Opening scene. A normally busy night at Avalanche Pizza as we pump out a few of the thousands of pies we make each year.

The players  (in order of appearance) Venetian thin crust and natural casing pepperoni, The Godzilla, Pepperoni trio, Veggie Rainbow and Ian’s tattoo and Joel Fair, our great G.M. with a boatload of tickets.

Thanks to Joel, Ian and Chris for this video.

The best paragraph I’ve ever read about spring goes like this:

 “When spring came, even the false spring, there were no problems except where to be happiest. The only thing that could spoil a day was people and if you could keep from making engagements, each day had no limits. People were always the limiters of happiness except for the very few that were as good as spring itself.”                                

Ernest Hemmingway from A Moveable Feast

With this pizza, I want to celebrate spring as innovatively as Ernie described spring without really describing spring.  I am not going to be a limiter of  happiness with this pie! It’s got the best of spring-aspargus and the best cured pork I’ve ever tasted called “Spallacia” which is from La Quercia in Iowa. It is a shoulder of pure-bred Berkshire pork that has been acorn-fed for months. I will probably make some mad by saying that this is better than any Prosciutto di Parma that I’ve used here in the States. I’ve also used the best Stanislaus Valorosso tomato filets from California, Parmigiano Reggiano and some excellent fresh mozzarella.

I wanted to show you a video of one component of the pizza that won Best Non-traditional Pizza in the Midwest and third in the Non-traditional finals at the International Pizza Expo in Las Vegas. Here is Patty Nally creating chitarra-cut mozzarella noodles during a very busy lunch rush. She first made the thin sheets from fresh curd. A chitarra is one of the oldest pasta forming devices and is an important tool of the Abruzzi region. It was originally made in 1800 in the town of Chieti. I will take this linguine and wrap my roasted asparagus later.

 Now, lets make this pie.

Take one, seven ounce dough ball from the Easy Dough Recipe on this blog and hold at room temperature to proof.

For the toppings:

                                                         (Following the picture from top left clockwise)

4 thin slices of fatty spallacia

2 tablespoons of grated Parmigiano Reggiano

5 asparagus spears

6 to 10 strands of mozzarella linguine

2 to 3 large stanislaus tomatoes pulled apart

5 ounces of fresh mozzarella

one bunch (5 leaves) fresh basil

sea salt and extra virgin olive oil to taste

Preheat oven to 500 or as close as you can get it.

Snap asparagus to fit a 12 inch pizza. Using a vegetable peeler, run it along the asparagus stalk to take the tough outer skin off. Coat asparagus with olive oil and either roast for seven minutes in a 450 degree oven. (I did this and overcooked them as you can see,) or sautee the asparagus for seven to 10 minutes. Cool and wrap with mozzarella linguine.

Grab a few pear tomatoes from the can and insert your finger into the center of the tomato. pull you finger down to seperate lengthwise letting the seeds and tomato juice flow out. Squeeze gently and set in colander to drain.

Make a pizza round, put on pizza screeen, then add the Parmesan, basil, tomato filets and mozzarella chunks. Bake in the oven until crisp and beyond golden (about 8 to 12 minutes.)

While still hot, add the spallacia and watch the magic of this fabuous meat depositing the delicious fatty gravy all over the cheese. This is truly an “Oh my…(insert god that you are comfortable with here) moment! Check the above…melting, melting, gone!

Add the asparagus and basil for garnish. Seriously, you don’t have to add olive oil or salt to this pie because the spallacia is enough heaven for one pizza!

As I blasted through last weekend baking like a madman from nine ’till nine on Friday night into Saturday morning, I made a spectacular stuffed ciabatta that tasted like heaven. Patty Nally, my stellar baking chef was first to come up with the combination of spent grains (from beermaking,) cocoa, blueberries, honey and almonds- stuffed with almond cream.

This stuffed bread is not gonna be on the agenda during my demonstration at the Las Vegas Pizza Expo- ((insert shameless plug here… Didn’t you know that my demonstration “Calzone’s Stromboli and Beyond” is on Tuesday, March 13th at 12:30 in the Demonstration area?  Please come on down and bring the hunger for some awesome stufed grains!))

Here is the video of me making a ciabatta (or is it a batard) and again; Please forgive the loopy appearance of the Goon, it’s 4:30 in the a.m and I’m in my seventh hour of forming and burning the gluten. Oh, and I do not know where the “Ta Ta.” came from.

O.k, that was the prep, then I proofed the dough and sent them into my oven at 474 degrees for 15 minutes then shut them off and waited for another 10 minutes.

O.K., after all this baking  at Avalanche, we headed out to a fierce bread sale at the Athens Farmers Market. Fierce is the only word that you can choke out when your face is frozen. Luckily we sold out in three hours.