On Pizza and Madness
I don’t know if you all have had a chance to read my review of 4 Sisters in today’s relish, a pizza and pasta place that replaced Botta Bing! on Country Club Road earlier this winter. If you read the review, you’ll see that I think the pizza’s the better bet at this little restaurant. The stromboli is also good. It’s probably best to avoid the pasta choices altogether.
4 Sisters calls their pizza New York-style, a common claim made by many pizzerias outside of New York that no doubt have good intentions but in my opinion rarely deserve that to use that title.
But I tried to restrain myself on the topic of New York-style pizza in North Carolina period. I didn’t want to open that can of worms. The prime pizza days in North Carolina are still something to aspire to, not to sit back and enjoy.
New York Pizza Finder directs searchers to pizzerias all over North Carolina, including some in Charlotte that I still need to try.
We have many a slice to scarf, though. Maybe someday there will be North Carolina-style pizza (with barbecue, maybe, which we of course excel in), but until then, I’m still searching.
Generally speaking, New York-style pies are thin crust. They are giant — sometimes 18 inches in diameter. They are light on sauce. They are high on flop. Pick them up the wrong way when they come straight out of the oven, and all the cheese will slide off. That’s why you usually have to fold them (if you are really classy, you might lay one on top of another a la John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever).
Locally, Burke Street Pizza does a fair job at New York-style pizza. I also like Mario’s, a local chain. But really, nothing measures up to those greasy, messy slices in my memory.
“Getting a slice,” has always been one of my favorite things to do in New York, but lately on my sporadic visits, it’s become somewhat of an obsession. Some of my favorite pies have been pilgrimages more than casual snacks.
Things reached a new level two years ago, though. That was the year I truly lost my pizza virginity, both in terms of eating it, and more sadly, the lengths I was willing to go to taste it again.
That October, a dear friend and I capped off a delicious weekend in New York with a plain pie at Di Fara’s, liberally drizzled with basil and olive oil. Di Fara’s pizza is more Neapolitan in style than classic New York, with a goopy spread of mozzarella (regular and buffalo), Gran Padano and fresh herbs on a charred, bubbly crust. It is pretty terrific stuff.
(Note: Whilst writing this, I had a pizza emergency. I went to Mario’s for a slice of pepperoni and a slice of plain cheese, then took them home, crisped them up in the oven and doctored them with fresh basil and grated Parmigiano-Reggiano. They were OK.)
Di Fara’s has been lauded near and far for its deliciousness, and many others before me have tried to crack the secrets of a Di Fara pie (most recently at Epicurious.com). So I won’t re-hash that. Let’s just say for many people, Di Fara isn’t a pizzeria — it’s a cult, a cult housed in on a unassuming corner storefront in the decidedly unhip Midwood neighborhood of Brooklyn, ruled over by Dom DeMarco, a quiet, shuffling elderly Italian immigrant who wields black magic with his cheese grater and pulls red-hot pizzas out of the oven with his bare hands. This isn’t fancy pie. But this is perfect pie, made by the Pied Piper of Pizza. DeMarco drives grown men to madness, or reportedly at least to shell out $60 for two slices.
My husband and I were (the infamous Dinner Beau) on our annual holiday-time New York/New Jersey marathon trip, cramming as many family and repeat Christmases as possible between one car, one week, and two newlyweds. In between all of wrapping and unwrapping, the packing and the unpacking, the eating and the air-kissing and the hugging, I got a Di Fara’s itch I just had to stratch. Never mind that we were headed to New Jersey, not Brooklyn. I think we drove 100 miles out of our way. I know we paid easily at least $20 in extra tolls.
Alas, when we finally got there, it was 5 p.m. On a Friday. “There he is!” I whispered to the Dinner Beau as we stepped inside. “Dom!”
Half the challenge of Di Fara’s is ordering. There’s no line here, just an enraptured, hungry crowd clumped about the front counter, all hypnotized by DeMarco. After about 30 minutes of subtly pushing our way through (and ignoring the evil-looking man spitting and muttering in Russian, then raising his voice to hope aloud that people who cut in line choked on their food — hey, don’t look at me), we were told that we’d have a 45-minute wait.
Great! Except…my father kept calling. “When are you getting here?“ he asked.
I tried to be reassuring, but vague: “Soon…we stopped for some…pizza.“
“Well, we’re making dinner. We’re eating at 7,“ he said. In other words, he was telling me, you have to make a choice: it’s me, or the pizza. There was no way we’d make if we waited for our pie, even if we ate it as we drove down the New Jersey Turnpike. Not a chance.
“Let me call you back.“
I hung up the phone. I immediately became 4 years old. “My dad’s so mean,“ I whined.
In the end, of course we cancelled our order. I was the good daughter, the dutiful, pizza-less daughter.
I love my dad. But I’m still waiting for my next Di Fara pizza.
It will taste so good.
