Make Better Pizza at Home with Women's Pizza Month Founder Christy Alia

This week my guest is pizza maker and founder of Women’s Pizza Month Christy Alia. Women's pizza month is an online party taking place the whole month of March on Instagram. Of course, you can follow along by checking out the hashtag #WomensPizzaMonth. 

Christy wanted to shine a spotlight on many of the women in pizza, so she took to Instagram to start this. Anyone can participate, and she encourages you to do a post, dedicating it to a woman that you’d like to highlight.

In addition, she’s partnered with Corto and Stanislaus on the "For the Love of Pizza" kit, which is meant to elevate your at-home pizza-making game. You'll also learn about the 5 scholarships that are available for aspiring home pizza makers to go to Pizza University in Maryland.

If you want to learn how to make better pizza at home, we talk about fermentation time, tools for making pizza at home, quality ingredients, different styles of pizza and pizza toppings.

CHRISTY ALIA and #WomensPizzaMonth
Christy on Instagram @RealCleverFood
Apply for the Pizza Scholarship to Pizza University

PIZZA-MAKING RESOURCES
Buy Corto Olive Oil and listen to the podcast with master miller David Garci-Aguirre
For the Love of Pizza Kit
Baking Steel and podcast with founder Andris Lagsdin
What's Good Dough podcast

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Transcript

Chris Spear: 0:00

Do you want to learn how to make better pizza at home? Have you ever wondered if Chicago pizza is actually pizza? On today's podcast, I have pizza maker and founder of women's pizza month. Christina Leah. This is Chris spear and you're listening to Chefs Without Restaurants. The show where I speak with culinary entrepreneurs and people working in the food and beverage industry outside of a traditional restaurant setting. I have 31 years of working in kitchens but not restaurants and operate a personal chef service throwing dinner parties in the Washington DC area marches halfway over. But there's still plenty of time to celebrate women's pizza month, an online party taking place all month long on Instagram. Of course, you can follow along by checking out the hashtag women's pizza month. Traditionally, a lot of men have received publicity and notoriety for their pizzas. But that doesn't mean women haven't been making pizzas all along. Christine wanted to shine a spotlight on many of those women. So she took to Instagram a couple of years ago to start women's pizza month. Anyone can participate and she actually encourages you to go and do a post and dedicated to a woman that you'd like to highlight. In addition, she's partnered with corto and Stanislaus on there for the love of pizza kit. Christie will also tell you about the five scholarships that are available for aspiring home pizza makers to go to Pizza university right here in Maryland. But of course, I also want this to be a beneficial episode for you. So we get into things like fermentation time, tools for making pizza at home and quality ingredients. We talked about different styles of pizza and pizza toppings. So how about how long can you keep pizza dough once you've made it? Does it need to go in the freezer? Or can you let it hang out in the fridge for a couple of weeks. And if you want to dig in more I've done episodes with Andrus, the founder of making steel as well as the master Miller at corto olive oil. I'll link those up in the show notes. And if you're really into pizza, go check out the What's good dough podcast. I dress my guy and he talks about pizza every week on his show. Go check it out. Stick around because the show will be coming up right after a word from my new sponsor that I'm really excited about Heaven Hill bottled in bond bourbon. As a lifelong bourbon enthusiast, I've always been captivated by its rich complexity and fascinated by its history. Bourbon was the first spirit I tried when I was old enough to drink and only wish I'd started with the good stuff. That's why I'm excited to introduce you to Heaven Hill bottled-in-bond. Born from the Shapira family's unwavering passion since 1935, this bourbon is a testament to quality and tradition. Heaven Hill distillery goes beyond the bottled in bond act of 1897, ageing this bourbon for seven years, three more than required, creating a richer, more sophisticated flavor profile. When you select this premium bottled in bond bourbon, you're also ensured that you're getting a bourbon that's been made in a single distillation season, and that it's been bottled at exactly 100 proof. This commitment to excellence is evident in every sip. But don't just take my word for it. Heaven Hill bottled in bond won the double gold at the 2023 world spirits competition in San Francisco, New York and Singapore as well as the 2023 Triple Seal award from the tasting Alliance. Discover the award winning heaven Hill bottled in bond for yourself. Whether you enjoy it neat, on the rocks, or as the cornerstone of a cocktail, it's a bourbon that stands apart. Heaven Hill bottled in bond delivers a flavor profile that's unmatched. Available nationally at your local retailer. Embrace the premium quality that heaven Hill bottled in bond brings to every sip. Heaven Hill reminds you to think wisely, drink wisely. Hey, welcome to the show. Thanks so much for coming on.

Christy Alia: 3:28

Thanks, Chris for having me on the show.

Chris Spear: 3:31

Let's start with pizza. What is it about pizza that you love? How did you get into the world of pizza?

Christy Alia: 3:38

My name is Christie and I have a confession. I'm a pizza addict. But Pizza Pizza is actually the world's I think most favorite food I think I remember reading a study that like half of Americans when they were polled on their favorite foods said that pizza was their favorite food. And what I love about pizza is there is a pizza for everyone literally for everyone. I mean, whether you're a vegetarian, a vegan, a meat lover, a veggie lover, gluten free, I mean, you name it, there's a pizza for you. And I just love that about pizza. You know, I go through different phases in my life. Which pizzas are my favorite, but there's never been a point in my life where I didn't love pizza. When

Chris Spear: 4:23

do you remember seeing the evolution though? I mean, if you did, because I think growing up in my 40s You know, there was where I grew up like one or two styles of pizza. Nobody was doing crazy toppings. You know, traditional is pepperoni cheese you had maybe mushroom? There weren't all these pickled vegetables on there or Calabrian chilies. Do you recall seeing the shift of when that started to take place?

Christy Alia: 4:50

Well, I mean, I'm lucky being from New York. I was born and raised in New York City. So I've been privileged enough to see probably the things that you maybe If you're in a different part of the country, you wouldn't have seen like the grandma pizza, you know, was a style that I grew up with, you know, in the 80s and 90s. You could get grandma pizza where you don't see grandma style pizza. If people aren't familiar with what that is, it's a thin pan pizza similar to Sicilian, but much thinner. Usually it doesn't have a par bake the way Sicilian does. And that was a style. Like I said, it would be new to many people now, as far as new ingredients. I'd have to say, I saw that more in the 90s in New York again, I think that probably was maybe in the 2000s You know, for the rest of the country, but they started putting you know, chicken pasta on pizza. I mean, that's probably where it really started.

Chris Spear: 5:47

New York is the epicenter of pizza Yeah, Grandma pies I still don't see them around the last time I had one was it scars in like three years ago or something? It's I'm in Maryland now. It's not something we have abundantly in this area. I didn't grow up with it. And it only had it I've only had it you know, a handful of times even still

Christy Alia: 6:06

so good. It's my one of my favorite styles. So yeah, I hope that trend picks up.

Chris Spear: 6:12

But you had family wasn't your grandfather and pizza? Yes,

Christy Alia: 6:16

I learned how to make pizza from my grandfather. Actually, I remember being a little girl out of debt could barely like see above the countertop and like sit standing on a stool. And you know, needing the pizza or stretching it out. I mean, I was when I was really little he didn't let me like put in the oven or anything. But I was just I love pizza since I was a little girl. So it's been a part of my life forever.

Chris Spear: 6:41

Was that recreational for him? Or was this a business that you have a pizzeria? It was

Christy Alia: 6:45

actually recreational. He had friends who are in the pizza business like the Italian community in the Bronx is very tight. So the butcher, the pastry chef, that pizza maker, you know, do all work close friends. So I guess you could say it was professional and amateur for him. Well,

Chris Spear: 7:03

you know, pizza at home has gotten so easy comparatively. I mean, I can't imagine back then. You know, now you have things like obviously an Guney oven or a baking steel. You know, pizza at home. I remember trying to make it years ago with my you know, just a stone. That was okay, you know, there weren't as many resources and you do an okay job. But at the end of the day, I'd much rather just go to a pizzeria and buy it and make it at home. But now you can make amazing pizza in your house.

Christy Alia: 7:30

I like to say that people can make much better pizza in their house I call the baking steal the pizza steal the gateway drug, I guess you'd say into pizza craziness at home. I mean, that's where my pizza elevated. The more basic level other than pan pizza. A bacon still, if you are a pizza, still people aren't familiar is like a heavy heavy steel that you put in your oven. It's actually so heavy, your colleague leave it in your oven, very heavy, it's really have it and it retains heat like no other and it's perfect. Like, if you like neapolitan style pizza, you can actually achieve that in your home oven. And that really wasn't really possible on the stones. And then of course, you have the pizza ovens now, which I happen to be in any pizza oven ambassador and that that's just even more exciting.

Chris Spear: 8:20

I had Andres from baking steel on the show a couple years ago. So if anyone's listening and they want to learn more about that, and another dive into pizza, making it home and brighten stuff, I'll link that in the show notes. But and it's great for things other than pizza, I mean just temperature regulation. Like if I'm doing a pie or something, putting it on the steel so you know keeping an oven but seeing these pizza ovens and they're not that expensive. I mean, you know, it's a decent investment. But if you're a pizza maker, getting something like you know, a small Guney just to have at your home is a game changer. I don't have one yet. But I have a lot of friends who do and I'm envious and it's like it but kind of the top of my when I get my next piece of cooking equipment.

Christy Alia: 9:00

At one point not that long ago to get a pizza oven in your backyard either if you didn't want to spend 1000s You either had to build it yourself. Or actually, that's that was your only option. And then you had this these pizza ovens coming into the market which allowed you for a few $100 to have an oven that reaches temperatures of 800 900 degrees. Unheard of.

Chris Spear: 9:24

There's also ingredients I think you know the caliber of ingredients you can get that maybe weren't available to home cooks either you're seeing better quality flowers, better cheese's better tomatoes, better olive oil, so I love seeing this. It's an amazing time to be in the food industry in general. But with the pizza now again, I think especially if you're not in a place as a great culture of pizza because there are some pizza deserts I don't know is that a term anyone's uses like pizza deserts like a city that doesn't have pizzerias, you know?

Christy Alia: 9:54

Well, I mean, for a snobby New Yorker, the whole entire country used to be a pizza desert. And then once I left New York, I'd be like, I'm not eating pizza or like or bagels if you want to go outside in Europe now you there's amazing pizza everywhere. So I actually literally, and say there's a pizza desert actually speaking of deserts, not that Egypt completely a desert. But there's an amazing at the top of pizza woman, a top pizza woman, one best pizza maker in the world top pizzeria in the world. She's in Egypt. I mean, so literally in the desert.

Chris Spear: 10:31

I hadn't heard that. Yes.

Christy Alia: 10:34

She has an Instagram page. It's called What's the crust, that's the name of her pizzeria. She's got an awesome story. And she puts her own Egyptian spin on pizza, it's actually pretty incredible. I'm gonna be doing a dedication for her. And

Chris Spear: 10:50

interpretations through other countries. I mean, are there countries that have a strong culture of pizza? That's like non traditional, or places where they're using like their indigenous ingredients? Like, have you seen places, I'm sure that are doing really interesting things like that.

Christy Alia: 11:04

I mean, I guess maybe they wouldn't technically call, you know, pizza, possibly. But I mean, as far as like, Brazil actually has one of the biggest Italian populations outside of Italy. And they take pizza very, very seriously. And if you look at some of those pizzas, they put some crazy things on there, and they're proud of it. So I think culturally, like depending on the country, some countries will tend to put a lot more cheese or toppings. If you I mean, if you go to like classic, like Neapolitan pizza in Naples, I mean, it's only more recent that you have contemporary pizza, where they're getting a little crazier over there. But it used to be like, you have associations like abpn that defined what is a pizza. And I mean, it was it is still very, very minimal. I mean, because it lacks the rules slightly like now sourdough would be acceptable. That's the only reason we can get along now. Because I happen to love making sourdough pizza, but I'm not a person that likes to follow rules. So

Chris Spear: 12:09

do you only do naturally leavened dos or do you ever sometimes just want a quick pizza and you grab a packet of yeast and make a dough? Okay,

Christy Alia: 12:18

well, let me back you up. Do I ever not do let Max 11 Pizza? Yes. Do I ever make a pizza in less than three hours? No. I don't like a slow firm I fermentation for me dough is so important. And I like to tell people that time and temperature is an ingredient. And for the best pizza. I'm a believer in you know you needs time. Can you make if you're going to do a really really quick pizza, I'm going to tell you, you know, the most acceptable way for me would be a super thin thin crust pizza like when you roll out paper thin and then I guess at that point, you know, the toppings would be more important and you're just talking about the thin crispy days. But usually my pizza dough and long fermented I don't

Chris Spear: 13:06

plan far enough in advance you know, it'd be like a Thursday and I want pizza I'm like I should have started 72 hours ago with my dough. If I was gonna do this, I guess I should just have dough all the time going and just make pizza. Yeah, that's the trick right? Just constantly have dough going.

Christy Alia: 13:21

Always have pizza in your fridge actually, it's funny is I mean not only do I do actually live and actually originally learned how to make pizza with the it's my grandfather didn't use sourdough. And poolish actually is a flavorful way of using yeast. And actually I like to compare sourdough to a always ready to go poolish that I have what a poolish is it's 50% Water 50% flour, and it's basically fermented with commercial yeast usually whether that's fresh yeast or you know active dry yeast or instant news and basically for that if you always have pizza dough in your fridge like you can make you can make it your mission to basically make pizza dough every single Wednesday out for more than that do twice a week but you can leave that dough in there for a week you can get if you've already if your temperature fridges temperature of your fridge is low enough you can probably go I'm pushed two weeks

Chris Spear: 14:24

you can also freeze though I know friends who you know make batches of dough and just keep in the freezer so it's one of those things you know if you have a slow whatever Tuesday just make some dough, roll it out you know in your balls and throw it in the freezer and then you just have to pull it out and get ready to go.

Christy Alia: 14:39

Yeah, I mean I say if you're gonna make pizza within 10 days you probably don't need to put it in the fridge actually, I think it's a someone who likes funky flavors and flavorful breads. You know I say push the limits of fermentation. You know, my dough is over. Fermented, like you can still you can make a real If you put in a pan forget even rolling it out. I mean rolling it out is one technique you can save old pizza dough with. I've known people who actually took three week old pizza dough, you know and rolled it out, but you throw it in the pan, you don't even have to worry about stretching it out pizza dough shouldn't go to waste. Unless it looks really funky. It's starting to turn black and smelling a little bit like nail polish. You could say goodbye to it. But anything before that, I think you're surprised yourself.

Chris Spear: 15:28

Well, I tend to lean personally to the pan. Not because it's my favorite style. But just because I have trouble I have trouble rolling it I have trouble stretching it, it tears. If I do get a good pizza, I have trouble pitching it off the you know the peel. It's um, a work in progress. I have a lot of friends in the pizza industry. They're always giving me tips. But I'm still like, Man, I just want to have a pizza like you guys have at your shop where it's a nice looking pizza. And it's not. I go to pitch it and it gets stuck. And then it slides and is a big ol mess. So I do a lot of pan pizza.

Christy Alia: 15:58

You know what I mean? I love people like you like I my favorite thing now is actually doing pizza and bread classes. And my favorite people to teach are beginners because it's amazing how quickly you can learn. I really don't think that pizza is complicated. I think people overcomplicated, I think they just need certain tools and more importantly, confidence to make amazing pizza. Like when you're talking about the launch, it's actually just sometimes some quick tips where I can see what you're doing. And I could just get you, you know, to where you need to go. But just you know, maybe a change of ingredients, a change of hydration water level, what because people like they like to take recipes, like from the internet, and they don't realize that not all flour is the same. When you're talking about adding water to flour, whether it's bread, or pizza dough, some flowers are gonna absorb what are better. And even that same type of flour, that same brand of flour. If it's old, it's not going to absorb water the same way. So it's things for people to keep in mind.

Chris Spear: 17:04

I had a friend on the podcast who has a sourdough bread business, and I asked him about recipes. And he said, You know, I don't like to get overly complicated with recipes. And the problem I see is people change recipes too often, like they make a recipe, it doesn't work. And then they go to another recipe. Whereas that might be a good recipe, start taking notes. So like you said, you know, go back and make it again with the same recipe but maybe tweak the hydration or tweak the proof time or something. But everyone's changing too many variables. So they make this you know bread or pizza dough. It doesn't come out next time they're going to change the flour type and the hydration and the temperature of the oven. And it's like you need to kind of ratchet it down like one component at a time. That's, that's what he was saying to me about breadmaking Absolutely.

Christy Alia: 17:49

I definitely agree with that when it comes to pizza. I mean, yes, it's fun to keep playing and changing things around. But ideally, if you want to learn and get better, or if you are making mistakes, the best way to figure them out is to stay on that same recipe and figure out what exactly went wrong and and that's what I love about the pizza community. Actually, it's all about collaborating. People share all I guess you would say their secrets. Like if you have a pizza problem, people get so excited about helping you out like the wants to figure out your problem. It's fun, like I love doing that.

Chris Spear: 18:24

This podcast was actually I started with a co host and he has a woodfired mobile pizza business. So Andrew is not with me anymore. But when we started this, this podcast was a duo. And for four months I had as my co host a guy who had a pizza business and he still has a pizza business. He just doesn't podcast with me anymore. So having the benefit of Andrew, you know, on call almost all the time, I've you know, been in his kitchen and picked up some tips from him. So it was good to have someone very close to me who could kind of show me the ropes a little bit.

Christy Alia: 18:54

Yeah, and I think the important thing too, is I mean, everybody has access to some type of flour. But I think the important thing is the quality and the freshness of your ingredients. Like if you can't get a like a flower that you see someone using like might seem absolutely amazing. But if you can't get that fresh, forget about it. If you could get get the focus on the freshest ingredients, whether that's your tomatoes, your olive oil, your cheese, I mean, that's why I love you know, quarto olive oil so much like their peak freshness is so important to them. It's Stanislava tomatoes, their tomatoes, like they're literally picked off the vine. Like hours hours, I saw my own two eyes and brought right to the mill and put in a can like from the vine to the can in hours. Like that's the kind of thing like if you could take Farm Market ingredients and put them on pizza, you know you're a chef, right? You know, the best freshest food is going to give you the best, you know, meal at the end of the day.

Chris Spear: 19:56

You're 100% Correct and Cordoba Dahveed on the show and We talked about olive oil and what goes into it and I previously had been using cordeaux. And it's like, when you taste that you can 100% tell that it's different. Well,

Christy Alia: 20:09

that's the thing that struck me about Cornell because I actually like I'm IV and I am an Instagram, you could consider me a, I guess an influencer, but I never, ever will put something on my page that I don't genuinely like. Because I one time actually, for example, I made bread with a flower that I was just gifted. And I actually didn't really like the flower that much like me, I didn't hate it. But I just decided to just show it and said, I happen to use this company's flower. And then I got like, three, do you know, text leader, like, I ordered that flower? And I was like, wait, I can tell you to order that flower. So I just realized I have a responsibility. I feel like I have a responsibility that if I show something on my page, I have to like it, I have to genuinely enjoy it. And I guess I just that's important to me, like, I don't want to be associated with something that I don't like.

Chris Spear: 21:01

That's great, because that's integrity. And I don't think we see enough of that kind of in this media space. So I guess that's a great transition. And how did you start with that, like the Instagram and making pizza all the time and building kind of a page around, you know, pizzas and breads?

Christy Alia: 21:18

Well, like I said, I mean, pizza has always been a part of my life. And you know, that just kept going on, you know, in my life, but then COVID happens, right? I think everybody has that like COVID story. So pizza, I guess an Instagram is my COVID story. I got a pizza oven right around the time of the lockdown. And it happened to be an Ernie pizza oven at uni Koda 16. And I absolutely love the thing. And here I am bored, you know, home. And I started taking pictures, you know of my food. I wasn't on social media at all. Like, that was not my thing. And I started sharing the pictures of the pizzas I made and I couldn't believe the interest like people were asking me how do you do that? What do you do, like and I just started getting follower after follower. And then I discovered there's an entire pizza community on Instagram. And now I consider these people, my friends and family. I have friends and family all over the world, thanks to the pizza community on Instagram. So it just took on a life of its own. And I mean, if you have any interest in pizza and good people, like I have to recommend joining the pizza community and Instagram. And I like to think of myself almost as like, you know, a facilitator, someone that will introduce people to that pizza community. So like, if you don't know anybody, you know, and you want to become a part of it like this message me on that real clever food on Instagram. And I'll be happy to introduce Yeah,

Chris Spear: 22:43

yeah, I've heard this from a number of people. I'm friends with idrf of what's good dough podcast. So, you know, he's talked a lot about how inclusive and welcoming the community is. And so I've gotten to know about a lot of pizza people through him and I know you're on his podcast, I think like a year or so maybe two years ago.

Christy Alia: 23:02

He's my pizza family. Yes, I consider him not just a friend, a family member. I actually hung out with him quite a bit in a pizza Expo last year in Las Vegas. Just such a amazing person. So yeah, I not only consider him a friend, I would consider him family. And

Chris Spear: 23:20

you've got women's pizza month, what's women's pizza month,

Christy Alia: 23:24

woman's pizza month is basically about celebrating women's contributions to pizza, which unfortunately have been largely overlooked. It's a global pizza party on Instagram. And what I do is I dedicate pizzas actually, I encourage everybody to dedicate pizzas on Instagram and tag wounds, pizza mom. And what I'll do is like for example, this year, I teamed up with corto and Stanislaw, and they have a brand new pizza kit. And for that pizza kit, there's actually a recipe book where I create a recipe, which happens to also be a dedication to Sarah minich, who's one of my pizza heroes. If you're not familiar with Sarah minich She's an amazing, amazing pizza maker. Actually, she also makes ice cream too, at a level is 5050. She actually originally started out as an artist, and her pizza is literally art. So if you buy the pizza kit, you'll see that I have a recipe I called it the feta, empower her pizza, and it's a marinated feta pizza on a wood sauteed spinach. So good. But yeah, so I get excited about the pizza and the pizza maker. And what I do is I'll take that dedication and I'll also you know, highlight Saramonic introduce you to Sarah, if you don't know her, and basically spotlight her as an amazing pizza maker in the world. And I like I'd love to introduce her celebrate her and that's what won't feed someone's about that introducing amazing people like Sarah to the world.

Chris Spear: 24:58

When did you start this?

Christy Alia: 24:59

I started is in March 2021. So it this will be the fourth year of one's pizza month and it keeps getting bigger and better. And I like to call it the world's biggest pizza party to celebrate women. It also happens to be the entire month of March from March 1 to march 31. That's right. 31 day is a pizza party fun to celebrate women.

Chris Spear: 25:22

And I'm sure every day you're discovering new women in pizza through the online community and the hashtag and everything it's, you know, amplifying them I think is a great thing, right? Because I still don't know of many pizza makers, female pizza makers off the top my head.

Christy Alia: 25:40

Yeah, that's also why I created ones pizza was the thing is when you would talk to even people in the pizza community who are I guess you'd call them pizza nerds who seem to know everybody and happen to also know someone pizza makers, but if you ask them real quick, you know, to name a few. Always the men's names would come up on the top of their head, and you'd hear like people being called the OG and oftentimes, you know, they'd be like, I love Tony Geminiani. He's great. But like for me to hear his name being called like the OG of pizza. It's a little bit funny. You know, because for me, I'll think of and Nancy Silverton is not exactly, you know, super historic when it comes to pizza, but she's been making amazing pizza. Before Tony had his first restaurant. I mean, pizza mozzarella was like, mind blowing. I think she opened that I don't know, like 2007 and she redefined pizza. She I call her a pizza pioneer. So if I'm going to, I'm going to shout out my OG for pizza. It's going to be Nancy.

Chris Spear: 26:43

I always think of her with bread, like going back to La Brea bakery. Like way back in the day. You know, in 2000. I was buying her bread for the restaurant I was working at. Absolutely.

Christy Alia: 26:55

I mean, she was a pioneer and bread too, obviously. I mean, we're talking pizza but yeah, her bringing flavorful bread to the masses. Like I was all her like she's done a lot of incredible things. And she's been opening I think her pizza mode says all over the world. She recently opened one I think last year or two years ago in Singapore. i How cool is that?

Chris Spear: 27:16

Well, you said everyone loves pizza. I mean, I don't know any culture where people wouldn't want to be eating pizza. Going back to these kids. What are these? So are these these are kits I'm assuming people can buy online these kits with a quarter oil and the tomatoes.

Christy Alia: 27:31

Yeah, these kits are basically to help people celebrate women's pizza month. It's about making women's pizza much bigger, better and more exciting. I love that Curtis corto and Stanislaw tomatoes have, you know, teamed up with me to celebrate women like I know small businesses and helping women have been super important to them. So that this collaboration with them has been exciting. And what it is is this pizza kits going to allow home pizza makers access to professional quality ingredients at home the kids going to have their signature truly our oil which we're talking about has that it's picked the olives or picked up their peak of freshness. And the olive oil literally it's it's so vegetal, it's so herbaceous, like you get all those green flavors, phenomenal olive oil, like my favorite from the United States. You're gonna get that in the kit. They have their data Rini baby plum tomatoes in the kit, and those have never been available to the public before and olive oil you could get on their website, but tomatoes are super special. I've I've fallen in love with them. You can literally eat them add the jar, like most flavorful tomatoes I've ever had. And then that kit also comes with an oregano meal, which isn't new to me. I've never actually I've

Chris Spear: 28:48

never seen that oregano, Melba. Are we supposed to be freshly grinding our dried oregano? I mean, I in my hand will sometimes put some kind of you know, rub it but I've never seen a grinder on a regular before.

Christy Alia: 28:58

I love kitchen toys. So for me it was like cool. I need this because I don't have one so that that's fun. And then the recipe book. Not only do I have a recipe in there where we have a world of pizza at multi award winning pizza champion Laura Meyer, who has her restaurant pizza, Laura pizzeria Laura in Berkeley, California, she contributes a recipe. Audrey Kelly, who owns Audrey Jane's garage in Boulder Colorado has the recipe in there. You'll find not only their pizza recipe, like their toppings, but their dough recipe and mine too. If you want to make my exact dough. That recipe is in the booklet we also have Louise Joseph. She's a pizza maker in Greenwich, Connecticut. Super exciting stuff.

Chris Spear: 29:45

Do you keep it traditional? Do you like preference? I know you've done a little everything but like if you were to make pizza do you lean more towards the traditional side? Are you more experimental and maybe not with like dough and stuff but like toppings like Do you are you just pepperoni Are you Putting like wild, crazy things on top,

Christy Alia: 30:02

all of the above and

Chris Spear: 30:05

I'm trying it all.

Christy Alia: 30:05

Yeah, try it all. I mean, that's the thing is like, I love to change you when you go crazy experimental, it actually is nice to go back to the classics and appreciate, you know, a basic Margarita or marinara pizza. And that's why you know, good ingredients are so important. Like you have to have amazing tomatoes, amazing. Mozzarella, olive oil, if you're going to make a very basic pizza. I think that's where we're seeing that big shift in the US. We went from pizza looked at as like a commodity you know, that you'd see at like a fast food place or something you would just grab real quick and you know, it's tomato sauce and cheese good. And up to now we're, you know, it's elevated, like the highest cuisine, like, pizza has reached all kinds of levels. I mean, if you go into your city, you could easily spend $30 on a 12 inch pizza 100%.

Chris Spear: 30:57

And you know, it's kind of like you see the same with tacos before where it was just like commodity shells. Now you have products I've talked a lot about like mossy ENDA and people are making good fresh tortillas, and they're getting, you know, heritage Berkshire pig to chop down for their meat. But it's hard to break people out of the mindset of like a $3 taco and I say the same with the pizzas, as you're getting into a 17 $20 pizza coming off of a pizza truck or out of a pizzeria that, you know, essentially feeds one person and getting people the kind of not necessarily associated with the cheap pizza that maybe we grew up with. Yeah,

Christy Alia: 31:30

quality over quantity, you know, and, and that's the thing is, even when pizza gets, I guess, expensive, it's still affordable. And that's my favorite thing. It's like pizza is that food that's accessible for all and whether you know, and that's the whole thing with women's pizza, too, is you know, it's also like to demonstrate whether you're a man or woman, you know, the whole pizza party is about having fun. It's about inviting everyone, it's to show people that, you know, pizza is for everyone. And pizzas should be made by everyone.

Chris Spear: 32:04

Well, in relating to that price point, you know, you go to a fancy restaurant now. And all the starters, you get like a hamachi, crudo and you get what's two ounces, maybe of raw fish and some kind of broth or something that's $20. And you're not even close to being filled. And you're gonna be spending $100 on all these little plates. I mean, I don't know why we haven't really put a spotlight on that. But then we look at things like pizza and think that it's too expensive. But I guess again, history comes into play there. And as long as you can get $2 slices at some slice shop somewhere, then, you know, it's hard to kind of break out of that, I guess. Yeah, I

Christy Alia: 32:37

think in New York City, they track the pizza prices against the subway prices. You know, it's just funny and digital is at dollar slice place. It still exists, but like, people asked me about that. And I'm like, No, I will not make I will not make a recommendation for $1 slice my opinion. There is no good dollar slice.

Chris Spear: 32:59

But even even this might be controversial. Even bad pizzas like good pizza. You know, like, there's, I mean, there is some truly bad my one thing is the dough at least has to be cooked my kids. There's like a indoor play place here that people have birthday parties at and they have pizza, and I guess they cook it there and the dough is always raw. Like even if it's like crappy pizza, just cook the dough because when I bite in if there's raw dough, I'm done. But you know, I do have a high standards for pizza. Don't get me wrong, but every once in a while, like the cheap slice, you know, it'll fill the stomach.

Christy Alia: 33:32

Okay. I mean, I don't agree with there's no such thing as bad pizza. I think compared to other food, you can get away with pizza more than I mean, you're not gonna get usually sick. You know, there's

Chris Spear: 33:46

definitely there's some really bad pizza. But you know, like, if you go to a place and they have a pizza out, it's like, I'm happy that there's pizza. It's better than many of the options you could have. And

Christy Alia: 33:56

another thing that was pizzas personal like, and I love that about pizza, like one topping that I might hate might be your favorite. I mean, pineapple is no longer controversial, but at one point, obviously it was but now like, it's like do you put fish on pizza to you? You know, like, I feel like and it's funny. I felt like anchovies are way more controversial than pineapple. That's why I always laugh about pineapple.

Chris Spear: 34:21

Do you have any fun collaborations or any upcoming things you're doing besides the women's pizza month?

Christy Alia: 34:29

Well, I'm always doing collaborations I actually a host or I guess a lead person with pizza club. We talk about pizza. I'm an oni ambassador, so on Instagram are always doing collaborations. I different brands, different people. I'm always looking for more collaborations but even for women's pizza month actually, there's something we forgot to talk about too or we still need to talk about is quarter I'm Stannis lead tomatoes are sponsoring a scholarship for aspiring pizza makers to celebrate women's pizza man. So that's actually a collaborative another collaboration that I'm excited about for women's pizza. What's

Chris Spear: 35:13

the scholarship? do if you win? Well,

Christy Alia: 35:16

five pizza, women are going to be eligible to win. There's to be aspiring pizza makers, women, pizza makers who want to get into the pizza industry, they're going to get a multi day intensive class at PISA University in Maryland, and it's going to tell them, teach them how to open a business, a successful pizza business, how to make pizza, anything you basically need to know to get started in the pizza industry. So I'm super, super excited about

Chris Spear: 35:46

that. I'm in Maryland, so I'm like 40 minutes outside of Baltimore. So I, that sounds really cool. I don't know. I didn't know anything about pizza university here.

Christy Alia: 35:55

Yeah, it's, it's really cool. It's been pretty new to me. But I keep seeing all these amazing pizza makers doing classes there that I'm like, oh, I want to go to

Chris Spear: 36:04

that. I think that's great. I was talking to someone else about, you know, I get a lot of questions about should you go to culinary school. And I'm not going to go off on this side tangent. But all I say is like, once you figure out if you're going to be in food, and what you want to do, start looking at things like that, like classes instead of going and spending 50 or$100,000 on this very general thing. Like if you know that you're really interested in pizza, don't go to culinary school, find something like that. I think there's so many great classes. You know, I took a charcuterie class one day, you know, it was like a three day class a very intensive on butchering, and making charcuterie, that's something that would be incorporated into a traditional culinary school, but it's much more affordable, accessible to go and do something like that with some of the experts in the field. And I'm always recommending, you know, just seeking out a kind of niche topic or something like that, if you if you know what you want to do. Absolutely,

Christy Alia: 36:57

you know, and make sure that you like it. And it's funny how many chefs you know, who have started out like fancy restaurants who have now gone into burgers or pizza? You know, I for lots of reasons, but I do like to think that pizza is just more fun.

Chris Spear: 37:13

And it's food that I It's comfort food. I mean, it's really something I think most of us grew up with. It's something that can be fun. You can adapt it a number of ways, reasonably priced, reasonably easy to start making it home, and I think it's accessible to everyone. So yeah, pizza is the great unifier. When people say like, What's your favorite food? How many people do you think say pizza? You know, kind of just a knee jerk response like, oh, pizza? Of course, that's my favorite food. I'm sure it's a lot of people. Yeah,

Christy Alia: 37:41

I mean, if someone tells me they don't like pizza, like, my first reaction is like, that's impossible. I don't mean that when I say there's literally a pizza for everyone. There absolutely is. I mean, maybe someone's definition of pizza might not, you know, and that's a whole thing. Like I actually was on a show where we talked about the definition of pizza. And I mean, the semantics that can go on with that are actually crazy and funny, entertaining. But, you know, if you don't have a rigid view on pizza, like literally, there has to be a pizza for everyone.

Chris Spear: 38:13

Along the lines of is a hot dog a sandwich, and that gets into very muddy waters.

Christy Alia: 38:17

Let's go even more controversial is Chicago deep dish a pizza.

Chris Spear: 38:22

Oh, yeah, I know.

Christy Alia: 38:27

I do think it's a pizza.

Chris Spear: 38:30

I feel like it's it's waning, though. Like you don't see that on a national level. Like I feel like that was innovative and different in the 80s. Right, when we only grew up with one style of pizza, and it was not Chicago deep dish, you know? Yeah. Like, who knows or whatever. And I think that's maybe the first and last time I had it. It's not something I see. I mean, is there a lot of Chicago pizza outside of Chicago? I don't know.

Christy Alia: 38:53

Well, what's funny is actually what's interesting with pizza club, I met some crazy pizza nerds like I thought I was a pizza nerd. And you know, they're much nerdier people than me. There's a guy named he's an author of pizza historian Can we call him um, his name is Peter Regus. And he basically gets deep dives deep into the history of pizza and he talked about how actually Chicago deep dish originated and I believe it or not, from a woman from the South who started out making dough as from like, her idea of biscuits. So I think that might be according to him like that origination of what Chicago pizza is, was actually the reason it's so heavy, I guess you call heavy is because the person who brought it to Chicago was thinking viscous. It

Chris Spear: 39:41

definitely has that biscuit like almost like crumbly consistency of a biscuit so I can see that I'd never heard that. But that makes sense. I'll maybe have to spend some time and do my own like side deep dive into that. I grew up exclusively with Greek pizza. I grew up in Massachusetts, and I didn't know I had never had any pizza. Other than that until like I went away to college like we always had, you know, it was a in a pan it was a little greasy or the crust was a little crackly, the sauce was a little sweeter. That's all I knew we had all these Greek house of pizzas in our town and there was like three or four of them. And literally until the time I was like 18 years old, for the most part besides like school pizza, I think that was the only pizza I had.

Christy Alia: 40:22

Isn't it amazing? Like, you know, everybody's like, I mean, like I said, New York are spoiled. We have so many types of pizza and I guess people in Chicago, you know, their types would be either deep dish, or my favorite actually is the tavern, thin crust. It's amazing how many types of pizza are out there. You got Detroit pizza, which has been super phenomenally like super popular lately. Detroit pizza if you're not familiar, it looks like a thick Sicilian pizza, but it has what we call our cheese Freako around the edge of crispy cheese all around the edges. I mean, it's a heavier pizza but it's a fun, fun pizza. You have St Louis style Greek pizza, Grandma pizza. I mean, even the whole phenomenon now is pizza sandwiches you know which people call pa dinos and you know, it goes on and on. While

Chris Spear: 41:16

I was talking to someone the other day about this we have Near Me Rad pies and they won at the pizza Expo two years ago, I think the best pan pizza in the world they have their Detroit one first place. And they have like their Detroit with the FICO but they also do they call it a pepperoni crown. So not only is it the cheese, but pepperoni lines, the side. And then when you take it out like they're sticking up and it looks like you have a crown and they took first place at the pizza Expo two years ago and that's their one like no modifications like you can mod almost all the pizzas but you can't mod that it's like it comes as it is because they want everyone to try that pizza. So unfortunate. We have some good pizza places around here even in Maryland. Yeah,

Christy Alia: 41:57

and I mean, that's the whole thing is I feel like with Detroit pizza people have gotten really crazy. When I was talking about pizza club, Mike often I have a co host his name's Jimmy Hank, he's Jimmy hang pizza on Instagram. And he does some crazy things with pizza and freak out. He's put french fries in the Frigo I and you can get really wild and crazy.

Chris Spear: 42:17

I've never seen that before french fries. I've never seen french fries in or on a pizza before.

Christy Alia: 42:22

I mean, Oh, that's funny is actually like a lot of Italians get all of you know crazy about, you know, authenticity and I don't put pineapple you don't put that on pizza. But actually a pretty basic traditional piece that you'll find all over Italy. It has hot dogs and french fries on it. They say it's for the kids. I'm not buying.

Chris Spear: 42:44

I've never seen that before.

Christy Alia: 42:47

I'll find it. Yeah.

Chris Spear: 42:49

Wow, I learned at least one new thing today, I'll have to look into hotdog, French fried pizza. I hope we have a really great women's pizza month. I look forward to sharing I'll be sharing throughout the month with people as well not just when your episode comes out. So we'll try and get some more excitement around this.

Christy Alia: 43:08

Yeah, thank you. And I mean, if people want to sign up for that scholarship, or buy the pizza kit, it'd be cordeaux Dash olive.com. And, like you said, you know, come join the party. I'd love you to make a pizza dedicated to a woman who inspires you because that's what women's pizza runs about. Tag me and hashtag women's pizza month and we'll celebrate that woman who inspired you, whether it's a pizza maker, a family member, celebrity, whoever it is someone that inspires you a woman who inspires you will celebrate that woman and will also celebrate you as the pizza maker. So whether you're a woman or a man or whatever, we're gonna celebrate you as a pizza maker, too.

Chris Spear: 43:49

I love it. Well, thanks so much for coming on the show today. I enjoyed talking to you.

Christy Alia: 43:53

Thank you. It was my pleasure. I had fun.

Chris Spear: 43:56

And to all of our listeners, as always has been Chris was Chefs Without Restaurants. Thanks so much for listening and have a great week. You're still here, the podcast is over. If you are indeed still here, thanks for taking the time to listen to the show. I'd love to direct you to one place and that's chefs without restaurants.org. From there, you'll be able to join our email newsletter. Get connected in our free Facebook group and join our personal chef catering and food truck database so I can help get you more job leads. And you'll also find a link to our sponsor page where you'll find products and services I love. You pay nothing additional to use these links, but I may get a small commission which helps keep the Chefs Without Restaurants podcast and organization running. You might even get a discount for using some of these links. As always, you can reach out to me on Instagram at Chefs Without Restaurants or send me an email at chefs without restaurants@gmail.com Thanks so much. Over the past 30 years, the world of the personal chef has grown in importance to fulfill dining needs. While the pandemic certainly upended the restaurant experience, it allowed personal chefs to close that door And in gap. Central to all of that is the United States personal chef Association, representing nearly 1000 chefs around the US and Canada. Us. PCA provides a strategic backbone for those chefs including liability insurance, training, communications, certification and more. It's a reassurance to consumers that the chef coming into their home is prepared to offer them an experience with their meal. USPTA provides training to become a personal chef through our preparatory membership. Looking to showcase your products or services to our chefs and their clients. partnership opportunities are available. And there's a new member special on all membership levels. Save $25 to $75 by using promo code spring 2020 for special veteran pricing and payment plans are available. Call Angela today at 1-800-995-2138 extension 705 or email her at APRA t h e r@uspta.com for membership and partner info