Anyway, this week, I’d like to talk about a great little restaurant I had the pleasure of visiting in Old Colorado City (part of Colorado Springs), Colorado. I’d first heard about this place in a magazine called Alegria Living Colorado Style, which focuses on certain counties in central Colorado. The restaurant is called Pizzeria Rustica, offering—what else?—pizza. But this is no ordinary pizzeria and the owner is no ordinary pizzaioulo.

Owner, Dave Brackett, went to Italy to take a month-long culinary course, then went to Marina del Ray, California, to study at Antika Pizzeria and learn how to make real, true pizza. Consequently, Brackett’s pizzas are made in the traditional Neapolitan style.

The menu is sparse, but their focus on the few things they offer really pays off. There are four appetizers, 8 pizzas (with various extra toppings available), and a few desserts. If you dine there, you can also check out the chalkboard for the dishes di giorno, or daily specials.

The wine list is not your typical vino menu—it goes beyond the pedestrian offerings of most pizzarias. Your meal will be superbly enhanced by a glass of Tré Donne Barbera d’Alba from Piemonte, Italy, or Seghesio Pinot Grigio from Sonoma Valley, CA.

My dinner companion and I started our meal with a house  A-Mano Primitivo/Zinfandel, which was a light and refreshing red. Our appetizer was the Insalata Caprese, which is fresh mozzarella, tomatoes, and basil drizzled with extra virgin olive oil and served with balsamic vinegar.

Let me pause here to talk about the mozzarella. The mozzarella is handmade on-premise daily. It truly was so fresh that I was taken aback. It’s not often that I encounter such freshness in restaurants. It was soft, smooth, and tasted the way fresh mozzarella ought to. Pair that with flawless, vine-ripened tomatoes and fragrant basil leaves, and this plate was perfection in simplicity. The balsamic vinegar served as a paradisaical accent to it all.

We ordered the Rustica pizza. This was a thin-crust pizza with tomato sauce, mozzarella, grana padano, prosciutto, and what they call a “ricotta suprise”  (I’ll get to that). It was sublime. The crust, made from imported Italian Tipo “00″ flour (which is extremely soft and fine and lower in protein than regular flour) and North American organic whole-wheat flour, is hand-stretched (as opposed to being pushed through a machine), and is delicately thin. The sauce is made from hand-chopped San Marzano tomatoes grown at the base of Mt. Vesuvius.The center of the crust wasn’t as crunchy as I usually like it, but it wasn’t soggy, either. But the edges were wonderfully crispy and made up for the rest of it. The mozzarella was just as delectable melted as it was cold and the grana padano and prosciutto were in just the right quantities.  The “surprise” was than on one slice of the pizza, the edge of the crust enveloped fresh ricotta, so that when I bit into it, a soft, warm dollop of ricotta slid into my mouth. We ate it ALL up!

Furthermore, they are a totally green establishment. They use—

* locally made linens and recycled butcher paper
* fossil fuel-free appliances
* no plastic or Styrofoam
* a no-smoke oven that is EPA, UL, and NSF compliant
* low water-consumption equipment
* environmentally friendly cleaning supplies

They recycle or compost 80% of their waste and serve filtered water only upon request. The Green Restaurant Associate awarded them 3 stars. How cool is that?

I’m very elitist about pizza. Hey, being Italian and growing up in Brooklyn, that’s just how I am, okay? So, when I wax poetic about a pizzeria, it’s not exaggeration. I really mean it.

So, if you’re ever in Colorado Springs, take a ride to Old Colorado City and stop in to Pizzeria Rustica. I guarantee you a very fine meal. Enjoy the week, all.

Pizzeria Rustica
719-632-8121
2527 W. Colorado Ave
Colorado Springs, CO 80904
info@pizzeriarustica.com

P.S. Check out the old railroad chalkboard at the entrance.

Okay, let’s get into it.

Recently, I had a friend visit me from out of town. She wanted to visit the Tenement Museum on the Lower East Side. That area of Manhattan is steeped in immigrant history and the Tenement Museum on Orchard Street brings visitors back to a time of really brutal living, before housing laws and the provision by landlords of basic human needs. They offer several different tours in actual tenement apartments. Poking around the restored turn-of-the-20th-century apartments, with its tiny, airless, windowless, dark rooms, makes you appreciate modern living conditions (assuming you’re lucky enough to have a place with several decent-sized rooms, light, heat, and indoor plumbing).

Anyway, as long as we were in that area of town, I decided to plan a day around it. We visited Babycakes, a bakery that specializes in organic, natural baked goodies that are gluten-free and vegan, and often soy-free. (See the Babycakes page under “Foodie Places to Check Out” on the right.) (By the way, the founder of  Babycakes made a book trailer for a cookbook by the same name. It’s pretty cute and worth taking a look HERE.)

We also picked up several knishes at Yonah Schimmel’s Knish Bakery on East Houston Street, which has been there since 1910 (more on that in a future post). We browsed the shelves of Bluestockings, a radical bookstore and activist center on Allen Street. We ended our day with a pizza dinner at Lombardi’s on Spring Street. Why is that so special? Because Lombardi’s is credited as being the very first pizzaria, not only in New York but in the U.S.

Established in 1905 by Gennaro Lombardi, an Italian immigrant, Lombardi’s is a sit-down pizzaria—in other words, unlike most pizzarias, there are restaurant-style tables, and it’s so popular with tourists and natives alike that you have to check in with the maitre d’ at the front, and it’s quite possible that you’ll need to wait a bit for a table. The menu is quite basic. They offer a small and large pizza (no individual slices) of either their “Original” pizza (marinara sauce and fresh mozzarella), or a “White” pizza (mozzarella, ricotta, romano cheese, no sauce), and optional toppings. You can also order a calzone or one of four appetizers and salads: house salad, Caesar salad, tomato and mozzarella plate, or bread sticks and sauce. And that’s it. But that’s all they need to sell, because they do a brisk business. It’s good to be a legend. (For more on Lombardi’s history, click HERE.)

Their prices are what you’d might expect from a place that caters to tourists. As of this writing, a large (18-inch) original pizza, which yields 8 slices, is $19.50; a small (14-inch) pizza, yielding 6 slices, is $15.50. A large white pizza is $21.50; a small is $17.50. The toppings are a little painful, at $3.00 for one and up to $8.00 for 5. Probably the most excrutiating price on the menu is the tomato and mozzarella plate, which comes in at $10.95. It’s a bit on the pricey side, but not exhorbitant and perfectly acceptable for an occasional visit with out-of-town guests, a special occasion, or just for the fun of it.

Is it all worth it? Well, the day my friend and I went in, I found the sauce in need of a little salt, but it might be absolutely perfect on other days. I liked the fact that they used fresh mozzarella instead of the packaged supermarket stuff. Really, the best thing about Lombardi’s pizza is the crust. The pizza is baked in a brick oven, giving the crust a smoky flavor, a crisp crunch, and beautiful charred appearance. If you’re ever in New York, it’s really worth a stop in for lunch or dinner. And it’s just paces away from the history-rich Little Italy, Chinatown, and Lower East Side.

They’re open 7 days a week, with reservations available Monday through Thursday. Be aware if you do go, however, that they accept cash only.

And to indulge in your love of pizza even further, you can go on a pizza tour. Yes, a pizza tour. Scott’s Pizza Tours will take you on either a bus or walking tour of some of the most legendary pizzarias in New York, starting from Little Italy and going into Greenwich Village on the walking tour, and Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx on the bus tour. They can be reached at 212-209-3370 or 1-800-979-3370.

According to the title of this blog post, I promised you some pizza history, so here’s an excerpt from the introduction to the pizza section of my book, What, No Meat? Traditional Italian Cooking the Vegetarian Way, which I’m hoping will be reissued shortly. It’s late. Way late.

Virtually every culture in the world has one form of pizza or another. In the last couple of decades it has even found its way to the most culturally isolated countries. You probably knew that pizza is an Italian creation, but did you know that it goes back to the ancient Romans? The Romans made what they called moretum, a plain baked piece of dough that they ate with onions. Near the beginning of the 2nd second century A.D., the word picea entered the language to describe a piece of round dough dressed with various toppings, perhaps influenced by the Greek word pièzo, “to flatten.” It finally became pizza soon after. (Sauce didn’t enter the picture until the 18th century.)

            The pizza that we know today was created in Naples in 1535 in honor of the marriage of Bona Sforza to Sizismondo I, King of Poland. Despite its grand origin, it became a food for common folk. Pizzerias started out as little holes-in-the-wall, selling pizza to the local peasants. As pizza’s popularity grew, pizzaiuoli (pizza-makers) began adding tables and chairs to entice people to enter. Little by little, they began to decorate and beautify their establishments by putting in colorful tiles or fancy brickwork.

            Gennaro Lombardi opened the first pizzeria in the U.S. in New York in 1905. Over time, it became very popular and more pizzerias opened all across the country, becoming a favorite gathering place for people of all classes. Today, pizza is just as American as it is Italian. According to one urban legend, U.S. pizza is so popular that in the 1980s, college students in England ordered pizza to be shipped overseas. Papa John’s pizzeria filled the largest pizza order in history by delivering 13,500 pizzas in June of 2006. This surpasses the Guinness World Records champion, Little Caesar’s, who delivered 13,386 pizzas on August 19, 1998 to employees of  the VF Corp. of Greensboro, N.C. at 180 locations in the U.S.

            Americans have turned pizza making into an art form, reinventing it over and over, and have honored it by dubbing the second week of January National Pizza Week and September National Pizza Festival Month. And, reflective of people’s strong feelings about anchovies, November 12 is National Pizza With the Works Except Anchovies Day. But pizza is a worldwide commodity. In fact, the largest pizza ever made—122 feet, 8 inches in diameter—was in Norwood, South Africa in 1990.

            Neapolitans are very protective of their creation, so much so that there is an organization called Associazione Vera Pizza Napoletano (Association of True Neapolitan Pizza). This group, as you may have guessed, determines what is and what isn’t authentic Neapolitan pizza by defining the proper ingredients, the proper way of making the dough, and the proper cooking methods. Truth is, you can make pizza any way you wish. Follow your whim, put any toppings you feel like putting—just don’t let the Associazione catch you. 

 Hope you enjoyed that little romp through culinary history and that it deepened your appreciation of pizza—if that’s at all possible. Have a great week, all.

I do remember some things about the food, though: the fish and chips in London and learning that Brits like mayonnaise with their chips (French fries to us Yanks), which almost made me barf. (Italians, in general, are not fond of mayo.) Eating weisswurst (white sausage) in Switzerland, which, never being a big meat eater, again, almost made me barf. Having my first grasshopper—a creamy, minty drink—at the Lido in Paris. Once again, my cookies were threatening to toss. (I’m starting to see a pattern here. Not all my food experiences in Europe were bad, though. It just seems like I’m remembering the bad ones.)

My parents, however, decided to make a little foodie adventure for themselves. They decided that they wanted to try the pizza in every place we visited. It was a noble idea, since pizza is interpreted different ways everywhere you go. I don’t recall having pizza in London (which may have been a good thing). I remember sitting in a trattoria-type place in Paris and my mother declaring, “I want to try pizza in every city.” So, I guess it was my mother’s idea. And it would’ve been great if it hadn’t been for the fact that my father had gotten sick in London and was acting like a brat. But I digress.

Anyway, I remembered this little experiment of my mother’s this week while I was in Denver and had lunch at a place called Beau Jo’s, where they proudly serve up Colorado Mountain Pies. Now, my very first thought was probably the same one you had upon seeing the name. Yes, it’s an unfortunate name, to be sure. But it is not at all what it sounds like. It is, in fact, Beau Jo’s specialty pizza.

If you’re from New York, one thing you have to remember when trying pizza in any other location: DO NOT EXPECT NEW YORK-STYLE PIZZA. You will not get it. I don’t care if the joint advertises “New York-Style Pizza.” They’re lying. It’s not possible—unless they import New York City water. That’s right. It’s the water in New York City that makes pizza, bread, bagels, etc., taste as good as they do. I’m not making this up. It’s a well-known fact. I have two friends who were originally from Brooklyn and who now live in E. Stroudsburg, PA. They told me recently that there are two pizza joints in their town that make great pizza. Why? They import NYC water. I say this because I’ve have pizza in different places around the world and around the country and it’s never like New York pizza. But that’s not to say that pizza outside of New York isn’t good—it’s just different.

The history of Beau Jo’s goes back to the 1880s, when a French fur trapper named Pete ZaPigh followed the Colorado Gold Rush to Idaho Springs. Apparently not very adept at anything else, he developed a recipe for pizza, which was lost for 75 years and resurrected in 1973. An amusing account of it can be read HERE. I don’t know how much of it is true, but it’s now a Colorado legend.

So, I’m at Beau Jo’s and I decide to try a mountain pie. I was really tempted to try a prairie pie, the difference being that a mountain pie has a thick crust, whereas the prairie pie has a thin crust. I love thin-crust pizza, but they’re famous for their mountain pies, so that’s what I got. They have quite a variety on offer, but I went with the vegetarian combo: Roma tomatoes, mushrooms, green peppers, red onions, black olives, sauce, and mozzarella. The crust is thick and bread-like and quite hearty, which, I suspect, is why they call it a mountain pie. It kind of has a rugged, stick-to-your-ribs quality. They offer numerous styles, such as Yukon (smoked Canadian bacon, artichoke hearts, Roma tomatoes, sauce, mozzarella, and smoked provolone), Highland Mary (ranch dressing, black olives, Roma tomatoes, chicken breast slices, mozzarella, parmesan, and fresh basil), and Green Chile Cheeseburger (ranch dressing, ground beef, Roma tomatoes, red onions, fire-roasted green chiles, Monterey Jack cheese, and mild cheddar). You can also build your own pie, choosing from a list of sauces and toppings. For those who prefer a gluten-free diet, they offer gluten-free prairie pies in several varieties.

Here’s the funny part. The pies (both kinds) come in various sizes, from individual-size pies to X-Large pies cut into 12 slices. On the menu, it has a weight chart with prices, and you can choose a one-pounder, two-pounder, three-pounder, or five-pounder. Now, being the half-wit that I am, and not reading it properly, I initially thought that it was a kind of diet thing, where you decide on the size of the pizza based on your weight. My dining companion, Andi, said to me, “No, it’s the size of the pizza, not the size of the person.” I looked at her expression, a mix of bemusement and amazement, and busted out laughing. Thank goodness she did, too.

They have several locations in Colorado and their menu (as well as a nutrition and allergen chart for their products) can be viewed at Beaujos.com. As Andi said, their menu is complicated, and you might indeed have a difficult time making a decision, but it’s been around since 1973, so, evidently, it must get easier for regulars as time goes on.

One note thought: If you order the Honey Cheese Bread, be prepared for an unsusual experience. It’s exactly what it sounds like—honey and cheese on a focaccia-like bread. Personally, it was a bit too odd for me, but, hey, it might just be up your alley. It was definitely an interesting experience, which I always appreciate, even if the outcome isn’t to my liking.

Today, October 16, is my birthday, and I’m enjoying a beautiful Colorado day, with clear blue skies and temperatures in the 70s. Back home in New York, my family and friends are not as lucky and I hope things improve soon. Have a great week, everyone, wherever you are. I’m discovering lately that life really is what you make of it, so make the most of it.

Ciao.

Photo of pizza: Courtesy of www.nyflyingpizza.com