[Photograph: Adam Kuban]

Domino's—that leviathan of the pizza industry—is reexamining it's over-optimistic plans for expansion in Germany, after two years of slow growth.

According to Australian Yahoo, there's an enticing market gap in Germany waiting for a company like Domino's—but there have been some major impediments along the way to filling it.

The biggest: a rise in minimum restaurant staff wages, which also applies to pizza delivery outfits. Understanding the German preference for thinner crusts and steady, lower prices (versus cheesy, deep pan pies and sales promotions) are other factors in play.

And another challenge? Germany has a lot of independent businesses competing with their chains. In 2012, German independent pizza restaurants generated revenues of $694 million versus chains' $509 million. In Britain, on the other hand, the chains took in $1.213 billion, more than twice as much as the independents' $515 million.

However, the Germans certainly have a penchant for pizza. The leading pizza brand (Joey's) earns a profit margin of perhaps 14%, versus Domino's 8.4% in the UK. If I'm Domino's looking at that, my mouth would be watering.

About the author:Kate Andersen is a Contributing Editor for Slice.

VIEW SLIDESHOW: Top This: The Horatio, Featuring a Truffle Butter-Fried Egg (à la Delancey Pizzeria & Bar)

[Photographs: Kelly Bone]

Owner George Abou-Daoud isn't cutting corners. The housemade compound butter is studded with slivers of truffles. Opening the container, he digs for a morsel with the tip of a butter knife and offers it to me mid-photo session. It's a delightful aromatic tease of the pizza to come (and a delicious way to bide your time as your pizza is baking).

What You'll Need

• NYC style dough
• Mozzarella
• Wild Mushrooms
• Thyme
• Truffle butter
• Egg

About the author: Kelly Bone lives in Los Angeles writing The Vegetarian Foodie. She spends the rest of her time designing office cubicles... you might be sitting in one right now! Follow her on Twitter at @TheVegFoodie

PIZZA

I stumbled across this brand new video today, and it instantly improved my work-numbed mood—a moment of absurdity to get us all through these last days until the weekend.

People tend to hate cats or love them (in real life or in their internet-induced superstardom), but whatever your feelings cats objectively do get down to some pretty weird and funny sh*t.

Case in point—Chris D's slice addict. In his own words, "Cat stole pizza. Growled and hissed when caught." The cat in question spends the length of the video suspended in mid-air desperately clinging, fang and claw, to its prize. It's an entertaining half-minute window into cat madness—but in this particular pizza-driven instance, what's not to love?

Crazy Pizza Stealing Cat

[Video: Chris D]

Want more animal pizza times?Here's 12 more. And, then, of course, there's this adorable guy.

About the author:Kate Andersen is a Contributing Editor for Slice.

[Photographs: Todd Brock]

"It's a lot better dealing with people when they're happy as opposed to when they're sick."

That simple premise prompted Jonathan Seyfred and his wife Sarah to quit their gigs as ER nurses and start slinging pizzas for a living. But kickstarting a brick-and-mortar joint from scratch is no small endeavor—even for seasoned restaurateurs with deep pockets—so the concept of a mobile pizzeria was born. Now, four years later, S&J's Woodfired Pizza may not be the easiest pie shop to find in Atlanta (though that's about to change), but what they're pulling out of their eye-catching little red trailer makes it well worth the extra effort.

The 6x12-foot trailer, outfitted with a 48-inch Forno Bravo oven on top, is now a mainstay at a handful of local farmers' markets, festivals, and private events around town. But getting it off the drawing board and onto the streets of Atlanta was a journey in and of itself. Jonathan says that when it all started, there were only "about 15 other people" in the country working with mobile wood-fired pizza ovens, so there was no real blueprint to follow. He helped a company in Colorado design the trailer, went through some back-and-forth with the city on permitting issues... and then had to figure out how streamline the pizzamaking process to be totally self-contained and 100 percent transportable.

It takes about two hours from the moment the trailer arrives on-site to get the oven up to a cooking temp of 750-800°F. But that's starting from a cold oven. The thick walls of the Forno Bravo hold heat like a bad-ass boss; prep time on the day following an event is cut in half because the oven's interior is still sitting at around 400, even twenty-four hours later.

"Making pizza dough is a challenge," Jonathan tells me, "but making a pizza dough that can travel and sit outside all day is a whole 'nother beast." He and Sarah spent months perfecting their recipe (Sarah used to work at Mellow Mushroom and may have learned a thing or two there) that uses 00 flour from a North Carolina supplier, ice water, active dry yeast, and a multiple-day cold ferment at their rented kitchen space in Decatur.

Right now, S&J's hand-tossed dough is "the best it's been," Jonathan believes. And I concur, it's spectacular. Most of their pies sport gorgeous blistering around the cornicione and nice char underneath, with a chewy texture and slightly sour taste that seems to only highlight the mostly-local toppings that are added according to what's in season and available. The mozz comes from a farm near Athens, the meats are from Riverview Farms in northwest Georgia and Pine Street Market in Avondale Estates...hell, the rosemary for their white pie is picked off a bush in Jonathan and Sarah's own yard.

S&J's typically offers a smallish roster of pies at any event, based on how much they can comfortably carry with them. (One day at a busy art festival necessitates hauling 400 dough balls, eating up a ton of cooler space.) That doesn't mean they're keeping it stupid-simple and boring-basic, though. Sure, they do a plain cheese. Yes, there's pepperoni for the kids. But the Veggie I sampled was dressed out with their San Marzano sauce, sun-dried tomatoes, Vidalia onions, and arugula.

I'm a die-hard carnivore, mind you, but this was outstanding pizza, with a smattering of carefully-chosen toppings applied in thoughtful proportion. A little arugula goes a long way, and Jonathan totally gets that, not letting too much bitterness distract from the other add-ons.

But the big conversation pie at this particular event was the Applicious: goat feta cheese, applewood smoked bacon, apple chunks, and a pesto swirl. It was a bright and unexpected mix of freshness and flavor that had more than one visitor coming back for seconds. Those kinds of unusual combos have become a calling card of sorts for S&J's. Honey, ricotta, and strawberry; coppa and asparagus, etc. Arguably their most popular pie is a summer favorite that includes bacon, jalapenos, and peaches.

The pies and pricing are somewhat customized for the event they're working, but if you find S&J's at a farmers' market or festival, you'll likely be paying $8-11 for a 10-inch personal pizza. That price point is certainly in line with a standard pizzeria, but the pop-up nature of what Sarah and Jonathan (and their small team of four others) do can add a level of complexity. The line can back up with folks waiting for their pie, so plan your nosh accordingly.

And of course, there's finding them to begin with. Like all mobile outfits, S&J use the interwebs and social media to let their fans know where they'll be when, and they try to keep their farmers' market rotation fairly regular, but they get called to do a lot of private parties and catered events that can have their 3,500-pound trailer all over the metro area, and occasionally, not where you thought they'd be.

But fear not, Atlanta pizzahounds. (Slice scoop alert!) Jonathan tells me that he and Sarah are finalizing the paperwork on a brick-and-mortar location that (he hopes) will open in early 2014. The space—next to the Tara Theatre on Cheshire Bridge—will feature a double-decker oven that will allow them to do other dishes that they've been playing around with.

S&J's red trailer will remain on the streets, however, serving up some solidly stellar pies to those who bother to track it down. Take the time to do so; you'll be happy you did. And remember, dealing with people who are happy was the goal all along.

About the Author: Todd Brock lives the glamorous life of a stay-at-home freelance writer in the suburbs of Atlanta. Besides being paid to eat cheeseburgers for AHT and pizzas for Slice, he's written and produced over 1,000 hours of television and penned Building Chicken Coops for Dummies. When he grows up, he wants to be either the starting quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys or the drummer for The Gaslight Anthem. Or both.

[Photograph: Robyn Lee]

A trip down the memory lane of pizzas past had me wondering whether or not you guys would be as into smoked fish as a topping as I was. Way, or no way? Seems like it's a go in our collective pizza books.

Of the 345 total votes, a combined 50% of you were in full favor of putting smoked fish on pizza, and only 19% were firmly against. If you didn't read the comments, they were definitely worth a look—not only were some delicious pies described, but TXCraig1 (regular contributor to My Pie Monday) posted a photo of one of his creations: mascarpone, thinly sliced red onion, smoked salmon, arugula, blood orange EVOO, and a pinch of sea salt. Yes, please!

In my review of Rosco's, I mentioned how they serve their root beer (and beer beer) in ice-cold pint glasses. Barboncino, another favorite of mine, makes excellent cocktails. Situations like these are often exceptional, where something is executed so well that overrides our habitual drink choices.

Usually, there tend to be more basic beverages we return to again and again to pair with our slices. To really dig in, I'm going to pose a series of poll questions, dealing with each "genre" of accompanying drink—soda, wine, and beer (sorry milk, juice, and etc., this just isn't for you).

First up—soda. When you order a pie, what kind of soda is your go-to?

About the author:Kate Andersen is a Contributing Editor for Slice.

[Photographs: Michael Nusair]

Try not to freak out when I say this: Authenticity is overrated. Case in point? The double-layer pizza at Via Mercanti in Toronto. It's a tasty concoction, despite my sincere doubt that there's any region in Italy specializing in two-layer pizzas (of course, now that I've made that proclamation, I'm sure the comments will light up with people telling me about Italy's centuries-old history with multi-layered pizzas).

You'll find the restaurant nestled among the Mexican grocers and hippie hangouts of Kensington market; it's a fairly unlikely spot for a low-key pizzeria such as this, but then good food fits in wherever you find it.

The double-layer pizza (dubbed the Via Mercanti, after the restaurant) is basically what would result from the union between a Margherita pizza and a calzone. The top layer is a pretty typical Margherita pizza, and the bottom consists of ricotta cheese, diced prosciutto cotto and hot soppressata, and mushrooms.

It sounds overstuffed—and it kind of is—but in this case, I suspect that's the point. This is not an elegant pizza. It is, as my dining companion called it, a cheesy, saucy mess.

The bottom layer of crust sogs up a bit under the heaving weight of all that sauce and cheese, though it does retain a modicum of exterior crispiness and a good amount of chew. The second layer, on the other hand, is essentially lost amidst all the sauce, cheese, and toppings.

This means that the whole two-layer conceit is basically just a gimmick; the layers aren't clearly defined, and ultimately coalesce into one thing (if I tried this in a blind taste test, I don't know if I'd even be able to tell that there's more than one layer).

All that said, it's pretty darn tasty. The no-frills sauce, the cheese, and the sausage and mushrooms all work quite well together. It's not the best pizza I've ever had, but I'd happily eat it again.

Make sure you drizzle it with their house-made chili oil, which is redolent of the distinctively sweet flavor of roasted red pepper.

About the author:Michael Nusair is a Toronto-area writer / podcaster / cool dude who likes eating good food and watching Arnold Schwarzenegger movies. Sometimes at the same time! You can read about his various eating exploits here and here, and follow him on Twitter at MichaelKN.

VIEW SLIDESHOW: My Pie Monday: Butternut Squash, Figs, Pickled Cauliflower, and More!

Happy My Pie Monday everyone! This week the pizzas span the spectrum, from whimsical and creative to seasonal and comforting. Check them all out in the slideshow!

As always, if you happen to whip up a pie at home, be sure to send us a shot for next week's My Pie Monday. Just take one snapshot of your homemade pizza, briefly describe your cooking method, and follow these instructions to get it to Slice HQ by 8pm EST on Thursday night. Please title your email "My Pie Monday" and make sure to include your Serious Eats username!

Looking for inspiration? Find dozens of recipes and home kitchen adaptations in our Pizza-Making Guide or peruse our collection of past My Pie Monday contributions.

About the author:Kate Andersen is a Contributing Editor for Slice.

VIEW SLIDESHOW: Pizza and Italian Craft Beer Pairings: Gabriele Bonci and Katie Parla Team Up at Paulie Gee's, Brooklyn

[Photographs: Kate Andersen]

Gabriele Bonci, celebrity baker and founder/owner of Rome's pilgrimage-worthy Pizzarium, visited New York this past weekend to promote the release of his new cookbook, Pizza: Seasonal Recipes from Rome's Legendary Pizzarium. On Saturday, I was lucky enough to be a part of a fantastic, carbed-out lunch, where Bonci was serving up slices paired with Italian craft beers picked by journalist and food blogger Katie Parla.

The event was held at the one and only Paulie Gee's, and a more atmospherically appropriate setting would be hard to come by. Bonci has been romantically nicknamed "the Michelangelo of pizza," and is renowned for his style of pizza al taglio. While his square, traditionally Roman pies were not on the menu that afternoon, the meal proved exceptional.

A recent partnership between Bonci and millers Molino Iaquone provided the specialty flour for the dough—77% hydration with a 2-3 day ferment. The pies themselves, with their array of seasonal toppings, were baked in Paulie's wood fired oven at around 752º F. Katie, a resident of Rome and expert in its cuisine, did an excellent job in matching beers to pies.

Rich, creatively topped pies and a selection of Italian craft beers? How could I not keep packing it away, long after I was full. Don't just take my word for it: Check out the slideshow for a look at all the slices and brews!

About the author:Kate Andersen is a Contributing Editor for Slice.

VIEW SLIDESHOW: Two New Wood Ovens in Astoria: Milkflower and Tufino

The Queen at Milkflower. [Photographs: Max Falkowitz]

In a neighborhood with lots of solid pizza but little that's exceptional, a place that makes destination-worthy pies remains Astoria's golden unicorn. Though Basil Brick Oven is a go-to spot for Neapolitan pizza in the neighborhood, the market's gotten more crowded lately, wood burning ovens and all.

Milkflower, the more recent of two new arrivals, is Neapolitan in spirit if New York in execution. Here, the pizza is crisp enough to pick up with one hand but lithe and juicy, with a minimally altered tomato sauce and ample helpings of cheese. It bears a strong resemblance to the pies you'll find at Paulie Gee's, and if the pizza doesn't ascend to quite the same heights as the Greenpoint lion, it's still an inspiring addition to Astoria's pizza scene.

Milkflower comes by way of two brothers, Peter and Danny Aggelatos. Peter runs the front of the house and Danny runs the back, where mozzarella is made every day and pies fire in two minutes or less in a Stefano Ferrara oven. Though pizza is the star of the show, it's not the only attraction. The menu encourages you to eat your veggies, many of them freshly picked from Brooklyn Grange, and you should. A String Bean Salad ($9) included green and yellow beans so fresh they still squeaked, and the sun-dried tomato vinaigrette they're tossed with shows good balance and restraint.

Toasts at Milkflower.

The menu also has a section of Toasts ($4 each), which are decidedly not bruschetta, well-toasted slices of wholesome-tasting bread piled high with everything from peas to corn to squash to avocado. One version, with buttery leeks and thinly sliced chorizo, felt heavy even before cured egg yolk was shaved over the top. But the pea, ricotta, and lavender with lemon zest is just beautiful: the peas candy-sweet with just a little bite, the ricotta's subtleties drawn out well by its aromatic toppings.

Spicy soppressata at Milkflower.

The pizza is built on a good, if not outstanding, foundation; the crust packs some impressive yeasty flavor into a 24 hour rise, though I wish it took in more smoke from the oven. But the right toppings can make up for these imperfections. In the margherita pie, here called The Queen ($10), the tomatoes balance tang and sweetness, and the fior di latte, generously spread all over the pie, exuding a little whey, struts its freshness well.

Milkflower's pizza underbelly.

Though as nice as the pie is, it lacks a certain savory depth that would make it exquisite. You can find that depth in the Spicy Soppressata ($16), which, as Roberta's and Paulie Gee's have shown us before, is a case for how thinly sliced, beautifully charred spicy sausage benefits from a drizzle of sweet honey. Skip the Brussels Sprout ($15) with a useless egg in the center; the pizza calls out for some acidity or salty pork product to keep your interest up.

Margherita at Tufino.

If Milkflower emphasizes its New Yorkishness, Tufino up on Ditmars Boulevard, just a couple months shy of its first year in business, goes more traditional. Pie man Stephen Menna, who worked the ovens at Paulie Gee's before crossing the Pulaski bridge, makes airy, soft-centered pizzas with attractive leopard spots around the rim.

Tufino also markets itself as a friggatoria, a place for fried Neapolitan snacks, and fried goodies occupy a substantial part of the menu. You can try most of them in a gargantuan sampler plate ($14) that satisfies in generosity if not exceptional quality. Starchy arancini and potato croquettes are mild and enjoyable enough with the thick, cooked tomato sauce that accompanies them, but don't expect them to break new ground beyond the red sauce classicism they embody. An imposing full-sized ball of fresh mozzarella, stuffed with soppresata and porcini mushrooms, begins and ends at excess. Consider skipping salad as well; our farro and arugula ($9), though generously portioned and well-dosed with lemon, did little to lighten up one meal, and the stale fridge flavors soaked up by the topping of ricotta salata left a sour taste in our mouths.

Il Greco at Tufino.

As for the pizza, it's best when kept simple. Baroque toppings like fior di latte and fresh ricotta with roasted pistachios, red onions, and a dusting of Parmesan ($14), or a red pie heaped with grilled and fried eggplant ($14) are needlessly heavy and awkward to eat. A simple Margherita ($11) achieves greater balance, and the cheesy Il Greco ($12), a white pie smothered in fior di latte, Fontina, Kalamata olives, oregano, and lemon, negotiates a careful balance between fat and acidity.

Menna ferments his sourdough base for 72 hours before baking, but on repeat visits I've found it lacking in the complex, tangy flavors that would do these pies so right. And though the crust is abundantly airy, cooked at a blistering 900 to 950°F, it's missing a certain smokiness that its char would suggest.

Tufino's oven.

Tufino's mozzarella is also made in house, but it lacks the fresh vibrancy that you'll find at Milkflower or Basil. Of all its applications I've tried (red and white pies, fried whole), my favorite is actually in sandwich form, where a simple Caprese Panino ($8) does well to execute classic flavors.

Astoria may still be waiting for a must-try pizzeria we can shout about without reservations, but at the rate the neighborhood's going I suspect it's getting close. In the meantime there's a growing number of neighborhood joints putting out some very solid pies, charming in their own ways and worth a visit or two for the curious. Can you have an embarrassment of riches when the coins are all bronze and silver? Sure thing; it's a hell of a place to get started.

About the author:Max Falkowitz is the New York editor at Serious Eats. You can follow him on Twitter at @maxfalkowitz.

The quest to narrow down, to pick the best of the best—ultimately pretty impossible (at least in any universally satisfying way), but that doesn't mean we don't keep trying! This time, The Daily Meal has picked their 101 top pizzas in America.

"Pizza is about as varied and beloved a genre, as opinionated a subject, and also as accessible a food as there is." The Daily Meal's crack at culling out the best American pies for 2103 is lengthy—they considered over 400 pizzas, from all across the country. Ideally they tasted each pizzeria's signature pie, but failing that, margheritas were picked as a baseline for judgment; and those judgments were passed by a panelist of 46, most of whom chose to remain anonymous.

Of those 101 pies, 30 were from New York (including Long Island)—but only 3 NYC pizzas made the top 10, and two of those were in Brooklyn! Connecticut and California also snagged multiple spots in the top 10. The Daily Meal view of 'American Pizza'? Great pies can be found everywhere, but it's still easiest to find them in the tried and true cities: New Haven, NYC, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Chicago. Check out the full list for the total breakdown—which pies were eaten where, and how they rank.

What do you have to say about the list? Did your favorite slice joint make the cut?

About the author:Kate Andersen is a Contributing Editor for Slice.

If you've been hanging around this corner of the internet pizzascape, chances are you've run into Matt Hyland, a.k.a. BKMatt, before. He's made regular appearances on My Pie Monday and few years back, he joined forces with Roberto Patriarca to open Brooklyn Central.

The pair have since parted ways, but Matt has a new project up his sleeve. He and his wife Emily have just announced plans to open a pizzeria in Clinton Hill! Take a look at what Matt has to say about his pizza obsessiveness and his upcoming project.

Name: Matthew Hyland
Location: Brooklyn, NY
Occupation: Pizza Man
Websites:Kickstarter: Build Matt's Oven/Twitter/Instagram

Alright, the obvious first question—what type pizza do you like best?

I really enjoy cooking in a wood burning oven and making pizzas that are inspired by the Neapolitan style, but that don't strictly adhere to any sort of categorical, archaic tradition. I think pizza is an art, and that all pizza chefs should put forth their own expressions of pizza—making pizza is about exploration, inspiration, and fun, and shouldn't necessarily follow any set of rigid rules. Rather, pizza making is a craft of the hands and heart.

So, to answer your question, I eat all types of pizza; I really do prefer pizza that is made by someone who cares and puts his whole heart into it.

That's what it's really all about, isn't it? Doing it because you love it—and speaking of pizza you love...The Pizza Cognition Theory states that "the first slice of pizza a child sees and tastes ... becomes, for him, pizza." Do you remember your first slice, and where was it from? Is the pizzeria still around? How have your tastes changed over the years?

Growing up in Brooklyn, I remember Carmine's in Bay Ridge as being a classic looking pizza place with wooden benches and terra cotta floors where my brother would take me for pizza after school. A slice was a dollar, and we would also get an Italian ice. Though Carmine's is not around anymore, Pete's Pizza, which is still open, is another Bay Ridge haunt my dad would go to grab a pie to bring home for dinner.

I haven't been to Pete's in over twenty years. In terms of taste, I think that what pizza is has really been evolving as its own creature since my childhood—my tastes for pizza are varied, but a classic New York slice will always hold a special place in my heart.

So take that classic New York slice...what are your favorite toppings for it?

Easy question. At a restaurant: pepperoni and olive. Homemade: any spicy topping with honey.

Sounds right up my alley. When you're on the hunt for a slice, where do you like to go?

I eat pizza often. Right now, I am finishing the season with Pizza Moto and love their pies. I also enjoy a lot of other places around the city. Lately, because I'm opening my pizza restaurant in Clinton Hill, I enjoy a bike ride over to Speedy Romeo for that awesome provel pie, and a much slower bike ride back to work thereafter.

I also live close to the 2/3 train, so I can pop over to Adrianne's for a solid square for dinner. When I can snatch a car for the day, I head out to Joe and Pat's for a Staten Island treat. My wife and I have spent a few anniversaries at their sister restaurant, Rubirosa—for the mozzarella sticks as much as for the pizza.

You clearly know how to work the city. When you're not eating out, do you make your own pizza at home? If so, what's your favorite method or recipe?

I make a lot of pizza at home, and have access to a small Forno Bravo Primavera to make my pies. My dough is based off of a lot of testing on variations of the Co. no-knead recipe. I always use American flour, either from Bob's Red Mill, King Arthur, or Central Milling, and I include about 10% rye flour in the mix, which adds a nice nuance to the flavor and texture to the crust. What is really important to me is that I hand mix everything.

Even for diehard slice lovers, the wrong topping can occasionally ruin a pie—what one thing would you NEVER eat on a pizza?

I'm not opposed to inventive or experimental pizza toppings, and I don't want to say there is one thing too taboo to top a pie with. However, the key to amazing toppings is all about the execution. Toppings are meant to be bite-sized; I can't stand when a topping is so big and cumbersome that it slides off of the pizza when I take my first bite. There's a big difference between small pepperoni cups that crisp at the edges and add to the pizza-eating experience ,versus big slabs of thick and slimy salami.

I absolutely agree; who wants to have to fight to eat their pizza? While we're on the subject of toppings, what would you say is the most 'out there' pie you've ever had?

I think I ate a chicken tikka masala slice in Amsterdam...but I can't confirm that.

Amsterdam! Looks like we have a traveler on our hands...so what's the farthest you've gone just for pizza?

Rhode Island. The grilled pizza at Al Forno holds a lot of nostalgia for me and is amazing. My wife and I shared that pizza on our first date twelve years ago. We have not stopped eating pizza since.

Nostalgia plays such a huge role in the foods we love, and why we love them. What's currently taking center stage in your love for pizza?

As I mentioned earlier, I'm opening my own pizza restaurant in Clinton Hill in early 2014 and am itching to get my Kickstarter funded so that I can install my oven and get to work. People who want to know more can follow my Twitter or Instagram for more information.

How exciting—good luck! Pizza is clearly a big part of your life, so what do your friends and family have to say about your obsession?

They love it. We had a lot of pizza parties this summer, and they all got to try stretching the dough and topping their own pies. My wife is my pizza-eating partner in crime as well as business partner for our soon-to-open pizza restaurant. We are pizza crazy. Actually, as I think back now, our first three meals together were pizza.

The family that pizzas together...Before we go, any last bits of pizza wisdom you want to share?

Pizza does not have to equate to just Italy; it has evolved into much more than that simple correlation. I hope people will start using more local ingredients, like American flour, as pizza continues to evolve as part of our culture.

Finally, who would you like to see interviewed?
Has Mike R. ever done one of these? He always seems to be on the front lines of pizza eating.

About the author:Kate Andersen is a Contributing Editor for Slice.

[Photographs: Todd Brock]

Around town, Ron Eyester is known as "The Angry Chef," the Twitter alter ego created when he started (hilariously) cyberventing about annoying and rude customers, often in real-time and from deep in the weeds during dinner rush. Around the hip family-friendly enclave of Morningside, he's become the mad genius behind a mini-empire, with three popular restaurants all within a stone's throw of one another. Based on my early samplings from his latest spot, Timone's, I'm happy to just call him the guy behind some of my favorite new pizzas in town.

Timone's (pronounced tih-MOE-neeze) gets its name from the maiden name of Eyester's mother. Inside, the space is all Italian-American NYC, from the streetscape wall murals to the white subway tile to Sinatra's mugshot near the bathrooms. But don't call it a gimmick or a theme; Timone's is meant to be a New York-INSPIRED joint, sparked by Eyester's own upbringing there. And while the menu boasts pasta dishes and a weekly lasagna special, Timone's is, at its heart, a neighborhood pizza joint.

Timone's Cheese Pie ($15) is a good place to start. To say it's nothing fancy is an understatement, but it's delicious in its simplicity. Seventeen inches of melty, gooey cheese dotted with blister spots atop a rich, almost-smoky sauce is enough to make it good pizza. But what sets it apart is Timone's crust. Here's the way it's described, verbatim from the menu:

Our pizza dough is a blend of Anson Mills organic Farinadi Pizzaiolo heirloom flour and King Arthur Sir Lancelot high-gluten, unbleached flour with a hint of Savannah Bee orange blossom honey and sea salt. We have also installed a carbon filtration system on the house water which essentially allows us to re-create the exact water found out of the tap in New York City.

Wowzers. Suffice it to say that Eyester takes his dough seriously, if nothing else. Pizza purists may scoff at the honey, and New Yorkers can debate whether a "carbon filtration" system makes the dough any more NYC-like, but I can safely say the crust I ate at Timone's was unlike anything I've tried lately. It had a crisp, sheeny shell that crackled under tooth and gave way to a chewy texture and yes, slightly sweet, interior.

The undercarriage sports no char to speak of, a result of a multidecked Blodgett gas oven rather than some wood-burning, fire-breathing beast. But it was a great reminder that excellent pizza doesn't have to come from just one type of oven. Cooked like the best NY street pies are, this was a slice I'd be proud to stroll around the streets of Manhattan with.

But Eyester isn't content to keep all the offerings so sparse and basic. There is a mushroom pie and a pepperoni pizza; the rest showcase some spectacular and cheffy toppings. Among the nine specialties, you'll find African squash with candied bacon, artichokes and almonds, chicken confit and eggplant puree, even braised short ribs with fennel jam and turnips. But the one that caught my eye was the Sausage Pie with White Beans ($19).

Small, unobtrusive bits of sundried tomato are also here, along with sage, shallots, and a drizzle of balsamic that's artfully squeezed over the pie just before serving. The sausage itself is finely ground and crumbled, with a subtle seasoning that still lets you know it's all there. But the beans were the real revelation for me. Some were intact, some had burst open, mashing mid-chew into what basically serves as a sauce for this pie. It made for a hearty slice, with fall flavors that blended beautifully, even if I'd never exactly imagined them all hanging out together on a pizza before.

Timone's is still just a few months old, and they're still finding their way somewhat. The menu has undergone some tweaking in that short time; while Eyester didn't offer a build-your-own option at first (or even substitutions), the menu now breaks toppings down into three pricing buckets and challenges, "Don't Like Those Pies? You Try."

Eyester may not approve of whatever you create, and may even take to Twitter if you act too douchey about it, but I for one will be back to Timone's for more of what The Angry Chef is dishing out.

About the Author: Todd Brock lives the glamorous life of a stay-at-home freelance writer in the suburbs of Atlanta. Besides being paid to eat cheeseburgers for AHT, pizzas for Slice, and sugar-laden things for Sweets, he's written and produced over 1,000 hours of television and penned Building Chicken Coops for Dummies. When he grows up, he wants to be either the starting quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys or the drummer for The Gaslight Anthem. Or both.

Grandaisy Bakery's Pumpkin Pizza [Photograph: Robyn Lee]

Continuing in the vein of the Soda Poll, last week I wanted to know: what beer do you like to drink with your pizza? With 649 votes, the results were pretty varied—no one variety vastly outshone the rest, the way Coke/Pepsi did with soda.

Nevertheless there was a winner, and with 22% that winner was IPAs. Most of you seemed to feel there was enough variety in these hoppy beers to make them drinkable with almost any kind of pie. Runner-up was pale ales, with 18%. The least popular pairing choice? Porters; with less than 1% of the votes, they don't seemed destined for pizza, but give a good stew is another story...

Take a look at the comments for some great discussion on specific beers, and what does (or doesn't) let them work with a slice. My personal favorite came from reader Rosewood, who wisely responded: "'What Beer Do You Like to Drink With Your Pizza?" Yes.'"

This week, here in NYC, it's finally feeling like fall—cool weather, fallen leaves underfoot, sweaters out in force...and pumpkin. In drinks, baked goods, pastas and more, the sudden appearance of pumpkin on menus everywhere is one of the most reliable signifiers of the change in season.

Pumpkin (and winter squash) may be most beloved in pies and breads, but it has a pretty strong following as a pizza topping too. In recent My Pie Monday submissions or on a particularly delicious slice from an event last weekend, pumpkin and squash have been making themselves known. Whether you think of it as a seasonal fad, look forward to the pairing all year long, or want nothing to do with it, I want to know: how do you feel about pumpkin (or squash) on pizza?

About the author:Kate Andersen is a Contributing Editor for Slice.

As New York kids, we didn't have much opportunity to do the running, jumping, and climbing trees-type things that suburban kids get to do with each other after school. Instead, we had pre-scheduled after-school activities. And as the child of a certified, card-carrying tiger mom, that meant lots of them. Chess club, Math Adventure! (really, and it was really spelled with the exclamation point!), violin practice, the occasional sport (so long as it didn't interfere with violin or math). Anything that would increase the likelihood that my young mind would be molded into the sort that would grow up to attend the only respectable college in the world and practice the only respectable profession in the world and absolutely not ever begin to dream about thinking of becoming something as shameful as, say, a writer or—god forbid—a cook.

I unfortunately dashed both of my mom's dreams by a) not going to Harvard and b) not being a doctor. But in a way, it's her own fault: If she had never agreed to let me take that one-day, two-hour after-school Cooking For Kids class, why, then I may never have ended up in the oh-so-embarrassing position I'm at today.

*To be fair, after several years of "there's no difference between what you do and cooking at McDonald's"-type talk, she's had a 180-degree change of heart on my profession of choice and might perhaps even be secretly proud of me.

On the menu at said class: English muffin pizza. The version we made was the same one that kids and college students across the country still make today: a split English muffin spread with some jarred pizza sauce, topped with a handful of pre-shredded mozzarella cheese and a few slices of pepperoni, and baked in an oven until melty and hot.

We all know the first law of Pizza-Like Objects: If it's made with some combination of zesty tomato sauce, a wheat-based bready product, and oozy melted cheese with a hint of pepperoni, it's going to taste good. Perhaps not great, but reliably pretty good. And that's the problem with English muffin pizza. It's good stuff, to be sure. I'd happily eat those same after-school versions without a complaint if they were presented to me. In fact, I did exactly that all through college.

But the thing about good things is that they all have the ability to be great.

Today, we're classing up English Muffin pizza to the point where it's not just an acceptable snack, but a snack to actually look forward to, all while trying to maintain the easygoing simplicity of the original product. Let's go through each stage step by step to institute our improvements.

P.S. Mom—if you're reading this, I'd like you to know that your son now earns a decent living by writing about English muffin pizza. Think about that!

The Sauce

The most obvious place to start our upgrading process is with the sauce. As much as I have a nostalgic appreciation of canned pizza sauces with their candy-like sweetness and their reliance on too many dried herbs and powdered garlic, we can do a little bit better.

The traditional pizza-ist in me says that the sauce should be nothing more than a can of San Marzano tomatoes and salt, but I tried that and, while it was delicious, it was lacking a certain English muffin pizza-ish quality to it. A cooked sauce was a better way to go.

Aromatics

In a nod to canned pizza sauces, my version does include the garlic and herbs, but my garlic, parsley, and basil are all fresh, cooked down gently in a mixture of extra-virgin olive oil and butter to maximize flavor extraction. I also use a dash of dried oregano—tough, dry weather herbs like oregano, thyme, and rosemary do quite well in their dried forms because their aromatics are less volatile than those of tender leafy herbs—and a pinch of red pepper flakes.

Canned crushed tomatoes have the smooth texture I'm looking for in this type of sauce, and all it needs by way of seasoning is some salt and just a pinch of sugar. Italian traditionalists may scoff at the use of sugar in a sauce* and some will act as though it will create an inter-dimensional rift in the space-time continuum on par with crossing the streams. Then again, said traditionalists aren't exactly the target audience for English muffin pizza to begin with, so I think we're safe here.

*Get a load of comments here if scoffing if what you're looking for!

Finishing sauce

Some folks say you should never add fresh herbs until the very end of cooking in order to maximize their fresh flavor. I'm not the kind of person who likes hard and fast rules like this. Instead, I go for the fresh herb trifecta in almost all my food: some at the beginning to cook down and work their way into the background, some added at the middle (in this case stirred into the finished sauce), and finally a sprinkling of fresh herbs just before serving to capture that freshness.

The Pepperoni

Pepperoni's not a requirement for English muffin pizzas in the same way that cocktails aren't a requirement for Fridays or sour gummi worms aren't a requirement for road trips. Life will go on without them...it'll just be a whole lot less fun.

Flavorwise, we've found that there are a few brands of pre-sliced pepperoni that bring on the spice, but the big issue is that they don't curl up into little crisp cups the way a natural casing stick-style pepperoni does.

Boar's head stick pepperoni

At Slice, we're all about that curl. There is no fine vessel for the delivery of hot pepperoni grease than an edible pepperoni cup, and there is no finer brand of stick-style pepperoni for pizzas than Boar's Head, the winner of our stick pepperoni taste test.

N.B. Those of you interested in trivial science for the sake of trivial science might find this article about why pepperoni curls to be fascinating. I sure do.

Pepperoni cups

With a normal pizza I apply the pepperoni raw before baking, but with the shorter bake time and lower temperatures English muffin pizzas require compared to a pizza made from raw dough, I figured the pepperoni wouldn't cook enough for my tastes without a bit of a head start. So after slicing my pepperoni to between 2.5 and 4 millimeters thick (the thickness range that delivers maximum cuppage), I tried applying it both in raw form and par-cooked in a skillet.

Pepperoni par-cooked vs not par-cooked

You can see from the pizza on the left that pepperoni that goes on raw will acquire a bit of cupping and a decent amount of crisping of the edges, but it's nothing compared to the awesome charring that you get from par-cooking the slices before they go on top of the muffin.

There's an added bonus from using this method: you get a skillet-ful of hot rendered pepperoni grease to work with. The question is where best to apply it. We'll circle back on that in a moment.

Muffin Prep

Raw English muffins

If there's one major issue with English muffin pizza, it's the proclivity that English muffins have for absorbing sauce.

Soaked-in sauce

And I'm not talking in the desirable butter-in-the-nooks-and-crannies type absorption, I'm talking turns-bread-into-mushy-goop level absorption.

With my French Bread Pizza, I solved this issue by compressing the bread slightly and adding a protective layer of melted cheese in between the sauce and the bread. English muffins, with their larger holes and less-compressible structure require a different tack. Toasting solve the problem nicely, allowing the sauce to enter the nooks and crannies, but preventing the muffin from turning soggy.

Toasted vs. untoasted

See?

And remember that pan of rendered pepperoni grease that we had sitting on the stove? You see where we're going with this?

Toasting English muffins

Toasting the English muffins in that pepperoni grease gives us protection as well as built-in pepperoni flavor. Win win.

Toasted English muffins

You want to toast the muffins until they're nice and dark, like this. Not only does this offer maximum protection from sauce-induced mushiness, but it also gives your English muffin pizzas just a hint of the char that defines really great traditional pizza.

Spreading sauce

The Cheese

I tried making a few pizzas with fresh mozzarella, including fancy-pants buffalo mozzarella from Italy, but the wateriness of the fresh stuff doesn't work in this setting. Instead, stick with the traditional choice: low-moisture aged mozzarella.

And forget the pre-shredded stuff! It comes coated with starch which can affect its melting qualities, and it never tastes as good as freshly grated cheese.

Cheese!

I used a block of full-fat mozzarella from Polly-O, the winning brand in our low-moisture mozzarella taste test.

Pepperoni and Parm

Mozzarella is a great cheese for its gooey melting qualities, but for a flavor boost, I supplement it with a bit of 24-month aged Parmigiano-Reggiano, because if it's good enough for my cheese board, then it's good enough for my English muffins.

Just as I go for the trifecta with my herbs, I do the same with my Parm: a small amount of it mixed in with the mozarella to provide some tang to that layer, followed by a light sprinkle after the pepperoni is applied in order to brown and bring out those gorgeous, nutty flavors that cooked Parm delivers.

Pizza!

Finally, I add a grating of Parm to the tops of the pizzas as soon as they come out of the oven for that fresh sharpness, along with a drizzle of really, really good extra-virgin olive oil. It's amazing how few things in the world are not immediately improved with a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil.

The final product that emerged from my oven was, to be frank, awesome. At once totally recognizable and true to the original source material, complete with the slightly sweet, herb-and-garlic-infused sauce, while at the same time being so much better, the layers of cheese and fresh herbs adding complexity and depth that I didn't know an English muffin pizza could have, while the extra toasting steps and incorporation of pepperoni grease creating a superior textural experience.

Is it something that I'd serve at a fancy dinner party? Nope. But I'd've done good if after my next party at least one guest went home thinking to themselves, "Damn, that was some tasty English muffin pizza."

And here's the truth: After I completed this recipe, I called up my mom to pick up the leftovers for dinner. She even called me back later to tell me how delicious they were. Perhaps she's proud of me after all.

About the author: J. Kenji Lopez-Alt is the Chief Creative Officer of Serious Eats where he likes to explore the science of home cooking in his weekly column The Food Lab. You can follow him at @thefoodlab on Twitter, or at The Food Lab on Facebook.

VIEW SLIDESHOW: My Pie Monday: Corn Crema, Homemade Sausage, Suluguni, and More!

Happy Halloween (week) everyone—and a happy new My Pie Monday, too! With lots of butternut squash, spicy sausage, and mushroom, I'm really feeling your autumnal spirit; check out all the pies in full with the slideshow!

As always, if you happen to whip up a pie at home, be sure to send us a shot for next week's My Pie Monday. Just take one snapshot of your homemade pizza, briefly describe your cooking method, and follow these instructions to get it to Slice HQ by 8pm EST on Thursday night. Please title your email "My Pie Monday" and make sure to include your Serious Eats username!

Looking for inspiration? Find dozens of recipes and home kitchen adaptations in our Pizza-Making Guide or peruse our collection of past My Pie Monday contributions.

About the author:Kate Andersen is a Contributing Editor for Slice.

Earlier this year, we told you about a $125,000 grant from NASA to fund the creation of a 3D printer. For space!

The goal? Viable, nutritious meals (read: pizza) for potential consumption by astronauts on their intrepid voyages into the vast beyond. Well, folks, part one of the dream officially became reality earlier this month at the SXSW Eco Conference, where Systems & Materials Research Corporation debuted their design in action.

That action? Pizza printing!

Watch the Video

The ingredients currently being printed consist of dough, tomato ketchup, and cream cheese. Deeelish! Between printed pizza and test tube burgers, it's been a big year for sci-fi science. Now, all they have to do is launch that baby into the stars and, the truly daunting challenge, find somebody willing to dig in.

So? Any takers?

[Photograph: Robyn Lee]

In the previous, thematically appropriate poll, I wanted to know how you feel about pumpkin and squash on pizza. I had recently eaten a delicious pumpkin-topped pie myself, and seen quite a few popping up in the latest rounds of My Pie Monday—plus it's fall!—so it seemed like a good time to ask.

351 offered your votes, with some pretty evenly split results. 24% agree (with me, that is)—pumpkin and squash, either as a sauce base or sliced and roasted on top, can be a great way to make use of seasonal produce on a pizza. The runner-ups, with 22%, were those who like it well enough in baked goods but draw the line at a pizza topping. The comments this time produced a nice mix of antagonists and enthusiasts—check them out for some tasty sounding ways to use pumpkin/squash on pizza (or to rally with your fellow haters).

So, on to today's topic. Pizza and candy. Each delicious, each their own, wonderful, unique gustatory experience. But together? I'm...not so sure. My initial response is to fight my own gag reflex. I like to consider myself an open minded person though, so in that vein I decided to think about it—which candy would I be most willing to eat on top of a pizza? Is there any version of reality where this could be tasty, or is it just a nightmare to even think about?*

How about it? Which type candy is the least disgusting as a pizza topping?

*And if this poll intrigues rather than repells you, you'll definitely want to check out this and this.

About the author:Kate Andersen is a Contributing Editor for Slice.

[Photograph: Brand Eating]

Happy Halloween! For parents (and let's admit it, any among us with a craving for the sweet stuff), managing the highs—and especially the lows—of this sweetest of holidays can be a battle. One way to try and stave off those post-candy-binge crashes? Chow down on some pizza first...preferably of the ghoulish variety.

One mass market option is Papa Murphy's Pizza, with their Jack O'Lantern pizza. Whether you love or hate Papa Murphy's take-and-bake style, there's no denying the brilliance of their new ad this year. Covered over on AdAge, the spot stars a bunch of costumed kids running around, doing their All Hallows thing...only to OD on their sacks of candy and transform into a rampaging horde of mini-monsters (to be prevented, of course, by filling up on the aforementioned Jack O'Lantern pie).

Ad agency copywriter Jennie Moore is familiar with the issue: "...hungry kids get cranky and cranky kids melt down...the pizza solves all those problems because it's good, easy and fun and kids will eat it." Inspiration came from Ms. Moore's own daughter, Cassidy, who four years ago had her own sugar-induced-rage-out. See both Ms. Moore's home video of that original meltdown and the ad (featuring Cassidy's original costume that year - purple princess bunny) in full, at Advertising Age.

Not a pizza, but still pretty awesome [Photograph: Pee Wee Herman/Facebook]

If you're more interested in making your own (which I have to admit, I am), get ready for some killer inspiration—pun fully intended. Pee Wee Herman, that most beloved of bow tie wearers, pulled together a gallery of Halloween pies that run the gamut, from sweetly scary to downright ghastly.

[Photograph: Pee Wee Herman/Facebook]

If you end up eating (or making!) any fun pizza tonight, or just have some great ideas, let us know about it! Pictures, descriptions—whatever you got, we want it.

About the author:Kate Andersen is a Contributing Editor for Slice.

In San Francisco and the East Bay, we've just come to expect the opening of serious wood-oven pizzerias—and even pizza trucks. But the South Bay, inexplicably, seems to have sat out the whole WFO movement.

That changed last week with the debut of Oak & Rye, a pizzeria that opened in Los Gatos in place of the former Restaurant James Randall. James Randall's executive chef, Ross Hanson, remains, but he's partnered with his wife, Brean, his sister, Dana Bunker (a 6-year veteran of Mario Batali's Otto in Manhattan), and Brooklyn pizza machine Angelo Womack of the highly regarded Brooklyn pizzeria-restaurant Roberta's. Womack and Bunker are engaged (congrats!), which makes this a family-run pizzeria.

Womack was head of the pizza kitchen at Roberta's and in charge of the menu there (he's responsible for the killer Cortes pizza, above) before he and Anthony Falco started Roberta's mobile pizza units, which travel to various NYC locations and events throughout the year.

After helping establish the trailer-based mobile business and putting in time making hundreds of pizzas a day there, Womack was set to open his own place in upstate New York, but during delays in that project, Womack says, an opportunity in Los Gatos popped up. "Ive always loved the South Bay and have always wanted an excuse to move to Santa Cruz. And thanks to restaurants like Manresa (and other young restaurants opening here), downtown Los Gatos is a food destination."

The two moved there in April, joined the Hansons, and began transforming Restaurant James Randall into Oak & Rye, which, as the name implies, will offer a "huge selection" of rye whiskey—"We're really trying to show the diversity of it," Womack says. "We really want to show what can be done with them."

Womack will be in charge of the pizza while Ross Hanson has a nonpizza menu consisting of seasonal American appetizers, small plates, and wood-roasted meats. Bunker will be "running the floor with the Otto/Batali/Bastianich mentality," and Brean Hanson "will be making sure we don't burn the place down," Womack says.

"I'm excited to finally have a place of my own. I've always had strange ideas for pizza, but the rule is to always make the pizza make sense. Any asshole can take a dish and basically just slap it on dough and call it pizza. But it's not that easy. It's texture, it's balance, and it should always be fun. If pizza isn't fun, it's lost its way."

To that end, pizzas that Womack developed at Roberta's (like the Cortes) will make an appearance at Oak & Rye, as will tributes to other pizza-makers' signature pies:

"I'm keeping the menu super simple at first. I'm making pies I've created in the past for now, i.e., the Beesting, Cheeses Christ, Crispy Glover. And I'm making pies—with their permission, of course—like Best Pizza's white pie. I need to get my dough recipe down, and I need to know what's available and what excites people here in California. Seasonal here is different than in NYC."

VIEW SLIDESHOW: My Pie Monday: Artichoke Hearts, Mushrooms, Brussels Sprouts, and More!

Welcome to a shiny new My Pie Monday! There's a killer group of homemade pies this week, loaded up with some great looking seasonal produce. Check them out in the slideshow!

As always, if you happen to whip up a pie at home, be sure to send us a shot for next week's My Pie Monday. Just take one snapshot of your homemade pizza, briefly describe your cooking method, and follow these instructions to get it to Slice HQ by 8pm EST on Thursday night. Please title your email "My Pie Monday" and make sure to include your Serious Eats username!

Looking for inspiration? Find dozens of recipes and home kitchen adaptations in our Pizza-Making Guide or peruse our collection of past My Pie Monday contributions.

About the author:Kate Andersen is a Contributing Editor for Slice.