but for a package of phyllo pastry. The recipe was printed in Gourmet magazine the year I had a good source for backyard tomatoes. Pizza purists will consider the flaky phyllo crust blasphemy and want to burn me over both oakwood and coal. But they should try it with good, fresh tomatoes. Use home-grown and get the Martha Stewart award for labor-intensive domestic undertakings.

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TOMATO PHYLLO PIZZA

Adapted from Gourmet

Serves 8 to 10 as appetizer

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5 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and kept warm

7 17-by-12-inch sheets of phyllo, stacked between 2 sheets of wax paper and covered with damp kitchen towel

7 tablespoons Parmesan cheese, freshly grated

1 cup (about 1/4 pound) mozzarella, coarsely grated

1 cup onion, thinly sliced

2 pounds tomatoes (about 5), cut into 1/4-inch-thick slices

2 teaspoons fresh oregano, chopped

1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves or 1/4 teaspoon dried thyme, crumbled

Salt and pepper to taste

Fresh thyme sprigs for garnish

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Brush baking sheet lightly with butter, lay sheet of phyllo on top and brush lightly with butter. Sprinkle tablespoon of Parmesan over phyllo, lay another sheet of phyllo on top and press firmly so that it adheres to bottom layer. Butter, sprinkle and layer remaining phyllo sheets in same manner, ending with sheet of phyllo and reserving tablespoon of Parmesan. Sprinkle top sheet of phyllo with mozzarella, then layer with onion and tomatoes. Sprinkle reserved Parmesan, oregano, thyme and salt and pepper. Bake in middle of preheated 375-degree oven for 30 to 35 minutes, or until edges are golden. Arrange thyme sprigs along pizza’s perimeter. With pizza wheel or sharp knife, cut pizza into squares and serve.

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Food stylist: Norman Stewart