I've felt like pizza has saved my life many times, but rarely does a slice have a starring role in a true heroic act. But this adorable 7-year-old, Rita Lawlor, has put pizza on the heroism map. When her mom wouldn't wake up, she gave her a slap in the face with a piece of pie. Once that didn't revive her mom, she knew that it was time to get serious about getting some real help. Add this litmus test to your first aid repertoire. You may not have smelling salts in house, but pizza, VERY likely!

Click through for the video...

[Via dailymail.co.uk via @Christellar]

About the author: Meredith Smith is the Slice editor. You can follow her on Twitter: @mertsmith.

This nation—at least half of it—always seems fascinated with what our presidents eat and where. Nattering nabobs like to pick apart their ordering options. Haters like to say, "Who cares?" We've had the opportunity to highlight President Obama and the First Lady's numerous burger runs, but it's rare he does pizza. On that note, did you see that the prez ordered a dozen pizzas and cannoli from Dom DeMarco's Pizzeria in Las Vegas?

We posted a quick pre-opening tour of Dom Demarco's back in August, but the place has been open since December 1, 2011. That fact seemed to get lost in the holiday madness, but there you go.

See also: St. Louis Pizzeria Pi to Make Pizza at White House »

Dom DeMarco's

9785 West Charleston Boulevard, Las Vegas NV 89117 (map)
702-570-7000; domdemarcos.com

[Photographs re-published with permission from 1 Fine Cookie]

Man, it's rare that anybody beats Slice to a story about pizza madness in the universe, but we gotta give props to bon appétit's blog for out-scooping us on this one.

The basic premise is simple. You've all seen pie in a jar, I'm sure. You bake a tiny pie in a jar, seal it, and give it away as gifts. Well ain't one pie as good as any other? What's to stop you from baking a pizza pie in a jar? The ever-creative 1 Fine Cookie wondered the same thing and actually did it. So here you go: pizza in a jar.

That would be dough, sauce, cheese, and toppings all layered into a mason jar and baked as-is, to be eaten with a fork.

Personally, I'm wondering how you get char and what the hole structure of the bottom crust is (unfortunately, she didn't supply an underbelly photo), but having plumbed the depraved depths of pizza weirdness myself with pizzagna (that'd be thin-crust pizzas layered with cheese and sauce and baked like a lasagna), I can imagine this being a pretty tasty portable snack.

What say you, Slice'rs?

[Photo: staticsilence/Flickr via ☆Daniel]

"Pizza, unlike old coca-cola, is best served flat."

Hannah Hart of the always entertaining My Drunk Kitchen tackles pizza and proves once again that it's really really hard to mess up a pizza. Or as she says, "even when it's all f&*ked up, you still love it."

How many of you use pizza as your go-to drunk food?

About the author: J. Kenji Lopez-Alt is the Managing Editor 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.

Mmm, cheesy. [Photo: Robyn Lee]

There are all sorts of criteria I have for good pizza, from crust char to cheese-sauce ratios. Good drunk pizza, on the other hand? Something different altogether. Good drunk pizza needs to be 1. steaming hot 2. amply (or excessively) cheesy 3. ready when you want it 4. not terrible.

And within those bounds, pretty much anything goes, right?

My college food court had a Villa Pizza on the ground floor, conveniently stationed between the party street and the dorms, even more conveniently open until 3am on the weekends.

During the day, it wouldn't have ever occurred to me to grab a slice. I'd totally believe that most Villa Pizza is on par with Sbarro or worse. But at 2:30am on a Saturday, with a line twenty people long, pies cut up and slid out so quick from the oven they'd burn you on first bite? Those were some of the best slices I'd ever had, even the crust steaming as you bit in, the cheese so melty-sloppy-molten it hardly stayed in place.

That's fixed in my mind as the platonic drunk pizza, or at least it was, until I polished off about half a medium pie from a Frank Pepe's outlet at Mohegan Sun this Saturday in the wee hours. (I'm sure you're shocked to hear that industry wine and beer events often end up in people, er, drinking.) I never thought the other Pepe's could hold a candle to the original. But for a post-midnight pie? Fresh from the oven, it was pretty unbeatable, I happily mused as I chomped down my third slice.*

*Dinner was about four drinks and six hours back, and sometimes late-night hunger can't wait until Bobby Flay breaks open Bobby's Burger Palace at 3am to heat up the grill. True story.

Drunk pizza memories are some of my best (if not clearest) pizza memories. What's your favorite drunk slice? And is it something you'd ever eat in a more lucid state?

About the author: Carey Jones is the Editor of Serious Eats New York and co-editor of Serious Eats: Sweets. Follow her on Twitter (@careyjones).

VIEW SLIDESHOW: My Pie Monday: Sweet Potatoes, Sweet Tomatoes, and Sweet Jesus, Dem's Some Fine Looking Pies!

I'm filling in for Slice Queen Meredith this week and normally more work = less fun, but darned if you Slice'rs don't make this job easy. This week we've got fifteen pies on the menu. As usual, dmcavanagh comes through, this week with two pies! LLTODDJ and Zumicroom both give us their best Neapolitan stylings while nzmick brings a taste of Chicago to the other side of the globe. You'll find a Texan who likes salad on their pie (woulda never thought I'd see the day), more mushrooms than you can toss a crust at from amusebouche1, and roast chicken pie from billgraney that looks so good it could even convert this non-chicken-on-pizza eater.

As always, a warm welcome to first time My Pie Mondayers here. Welcome to the sauce-splattered, cheese-filled fray, and hope to see you back again the next time around!

If you make pizza at home, join the My Pie Monday fun, just take one snapshot of a pie you made recently, describe your cooking method (in 80 words or less), and follow these instructions to get it to us by 8pm (EST) Thursday. Be sure to let us know your Slice screen name.

Want to see more inspiring pizza made by Slice'rs? Right this way »

About the author: J. Kenji Lopez-Alt is the Managing Editor 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.

[Photographs: David Kover]

"Sort of an open-faced, fancy-pants quesadilla."

This is the note I typed into my phone after eating one of Universal Cafe's grilled flatbreads, and it might as well serve as my whole review. It's pretty hard to think of their toppings as resting on anything other than a tortilla.

Though, please understand, I do like quesadillas.

Universal grills their tortilla—I mean, crust—to the point where the edges crisp up, and even the brown-spotted, ultra-thin undercarriage gains a little structural integrity. With a fold, the small slices can easily be eaten by hand.

Toppings on Universal's grilled flatbreads change regularly. I happened in upon broccoli rabe, caramelized onions, goat cheese, and mozzarella ($12.50). The tangy flavor of the goat cheese dominates most bites, receiving a classic contrast from the sweet onions, while the mozzarella amps up the cheesy, comforting qualities of the dish. I found myself inclined to add some hot sauce (just as I might with a quesadilla!), but certainly not dissatisfied with my little lunch of carbs and cheese.

Universal Cafe

2814 19th Street, San Francisco, CA 94110 (map)
415-821-4608; universalcafe.net

About the author: David Kover is a San Francisco-based freelance writer and food enthusiast. Follow his attempts to bring Brooklyn-style bagels to San Francisco at Schmendricks.com, or his occasional musings on Twitter as @pizzakover.

Forcella's Montanara [Photograph: Scott Wiener]

Yes, you read that correctly. Fried pizza is real and it's comin' to getcha. Imagine a sweet, innocent pizza walking home one night only to be cornered in a dark alley by a dangerous deep fryer. Sounds terrifying, but the confrontation actually results in a flavor mashup the likes of which few tongues have ever tasted. It combines the danger of oil with the familiarity of typical pizza toppings. New York pizza is currently experiencing its first real dose of the deep fryer, but what exactly is it and where does it come from?

I became a big proponent of fryers when I bought one in college. We had parties on Friday nights in which friends would bring over anything they wanted to fry. Yes, we did call it FriedDay. People brought anything from chicken and fish to cookies and Hostess cupcakes. We formulated different batters for sweet and savory items and eventually bought a second fryer to accommodate both genre. Come to think of it, I don't remember cooking anything else when I was in college—those fryers were pretty much it!

Suffice it to say, I was into frying almost as much as I was into pizza. So when my friend Jeff called me in 2003 to tell me there was a place doing deep-fried pizza in Brooklyn, I jumped on a train from New Jersey and met him at Chip Shop in Park Slope. What we got was a lackluster slice from the pizzeria across the street battered and abused by the deep fryer. We could still taste the briny residue from the day's orders of fish and chips. It was totally gross.

New York Post article about Forcella's Montanara.

Luckily, the fried pizza hitting NYC today is a completely different animal. I remember hearing about it from Keste's Roberto Caporuscio, but Giulio Adriani was the first to pull it off at his Williamsburg pizzeria Forcella. The process begins with a stretched piece of dough, opened in the same way a dough would be stretched for pizza. The one major difference is that the dough is punctured at several spots inside the outer rim. This "docking" process eliminates gas pockets that would normally expand when met with extreme heat. The dough is then placed into the deep fryer, where it puffs up and forms a bread bowl that is both light and crispy. After pulling the dough out and drying it for a few seconds, toppings are applied and the whole thing slides into the oven in a small metal dish so the oily dough doesn't make contact with the brick hearth and send smoke throughout the space. After a quick dip into the oven, the cheese is melted and the sauce is cooked. The result is a complete departure from pizza baked solely inside an oven.

But this isn't the first time anybody has ever dipped dough into a fryer. Southern Italian cuisine is littered with fried items, which is obvious when you walk down via Tribunali in Naples. Most pizzerias have a wood-fired brick oven and a deep-fryer just a few feet apart. You can order fried rice balls (arancini), potato croquets (croquettas) and fried macaroni and cheese balls (frittatina) at pretty much every pizzeria. Most signage even indicates Pizzeria (place that serves pizza) e Frigittoria (place that serves fried foods). The good folks at Molino Caputo in Naples even mentioned that their most popular product is called pizzeria flour and not pizza flour because it is formulated to work in both pizza and the various fried items everybody has on their menu.

Pizza fritta at Pizzeria di Matteo in Naples, stuffed with sausage and broccoli rabe.

Perhaps my brain was not yet tuned into the fried pizza frequency, but I don't remember seeing anything like Forcella's Montanara on either of my trips to Naples. I do remember pizza fritta, a massive deep fried calzone I tried at Pizzeria di Matteo. There are a couple places in the greater New York metro area that have them (House of Pizza and Calzone in Brooklyn and Delfino's in Hoboken) but nothing matches the insanity of what I tasted at Di Matteo in 2009.

The fried pizza served at NYC's Forcella, PizzArte, and soon to be available at Don Antonio (a forthcoming partnership between Keste's Roberto Caporuscio and his mentor Antonio Starita) is more closely related to a simple snack made at home. We're fortunate enough to live in a world in which every couple of newlyweds has a pizza stone collecting dust in the corner, but there was a time not long ago when making pizza at home was out of the question. For a quick and easy heat conductor, just throw some oil into a frying pan and crank that sucker up to high! This is the method most southern Italian families used for homemade pizza, as indicated by this recipe I found at the Ithaca Historical Society last year.

Pizza recipe found at the Ithaca Historical Society.

This sounds delicious and easy, so why am I wasting so much time and gas heating up the oven for pizza night? Armed with this 1960's recipe, my mission was clear. I whipped up some bread dough, saved it for an extra day and tried to make my own stove-top pizza. There aren't many details in Carmella's recipe, but I filled in the blanks and this is what happened.

Here's the Play-by-Play...

STEP 1: Stretch Dough Into 6" Diameter. Puncture the center if you want. I forgot.

STEP 2: Heat Oil. I used a cheap olive oil I'm trying to get rid of.

STEP 3: Fry Dough in 1/2" of Hot Oil. Be gentle. Don't get splashed!

STEP 4: Dry that Oily Cloud from Heaven. I used a pizza screen.

STEP 5: Top With "Whatever Tastes Good." I had no sauce. Still great!

Here's the cross-section. Sorry about the focus issue, I was too excited.

I know, it looks like a donut. But think about it... donut + pizza = awesome. That's math, folks. It's soft with a thin crisp on the outside, deceivingly light and airy, and unbelievably addictive. Good thing my roommates weren't home or I might have been forced to share. So next time your friends show up and you haven't even preheated the pizza stone, think about giving this homespun pizza variation a try. It's super fast, fun and delicious. Or check out how it tastes when done by the pros at Forcella (Bowery, Williamsburg),PizzArte (Midtown) and the forthcoming Don Antonio (Hell's Kitchen). Rumor has it there may even be a spot opening in the Lower East Side that will be serving only fried pizzas! More to come on that front as news develops.

And now watch Sofia Loren frying dough in the streets of Naples in the 1954 film L'oro di Napoli (The Gold of Naples). The pizza scene starts at around 1:30.

About the author: Scott Wiener runs tours of significant NYC pizzerias with an emphasis on the history, science, technology, economics and deliciousness. You can sign up for a tour at scottspizzatours.com or follow his pizza explorations on Twitter via @scottspizzatour

The Cauliflower Pizza at Oven & Shaker. [Photographs: Derek Arent]

Just like the bistro-style burger at Le Pigeon and the Fish Sauce Wings at Pok Pok, the pizza at Nostrana was a menu item deemed worthy of forming the foundation for a whole new restaurant. This formula is an apparent trend in the current Portland culinary scene, and the genesis of Oven and Shaker relied heavily on the weight of chef Cathy Whims' wood-fired pies. With the exception of cutting the pies before they arrive at your table (a Nostrana no-no), O&S's pizza style mirrors the mix of Italian tradition, Pacific Northwest seasonality, and farm-to-table sensibility that made Nostrana so popular.

Oven and Shaker offers $5 off pies during their nightly happy hour, and that's the best way to combat inflated Pearl district pricing. The Cauliflower ($7 for a 12" during happy hour) was topped with dainty, mildly caramelized florets of its namesake vegetable. Briny olives and vinegary Mama Lil's peppers fought for dominance, overpowering the sweet and earthy pecorino and cauliflower. Sparsely placed strips of red onion offered yet another layer of pungency, further burying the delicate nuttiness of the cauliflower which could only be enjoyed by picking petite pieces off the pie.

The Wild Fennel Sausage ($10 for a 12" at happy hour) was indeed fennel-y, and the slightly crisped potato medallions brought unexpected pockets of texture while absorbing some of the rendered pork fat. The pizza used a smoked mozzarella which just wasn't quite smoky enough, and clunkily cut raw scallions needed to be brushed aside to avoid palate fatigue. Delicate chile use and a mild tomato element added some acidity and zip, but were not present enough to add much overall. In essence, this was a fancied-up sausage and onion pie with a few curious bites here and there.

The Margherita ($7 for a 12" during happy hour) with salt-cured anchovy add-on ($3) was the highlight of the meal. The little fish preserved the balance between the fatty, fishy, and salty components, allowing the basil, cheese, and tomato to stand out individually. The artistically presented fresh basil was served uncooked atop the pie to preserve its garden freshness. The basic sweet and salty interplay of the tomato base showcased high quality ingredients used simply. Each flavor present complemented another, bringing an overall harmony to this pie. The cheese was the only problem area; the delicate, milky fresh mozzarella was cooked to a strange grainy texture which resembled ricotta in the final presentation, yet maintained a robust dairy flavor.

The integrity and quality of the crust was probably the best thing about Oven and Shaker's pies. Superficial charring provided the majority of the flavor to the cornicione, which varied from chewy, to brittle and flaky in spots. In contrast to the floppy character of a typical Nostrana pizza, the pies here had a relatively crisp and nicely spotted undercarriage, making the cut pie approach successful. Part of what keeps this pie from sagging may be the uniformly petite toppings. I get the strategy, but visually, it lacked that rustic quality. It's the price you pay for structural integrity, I guess.

After weighing the pros and cons, I decided that I enjoyed the pizza at Oven and Shaker (with caveats). I do think that work needs to be done on flavor combinations and visual presentation to bring these pies into the top tier of what Portland has to offer. Also noteworthy, is that I've based my opinion on the happy hour prices; I don't think the value or quality is quite up to par with the full dinner price of $15 per 12" pie. Lovely's Fifty-Fifty has the genre locked down at this price point, but the happy hour deals at Oven and Shaker are hard to beat.

 About the author:Jim Bonomo was born and raised in Milford, Connecticut. He is currently eating and drinking his way through Portland, Oregon. Once all the pizza and beer is gone, he promises to go back home. You can follow him on Twitter at @goodbyeohio.

[Photographs: Daniel Zemans]

When I reviewed Suparossa's last year, dedicated Slice reader and pizza fiend Alberto (forzapizza) chimed in to bemoan the fact that my voyage to Portage Park was limited to a review of a pizzeria not owned by his family. It took about a year, but I made it back to the neighborhood to visit Trattorria Porretta & Pizza. Alberto, who built an oven in his backyard, makes gorgeous pies of a Neapolitan bent, but his family, which entered the pizza business long before the quest for "authenticity" became a culinary trend, turns out decidedly American pies.

Over the years, Poretta's has grown from a tiny pizzeria to a successful business that includes a full-service Italian restaurant and a large banquet hall across the street. The restaurant offers thin crust pizza and pan pizza if you dine in, but also sells stuffed pizza to go. Much as I would have loved to take in the ambience of the restaurant, I wasn't going to pass up the chance to try a new stuffed pizza, so I picked mine up, took some quick pictures in the car, and ate pizza for a good portion of the 20-minute drive home.

The stuffed pizza made my decision to sacrifice the comforts of a sit-down meal a good one. The thick, rich sauce is tangy and a little sweet, and is loaded with an oregano-heavy mix of herbs. The crust, flaky as is normal for the style, had a bit more crunch than is typical, which made for a nice contrast to the massive quantities of cheese and sauce. It's a very good representative of the style that Portage Park residents are lucky to have nearby.

Where the stuffed pizza fell short was with the sausage. We Chicagoans are spoiled when it comes to good sausage on pizza. Large chunks of oddly shaped pork, oftentimes housemade, appear regularly throughout the area. But these smooth-cut squares of "sausage" are short on flavor and texture. Thanks to the approximately three-quarters of an inch thick layer of cheese, the dull sausage couldn't detract from an otherwise fine pie, one that is decidedly better than that at nearby Suparossa's.

The thin crust was not as successful. Old-school thin crust Chicago pizza rarely wows anyone with its crust. There are some places that do things out of the ordinary, like Vito & Nick's putting milk in the dough, but for the most part you're getting a machine-rolled piece of bread without a lot of flavor. Given all that, this is a style of pizza that starts with a major barrier between it and greatness.

I tried a thin crust pizza with the reliable combination of pepperoni, onions, and garlic. The pepperoni is run of the mill stuff, which is fine; truly delicious pepperoni is fairly rare. The fresh garlic was applied with a pretty heavy hand, completely negating the onions, but the pepperoni still made its presence known and the two toppings I could taste made for a fine combination. But "fine" toppings weren't enough to catapult this pizza into the category of pizzas I'd like to eat again.

Sausage aside, Porretta's makes a good stuffed pizza, and if I lived in the neighborhood it would be part of my regular rotation. Forzapizza's grandparents and Porretta owners have clearly laid a solid pizza foundation. But based on the pictures of Alberto's My Pie Monday pies, I think he may have even surpassed the older generations in the family. Now we need to get that guy to open a pizzeria!

About the author: Daniel Zemans is so devoted to Chicago that he covers pizza for Slice and burgers for A Hamburger Today. When he's not focusing on expanding his waistline, he works as a lawyer on behalf of employees and tenants.

[Photographs: Meredith Smith]

We've seen fries grace the top of pies before—poutine pizza and hot dog and french fry pizza—and those were deemed reprehensible. And then we've seen Adam tackle the cheeseburger and pizza mashup, only to learn how dangerously wrong that combo could go. So what compelled me to eat the Cheeseburger and Fries slice at New York Pizza? Novelty and a lapse in judgement.

New York Pizza on Mass Ave in Boston has provided serviceable slices after one too many on a number of occasions. And it's not unheard of to soberly seek it out when you're nearby and want a thin slice alternative that isn't putting on any Upper Crust type airs. While I knew their strength was in the post-libation camp, I didn't know how much they were firmly planted there until I encountered this fine specimen in their case.

Instead of tomato sauce, this pizza is made with ketchup(!). Who wants to be bothered with operating condiments when you're at the cheeseburger and fries pizza point in the night anyway, right? So there's some logic there, but not a lot of good sense. I can only think of one acceptable application where baking ketchup is a good idea: meatloaf. And you know, that's what this tastes like more than anything. Except unlike meatloaf which has lots of fat to keep the ketchup from getting that metallic quality when it dries out, the rim of the crust is ketchup's death kiss.

And while there is a certain appeal to french fries coated in blistered cheese, they just can't give a star performance after sitting around cold and then getting a little reheat in the oven. All the appeal of their crisp exteriors are lost, and the flavor of the earthy spuds begin to sour. It's just sad all around. From bland burger to soggy fries with a ketchup stand-in for sauce, this is a slice best avoided regardless of your state of sobriety. Can anyone name some other bad idea pizzas?

New York Pizza

435 Massachusetts Ave Boston, MA 02118
617-266-7020; newyorkpizzaboston.com

More Pizza Wierdness

Pizza in a Jar »
Wackiest Pies of 2011 »
SpaghettiOs Pizza »
The Ultimate Cheeseburger Pizza »
Poutine Pizza »
Hot Dog and French Fry Pizza »
Peepza = Peeps on a Pizza »
Full English Breakfast Pizza »
Tater Tot–Chili Pizza »
Peking Duck Pizza »
Korean Shrimp and Hot Dog Pizzas »
Mac and Cheese Pizza »
How to Make a Pizzarito »

About the author: Meredith Smith is the Slice editor. You can follow her on Twitter: @mertsmith.

Reprinted with permission from babble.com. [Photograph: Angie McGowan]

Gear up for Pizza, er I mean Super Bowl Sunday, by making this Football Pepperoni Pizza. Just arrange pepperonis in a football shape, and for pristine white laces, the author of the recipe recommends using slices of Swiss. Touchdown!

About the author: Meredith Smith is the Slice editor. You can follow her on Twitter: @mertsmith.

From Serious Eats

As Serious Eaters, I'm sure that Nancy Silverton needs no introduction for you. Co-founder and head baker at La Brea Bakery and former pastry chef at Campanile, she's now the owner of Pizzeria and Osteria Mozza. If you're to take our word for it (and you should), that makes her one of the key players in the pizza game, serving what may well be our favorite west coast pies.

More recently, she joined the burger biz with chef/partner Amy Pressman to open upscale burger joint Short Order. The winner of countless awards from the world's most respected cooking organizations and magazines, Nancy Silverton is a woman with a story to tell.

Now's your chance to ask her anything you'd like, from how she makes her pizza dough to the best way to grind burgers. Want to know the biggest challenges of running a world-class restaurant? She's got opinions. We'll be shooting all the answers in video, so if you'd like to get a tour of her kitchen, or perhaps a demo on how to stretch a pie, well, we can make that happen too.

Submit your questions in the comments by midnight Eastern Time on Thursday the 3rd. We'll pick the best ones and post her answers next week!

About the author: J. Kenji Lopez-Alt is the Managing Editor 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.

[Photographs: Andrew Janjigian]

I first tried the pizza at Area Four a few months back, and was a bit disappointed, which was one reason I sat on my write-up for so long. But the delay was all to the good, because Area Four has tweaked their formula slightly in the interim, and our return visits have been far more positive. Back when they first opened, they only offered a 12-inch pie, which, given the width of the back edge, seemed too small to me. Since then, presumably to accommodate solitary diners or non-sharers (don't these people know about leftovers?) they've added a 10-inch size, and upgraded the large pie to 14-inches. If the 12-incher was a little cramped, the 10-inch is all the more so, so my first piece of advice is that you should ignore that column on the menu. The end crust takes up far too much of the limited square-footage of the pie, leaving hardly any room for toppings.

The 14-inch pie is much roomier, though I still find its bones too thick. I'm a breadhead through and through, but when I'm eating pizza—a.k.a. bread with stuff on it—I want stuff on my bread, not naked bread. End crust, bones, cornicione—whatever you want to call it—is purely functional, people: it's a handle, and needn't be any wider than necessary to let you grab the thing without befouling your manicure. I'd rather the overall pie be slightly smaller with a narrower crust than be left staring at this come the end of my repast:

Okay, end of rant, because—that gripe aside—I quite like the pies at Area Four. The dough, made with a secret formula that—from what I could glean from my conversation with chef Michael Leviton—involves a long cold-fermentation of a combination of Italian and American flours with a sourdough starter and commercial yeast, is flavorful and tender. The pies are baked in a roomy Woodstone oven that is jacked with three separate heat sources: gas, wood, and an infrared element buried within the deck to help it with recovery times. It's the first such triple-threat oven I've every seen, and it seems to work, leaving the bottom crust nicely crisp, with a respectable amount of char:

While the crust at Area Four is very good, it's in the toppings and combinations where the pizza really shines.

The Margarita, topped with housemade mozzarella and a little pecorino, is first-rate. The sauce is little more than crushed tomatoes and salt, but it makes a bright foil for the creamy, buttery cheeses.

The Wellfleet Cherrystone Clam and Bacon pie has all the elements of a great pie in place: freshly-shucked local clams, smoky house-cured bacon, hot pepper flakes and parsley. Fresh from the oven, it is very tasty, but it definitely suffers a bit on standing. The clam pie is among the hardest to pull off well: without a thick sauce to insulate the crust and pull all of its topping elements together, it is often either brothy and waterlogged, or dry and stiff, since the dough quickly sucks up what little moisture there is. I know it's a delicate balancing act, but this clam pie could use just a bit more clammy broth to bring it all the way home. (I'd much rather a slightly soupy pie requiring a knife and fork to eat than one that stiffens up as it cools down.)

The Fennel Sausage and Pickled Banana Pepper pie is hands-down my favorite pizza on the menu at Area Four. As with many of the other ingredients, the tasty, moist sausage is house-made. (Its somewhat unusual pink color, reminiscent of Chinese dried sausage, comes from the inclusion of a bit of curing salts into the mix.) The briny-sour hot peppers balance perfectly against the richness of the sausage.

Area Four isn't just a pizza joint, with a wide variety of other items, some roasted in the second Woodstone oven that sits aside the pizza oven, but other than some very tasty salads (the shaved raw brussels sprouts and kale one makes a nice accompaniment to a few pies), we haven't tried them. But once you've had your fill of pies, be sure to order a dessert or two from pastry chef Katie Kimble, whose pastries I have raved about elsewhere on Serious Eats.

About the author: Andrew Janjigian day-jobs it as an Associate Editor at Cook's Illustrated Magazine. When he's not dismantling recipes for hire, he's likely baking bread or throwing pies into his WFO. He twits regularly as @dikaryon, and blogs much less regularly at blog.dikaryon.org.

VIEW SLIDESHOW: Top This: Cherry Jones (à la Paulie Gee's)

For our latest installment of Top This, we met up with Paul "Paulie Gee" Giannone at the famed Paulie Gee's in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Paulie's protegé, Bryan Van Deusen, taught us how to make the Cherry Jones, which ups the topping ante with a rather nontraditional pizza ingredient, dried cherries. The slightly tart Bing cherries and orange blossom honey are perfectly played against creamy, earthy gorgonzola cheese, milky fior de latte, and sweet and salty prosciutto. The resulting pizza is rich, intense, and leaves you wanting more. Fortunately for Slice readers, you can follow the slideshow to recreate the Cherry Jones at home. But if you live anywhere near Greenpoint, do yourself a favor and visit Paulie Gee's for some of the greatest Neapolitan-style pies in New York.

If the Cherry Jones makes the man himself swoon, you know that's a good pizza pie!

What You'll Need (for one pizza)

• 1 dough portion (Watch this video to learn how to make Neapolitan style dough)
• Fior di Latte Mozarella, chopped or ripped into small pieces
• A small wedge of Gorgonzola (Paulie uses BelGioso Crumbly Gorgonzola)
• Dried Bing cherries (Paulie gets his from Yellow Frame Farm)*
• Prosciutto di Parma, sliced thin
• Orange blossom honey (Paulie uses Gunter's, from Virginia)

*During the months that figs are in season (June-October), Paulie Gee makes the same pie with slices of black mission fig instead of cherries. He calls the pie "Go Fig Yourself".

Paulie Gee's

60 Greenpoint Avenue, Brooklyn NY 11222 (map)
347-987-3747pauliegee.com

About the author: Originally from Los Angeles, Erin Mosbaugh writes Je Blague, where she captures her food adventures in NYC and beyond. Erin also writes dining and nightlife features for Robb Report's New York City.

Daily Slice gives a quick snapshot each weekday of a different slice or pie that the folks at the Serious Eats empire have enjoyed lately.

[Photographs: Todd Brock]

Set in an old barn on a congested stretch of industrial-park highway, Shorty's Pizza may not immediately strike you as the home of some killer pies. But locals who haven't given it a spin are missing out on a unique taste experience.

A Modena wood-fired oven cranks out an ultra-thin crust pie that 's been dubbed "Decatur/Tucker Style," after the addresses of Shorty's two locations. After just a few moments on the deck, the underside of the crust shows heavy charring, with a cornicione that absolutely crackles.

They don't do slices, but the 10-incher equals a satisfying lunch plus leftovers. Shorty's offers 8 cheeses, and over 40 meats, veggies, herbs, and even fruits for you to go crazy with. Can't decide? Scan the diverse playlist of "signature pies," all named for musicians: B.B. King, Jack White, Chrissie Hynde, Wu-Tang Clan, etc. Some fit their namesakes (Sid Vicious is a hardcore meat-lover's, Frankie Valli has a topping that rotates throughout the Four Seasons), while others seemingly have no connection whatsoever (Elvis is a Margherita with white anchovies). And while the wisdom of eating a Weird Al Yankovic is debatable, there are some wacky pizzas here that you just won't find anywhere else.

Take the Janis Joplin. She doesn't do anything for me as a singer. As a pizza, however, I'm a big fan. It's a white pie with sliced apple, a liberal studding of bacon, rich gorgonzola, and walnuts (although the walnuts seemed to be MIA this day) atop that crisp, cracker-thin crust. I had a tough time biting cleanly through the apple; the slices tended to pull out whenever my teeth caught hold of one, but it didn't diminish my overall enjoyment of this pie.

The Janis Joplin is even served with honey, to be drizzled across the pie's surface. Shakers of grated Parm and jars of red pepper flakes need to make way for the honey squeeze bottle. This pie made me a believer in the bear. Hell, maybe I'll give Bobby McGee another chance. I'll definitely be back to Shorty's to expand my pizza (and musical) knowledge in the future.

Shorty's Pizza

770-414-6999; www.shortys-pizza.com

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 A Hamburger Today and pizza for Slice, he's written and produced over 1,000 hours of television and is the author of 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 Hootie & the Blowfish. Or both.

[Photographs: Adam Kuban]

Via Trenta, on 30th Avenue in Astoria, is yet another wood-fired-oven pizzeria in the neighborhood. Like Basil Brick Oven a little farther north, Via Trenta is Neapolitan in style—small pizzas, minimally topped, attention to ingredients, etc.

Via Trenta takes over the space once occupied by Trattoria el Greco. It's been open since late fall of 2011, using the same Wood Stone oven that was there before but is burning wood in it instead of the gas Trattoria el Greco was using.

The pizza is better than that of its predecessor. The sauce is bright and fresh tasting, and the house-made mozzarella is creamy, pulling away from the slices as you bite, thin strings—elastic, edible.

The crust is crisp, and a bit dry. Tight hole structure and a minimal amount of rise at the rim. Fans of airy, supple cornicione may be disappointed. It reminded me of Nick's Pizza in Forest Hills or Forno Italia up on Ditmars (also in Astoria). Good for the neighborhood but maybe not world-beating pies. At least not yet.

The atmosphere is comfortable (much brighter than the previous incarnation, which required night-vision goggles), and the staff is friendly. I could see this becoming a go-to for me not because the pizza is AMAZING but because it is good enough and nearby.

About the author: Adam Kuban is the founder of Slice. You can follow him as @akuban on Twitter.

This popular piece of pizza, known by locals in Portales, New Mexico as Pepe, has gone missing. The Papa Murphy's pizza mascot was allegedly stolen from a local gymnasium during a basketball game, before getting a chance to break out some of his sweet signature dance moves. Papa Murphy's is holding out hope that the local hooligans that stole Pepe will return him, unharmed for a $200 cash reward—no questions asked. They just want their lovable plush pizza back.

I liked AHT editor Robyn Lee's reaction when she saw Pepe: "Pepe looks like he swallowed Homer Simpson." Hehe. Here's the whole scoop on the Pepe saga.

[Via KRQE News]

About the author: Meredith Smith is the Slice editor. You can follow her on Twitter: @mertsmith.

[Composite by TMZ]

TMZ reported that Madonna bought her crew fifty pies to earn some brownie points. According to TMZ the pizzas were an attempt to do some damage control on her reputation after being called a pretentious jerk. So where did she order her unpretentious pies from? Papa John's. I guess if you're gonna pick a chain it should at least be one that originated in the state, but the assistant that ordered the pizzas really short changed the crew by not going with one of the better offerings in the area. The pies were of the cheese, pepperoni, and veggie varieties. The pop icon, however, went with a cheese-less veggie. That's one way to make sure you don't eat too much.

About the author: Meredith Smith is the Slice editor. You can follow her on Twitter: @mertsmith.