serious pie

i forgot my camera, so this review gets an automatic fail. the pizza, thankfully, does not.

the lowdown

serious pie does wood-fired, thin crust, oval pizzas. their dinning space is compact, with communal, bar-height tables. service was efficient and friendly.

two pizzas sampled:
1—buffalo mozz & san marzano tomato (fresh basil and dried oregano, not listed on the menu did actually appear on the pie)
2—black peppercorn cheeese, pancetta, asparagus (special of the day)

both pies had nice splotches of char on their cornmeal (or semolina?) encrusted bottoms. the edge of the ovals seemed to be coated in a salty, garlicky swab of oil, which gave the crust a little extra pop and zing.

The margherita, was nicely balanced between the light spring of the tomato's sweetness and the fattiness of the cheese and coated crusted.

The special pie's asparagus was chopped into tiny rounds and really played well with the thin strips of pancetta. the black pepper cheese was, frankly, a stroke of genius, adding just a hint of bitterness and spice to keep the tastebuds on their toes. i thank my friend ian for having the gumption or order this pizza.

additionally, lord chancellor thomas kemper's root beer is available.

the upshot

not necessarily what i think of when i imagine pizza, but a delicious change of pace. i haven't met another pizza exactly like it.

comix o'the decade: Episode Li'l Noodle

Promethea
Alan Moore—writer
J.H. Williams III—pencils
Mick Gray—inks
Jeromy Cox—colors
(ABC/Wildstorm/DC Comics)

Blah blah blah Alan Moore. Blah blah blah genius. Hurdy gurdy machine.

Looking for pulp fantasy action and adventure? It's here. Looking for a dissertation about the nature of reality and fiction, where they intersect with our minds, bodies, and spirits? Look no further. Moore has cleverly wrapped up a philosophical discussion of the origins of storytelling and its purpose in the guise of a sci-fi fantasy. It can be a difficult read. There are a lot of big, abstract ideas that Moore bats around. Some of the dialogue can be stilted and dry. But at the same time, the ideas it's floating are fascinating. In the world of Promethea everything has metaphorical meaning—whether literary or sexual or mythical or religious, which for all intents and purposes, in this comic, are the same. Moore has worked up a unified theory of everything that's not based on science, but on history, humanity, and mysticism.

It's one of a few comics that encourages you to really think about the world around you, your relationship to the work in your hands—it can make you think about every story ever spun in a new light.

What helps steer it clear of dreary philosophic pedagogy and make it truly palatable and amazing is the art. The team of J.H. Williams, Mick Gray, and Jeromy Cox (with appearances by Jose Villarrubia and Charles Vess among others) construct the most innovative and imaginative page layouts printed by a major comics publisher. Each page visually underscores the themes in the script, whether its using historical or cultural motifs (see above) or clever circuitous action (see infinity layout at top). Moore is notorious for writing obsessively detailed scripts with very specific page layouts, so a fair amount of credit is due to him. However, it'd be tough to find other comics artists who would be able to translate that vision to the page with as much diverse technique, daring, and verve as this team of artists. Plus it's fun to navigate and pretty to look at.

There are just a ton of moments like this one that make my mouth drop. The artwork beautiful, yes, but it's also completely insane. It kind of explodes everywhere. Speech bubbles become like little fireworks, The color palate makes it borderline illegible, but this one page is part of a larger interconnected whole.

There's more here than one would expect.

The List: Portland Pizza I've Sampled

Just counting them off in no particular order:

1. Gladstone Pizza
2. Pyro Pizza
3. Wy'east Pizza
4. Ken's Artisan Pizza
5. Apizza Scholls
6. Bella Facia
7. Al Forno Ferruzza
8. Pizzicato
9. Give Pizza a Chance
10. Pizza Depokos
11. Firehouse
12. Nostrana
13. Tastebud
14. Escape From New York
15. Bella Gioia
16. Pizza Schmizza
17. Good Neighbor Pizza
18. Flying Pie Pizzeria
19. Dove Vivi
20. Bellagio's
21. Carboni's (Closed)
22. Lovely's Fifty-Fifty
23. Hammy's Pizza
24. Hotlips
25. Roma (SE Woodstock)
26. Kindle (N Mississippi)
27. Slice Brick Oven Pizza (SE Division & 32nd)
28. Pizza Contadino (St. Johns)

My current favorites (12/15/10):
1. Ken's Artisan
2. Apizza Scholls
3. Pizza Contadino
4. Pyro
5. Slice Brick Oven Pizza

Comics o'the Decade: Episode Li'l Playa

Bone (Jeff Smith, Cartoon Books)

If there's one comic that's almost universally guaranteed to please, this is it. Three bone creatures (from Boneville, of course!) accidentally stumble upon a valley with talking woodland animals, cow races, and that gitchy feelin'. I don't want to give away any major plot points, so in trying to avoid that, I'll just say it's equal parts Pixar and Tolkien (or what I imagine Tolkien is like... I've never actually read the ring trilogy)—incredibly accessible, thoroughly engrossing, with a great balance of adventure, mystery, and humor.

Of course, the art is ridiculous (none of my picks of this decade's best have less than stellar art). Jeff Smith is a master of comics storytelling. He manages to pick out the right angles, expressions and poses at the right times for the maximal dramatic and comedic effect. And what's especially noticeable in the uncolored version is his beautiful brushwork and how well he spots his blacks. His ability to set the mood and give his figures weight based on how he varies his line thickness and places shadow is remarkable.

Jeff Smith kicked off Bone roughly 20 years ago. But the series was completed only in 2004. It's been collected in one massive phone-book-sized tome in its original, beautiful black and white. Scholastic has reprinted the series in smaller volumes and in tasteful color.

short rounds.

so i made this machine here at Laurel's urging. it's inspired by the "italia"—one of the pizza images on the pizza mania apron that my aunt gave me. that there is a ring of spinach on the outside. it was a little heavy on the toppings and the spinach could've used a little salt and garlic, but otherwise, it was okeedokey.

i'm gonna ride on the coattails of This is Pizza again for a moment, if i may. they recently posted a review of Pizza Depokos, a new pizza cart curiosity up in NoPo.

the good:

• pleasant smokiness right outta the wood burning oven
• nice char and chewiness on the crust
• friendly service
• our pesto, olive, fresh tomato, and cheese pie had a nice balance of flavors—the salty and sweet of the olives, the nutty-savoriness of the pesto, and the creamy cheese

the bad:

• the tomato sauce was both too heavily applied and too richly seasoned for my taste—it's a thick, almost pasta-y sauce; some people will likely dig this, but it threw off the balance for me
  

the ugly

• the blurtastic upskirt shot, which is unfortunate because the char is so purty

CoD: Episode Li'l Taco

Another Comic of the Decade:

Strangers in Paradise (Terry Moore, Abstract Studios)

SiP is the best melodrama comic book ever. Nothing else even comes close. It's the story of how Francine, Katchoo, and David redefine themselves after escaping separate pasts that none of them are proud of. We follow them through a tangle of romantic successes and failures, a good bit of multinational corporate conspiracy, and bit of time travel even (i.e., non-linear storytelling... not, like, an actual time machine). It's all here—love and heartbreak, fisticuffs, prostitution, gunplay, Hawai'ian beaches, laughter and tears.


Anyway, I already wrote about it. So I won't bore you with more jibberjabber. There are 6 pocketbook collections. You might even be able to find them at your local library. Go read it. You won't be disappointed.

comics of the decade, episode li'l uno

Not much in the way of comics news from these parts in the last while. I still read 'em, I just don't read 'em like the coke-bottle-spectacled, cape-wearing, adolescent nerd-bot that I was in my salad days. My tastes have rolled a little to the left since my awkward years and I read fewer fist-fights-in-tights pamphlets and more long-form narratives that are less about power fantasies and more about humanity.

I'm not in the shop every Wednesday, so I imagine I'm missing out on a good bit of reading material. That said, I'm fairly confident that I read, or at least sampled, most of the of the major mainstream comics publications of the past decade; and when I say mainstream, I mean comics embraced by book stores and book reviewers at places like the New York Times, and not what the comics industry considers mainstream, which is Amazonian Princesses through General Zod, not that there's anything inherently wrong with either, I'm just noting that there's a discrepancy between mainstream's mainstream and comics' mainstream.

Also, if anyone has suggestions regarding the best comics since 2000/2001, shout 'em out. I'm curious as to what y'all have been reading comics-wise, and if you've been reading comics at all. I'm sure my list is devoid of a few titles that I either forgot I read or completely missed.

It maybe is a little late for a Comics of the Decade! post, but comics are slow to make... and so is this list.

Notes regarding my picks:

• This is in no particular order of preference.
• The list is completely subjective, there were no specific criteria I was looking to fill other than my personal enjoyment and fulfillment in reading the book.
• Some of these comics were originally published in pamphlet form back in the nineties, but weren't collected into TPBs until the aughts and so therefore were available to people who wouldn't go into a comic shop until this past decade, hence they're eligible for consideration.

First, but not necessarily best or worse...

... well, let's get the obvious one out of the way:

Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth (Chris Ware; Pantheon)

OK. So here's the thing with this book: even though it can kind of drag narrative-wise, and the main character is pathetic and unappealing in every way imaginable, it is still MINDBLOWING. There's a reason Chris Ware's art has been gallivanting around the country in various exhibitions at fancy art establishments. It's a maze of delights. The line-art is sparse, obsessively clean and precise, yes, but the page layouts and panel arrangements are dense with information and require a very active reader to fill in all the action between the static images and make connections between non-linear scenes.

The storytelling is what I would call decompressed—there are a lot of small moments depicted, tiny gestures like furrowed brows and scratched noses. These are often unnecessary for the plot, but they have a huge impact on the mood of the story. The events of the page above could have been summed up in two or three panels—woman sits and daydreams; woman gets up; woman opens door—but then we would have missed out on the fidgitiness and the mundanity of the waiting room experience, not to mention the puzzle that is the interpersonal relationships of all the characters.

To cut into the somewhat serious nature of the story of this hapless loner stumbling through various disastrous and painful familial relationships is, thankfully, a great deal of humor, which while dust dry and often morbid, still helps keep the pages turning.

Obviously a lot could be written about this book, and I'm not going into a huge amount of detail (thematically there's a lot going on in this book, both story-wise and art-wise, which I'm sure some overly enthusiastic grad student has or will write their thesis on). Suffice it to say that the art is gorgeous and easy to lose yourself in. And the character of Jimmy Corrigan is hard not to stare at with some sense of awe and horror as you would an albino burn victim. Except the scarring is on the inside.

escapades

Carl McFaberpantalones was in town this weekend. He and the Patterson clan had me over on Friday as a guest pizza-maker in their lovely abode.

Making pizza in an unknown oven is always a risky proposition. You never know how the heat is going to work out. Everyone seemed pretty pleased with the results. Though the bake time for the pizzas was between 10 and 15 minutes, which was waaaay too long to make me really pleased with the final product. I mean, it did taste pretty good, but the edge crust became too dry while bottom of the crust in the middle of the pies barely were blonded.

I used the last three dough balls the next day at home and was satisfied with the results:

the kit and kaboodle

the pre-cut upskirt

the post-cut upskirt

A slice voguing with its hole structure in plain site—scandalous!

The rest of the weekend update:

The weather here has been ridiculous for the middle of February. Sunny and in the 50s. The cherry blossoms are already blooming. Daffodils seem to be contagious and gardens all over are showing symptoms.

This morning I had a lovely brunch comprising Amie's blueberry ladycakes, scrambled eggs, bacon, and fruit salad in the excellent company of Laurel, Tom, Amie, and her housemate Texas Pete. Post-meal we detoxed under the sun in Laurelhurst Park.

Anyone else out there addicted to the Dirty Projector's Bitte Orca? Kind of snuck up on me. At first I just found it to be an interesting, quirky bit of music. But somehow the oddball melodies have ingrained themselves in the ol' steel trap. Can't let it go.

I've also been rewatching Sports Night. Once the Natalie–Jeremy relationship gets going, that show is impossible to stop watching.

Bought a yo-yo.

Found ink refills for my Pentel brush pen.

Ate at Toro Bravo with McFaberpantalones, et al. I don't deserve to eat food that good. And! MOLTEN CHOCOLATE CAKE.

Thanks Portland!

Bat-errific!

Cake #1

Laurel's masterpiece.

Sthickerths!

Yesterday's bat-festivities were boffo.

Stats:
+ 2 bat-cakes
+ 2 bat-movies
+ 5 bat-pizzas
+ 10 bat-people
+ and a few dozen bat-stickers

The movies viewed were Batman & Robin (in lieu of Batman: The Movie, starring Adam West & Burt Ward, which was unavailable at the video store... I thought it would fill the cheese quotient for the evening) and Batman Begins, which is still pretty badass. A shame about the Ra's al Ghul storyline, but it's not the worst thing to happen to a bat-film.

A special shout out to Brendan & Jess for their efforts: baked bat-brie, mint chocolate bat-sandwich cookies, bat-honey, bat muscle-rub, and bat-fabric softener (necessary to avoid the effects of bat-chaffing).

Justice was also served.

BSD...

is only 10 days away, ye gimpy munter!

Lovely's Fifty-Fifty

margherita

Adam over at This is Pizza covered this spot a couple of weeks ago and he appeared to be optimistic about their pizzas, even if his initial experience left him somewhat underwhelmed (my interpretation of his review, not his words). He notes that Lovely's changed their mozzarella since his visit and that it's now homemade.

That said, let's get to it:

The four cheese pizza was really top notch. The menu does not list which four cheeses are contending for spots on your tongue nor the seasoning dusting the top of the pie, but it's a well-balanced, creamy, salty, and sweet pie.

The crust, which as I've noted previously is probably the hardest thing to get right and subsequently the thing I harp on the most, has a light, airy texture and gentle flavor that includes a sweetness not commonly found in pizza crusts. I'm not sure if this is maybe due to a sourdough culture or sugar added to the dough mixture. Perhaps it's the result of the pizzaiolo giving the pie's rim a quick swabbing of oil as they come out of the oven.

Regardless, despite its apparent lightness in feel, this crust is no namby-pamby wafer when it comes to actually filling your stomach. And this may have much to do with its ample portions. If I could change one thing about Lovely's pies, it would be to reduce the amount of edge crust—stretch out the rounds closer to the circumference. At the end of the slice, the crust was just too much, and the flavor just wasn't there enough to carry it.

Another nit-picky concern: the islands of mozzarella on the margherita were a little undercooked, i.e., not quite melted through, and ended up as kind of thick blob-ular discs in some cases. The mozzarella itself had a pretty delicate flavor, creamy, and just barely salted—quite tasty on its own.

Of the three types of pizzas we sampled margherita (2 of 'em), four cheese, and the black trumpet mushrooms with fontina val d'aosta and gremolata (a garlic and parsley mix), the four cheese takes the top prize. The menu doesn't list the types of cheeses or seasoning used, but it was a very pleasant balance between creamy, brackish, and sweet. And unlike a lot of four cheese pies, it was not overwhelmingly heavy. For all the pomp of the of mushroom pie's description, the flavors that took hold were mushroom, olive oil, and garlic. No complaints there, but it left the for a somewhat dryer pizza, which meant that it was up to the crust to do more than its share of the flavor-hoisting.

Keeping that in mind, the pizza offerings at Lovely's are good and a head and shoulders above the other options in the area (I'm looking at you, Mississippi Pizza). Fresh dough, tangy tomato sauce, and top quality cheeses make for lively and lovely pies. They clearly care about the pizzas they're making. I saw the pizza chef giving a little tutorial to his kitchen assistant on their wood-fired oven (based on his hand motions it looked like he was explaining the three types of heat transfer—conduction, convection, radiation). It's not a destination spot for me yet, but if they adjust the balance between the toppings and the crust and give their mozzarella a thorough melting, they'll be headed in the right direction. As it is, I probably won't make the trip across town on a regular basis...

...Except for one thing: the ice cream is ridiculously good. It is hands-down the best ice cream I've had in Portland. The salted caramel is heavy on the caramel, light on the salt and ranks right up there with Bi-Rite's in my book (of best ice cream establishments in cities with at least two bridges, forthcoming; Macmillan). A taste of the huckleberry ice cream reveals it to be made with actual huckleberries, and not some huckleberry syrup or extract—it contains actual berries. Meanwhile the coffee ice cream, made with Stumptown beans, is like a rich affogato and not to be missed. It's the most vibrantly coffee-flavored of any coffee ice cream I can recall. And their almond praline even gives Bleecker Street's Cones' almond cream a run for its money.

black trumpet mushrooms with fontina val d'aosta and gremolata

four cheese

eight.

Mélissa Laveaux—Needle in the Hay (Elliot Smith cover)
Imperial Teen—Shim Sham
The Valrus—If You See Light (Mountain Goats cover)
Rosi Golan—Follow the Arrow
Sallie Ford and the Sound Outside—Not an Animal
Winter Gloves—Factories
Wakey!Wakey!—Twenty Two
The Grates—The Biggest and Longest Adventure Ever

a new year, a new template.

may your pastries be chocolate-filled and your chocolate be bacon-filled.

¬

Surely, one would think, there are better things to do with one's time than sit idly in a cubical space, bound by low, beige, flimsy walls, tapping at little rectangular buttons, accompanied by a small village of other cube-bound typists. It's all orthogonal, really—square carpet-tiles, rectangular print-outs, right-angled windows. My life is largely a bunch of squares surrounded by other squares.

the range

I'll be in Maryland from Jan. 1st-Jan. 9th. There may be a couple of days tripping up to NYC. My cell phone situation is still unresolved, so email is still the best way to get a hold of me for the time being.

the day is mine!

the day's consumption

cupcakes: 3
cookies: 7
oranges: 2
peanut butter & jam sandwiches: 1
bananas: 1
pizzas: 1 + 2 slices
strawberry—rhubarb pie: 1 slice

things i have done in recent history

1. not scored goals and been generally pissed off about my quality of play on the soccer pitch (or rink, really... as the "field" tends to be walled in with curved corners). i seem to curse at myself very loudly when i miss a chance to score. apologies to small children and their parental units.
2. thoroughly enjoyed yelling at marty while he "blows" his "horn" in public.

3. let my crush on ellen page grow and grow.

4. eaten my weight in cooooookies!

5. mentally prepared myself for a week of pizza consumption (this was not difficult). monday: homemade. wednesday: ken's. thursday: scholls...?

another 8tracks

unplugged, unencumbered

the cellular telephone is without a doubt one of the most useful and annoying pieces of technology ever invented. sometimes it can seem pretty much indispensable. and it saves you from the onerous task of actually planning ahead. i can't tell you how many times my high-end string-and-can dealybopper has saved dinner gatherings, movie outings, or acted as a defense against loneliness for me. take for instance this sunday: i was supposed to meet up with robyn and her crew to watch the 'skins-eagles game a claudia's. i showed up a few minutes early, waited around outside for them, and when they didn't appear by kickoff, i plunked myself down at a table and ordered up some biscuits and bacon (to console myself with for what i was sure would be a demoralizing spectacle of botched play-calling, fumbled snaps, and dropped passes). it turns out robyn's philly-oriented contingent did arrive and ended up sitting in the room adjacent. two of them even played on the poker machines right behind where i was sitting. but neither of us saw each other. i could've eaten my biscuits and bacon in good company, but instead i watched the 'skins lose, in what turned out to be a fairly enjoyable game to watch, 27-24. it's just one instance in which a cell phone would've allowed the experience to be more enjoyable.

that said, life without the cell phone, it turns out, is pretty nice. i don't have to worry about being available at every waking moment, as has become the expectation when you have a cell phone; there are no phantom ringing neuroses; i'm less concerned about giving myself brain cancer; i don't have to carry around one extra clunky thing or losing an expensive piece of electronics; i don't have awkward buzzing emanating from my pants at inopportune moments.

still, it's been a week without it. sometimes i wonder if i'm missing out on stuff because i can't check my text messages. i will try and head over to target today to purchase a replacement charger. but maybe now that i've gotten kind of used to being without it, and realized how nothing terrible has come of it, i'll have the psychological wherewithal to keep it off most of the time.

Updated: i have been to target and their universal charger for the LG phone is not compatible with my LG phone. of the three different plugs available with the charger not one of them fits the jack on my phone. it makes me wonder exactly what universe the charger is from...

Ready... FIGHT!

This weekend I attacked SF pizza this weekend with the ferocity of a ferocious, wild, angry, hungry, and furry manimal. The match-up: Delfina Vs. Tony's Pizza Napoletana.

At both I tried their margherita and a house specialty.


The Delfina margherita (above; stock images from a past visit in the spring is due to poor lighting at night in their outdoor seating) easily came out on top, with a perfectly baked crust (I realize the photo shows otherwise, but the charring was fantastic this time around)—crisp, yet pliant with the crackly edge protecting soft, spongy innards—sweet and tang-tastic sauce, and a drizzle of fragrant olive oil.





Tony's margherita was good, but the sauce lacked the flavorful punch of Delfina's and the cheese was not entirely melted. It did benefit from the added smokiness added by the wood-burning oven. Extra kudos to Tony's for being open for lunch, which is a meal most of the better pizzerias in SF thumb their noses at.




I also tried the clam pie at Delfina and Tony's Cal Italia (Asiago, Mozzarella, Imported Italian Gorgonzola, Sweet Fig preserve from Croatia, Prosciutto di Parma, Parmigiano, Balsamic). Both were delicious. The Cal Italia is baked in a domed, gas oven, and uses a different flour (higher gluten content, it seemed, based on the tougher, more chewy consistency) than their margherita. It was overwhelmed by the sweet fig preserves to some degree, which was heavy-handedly dolloped into the center of each slice, with a small piece of prosciutto and a couple shavings of the parmigiano stuck on top. The gorgonzola was used sparingly and counterbalanced the sweet figs with its bitterness. It was pretty delicious, but maybe too rich and I had a hard time getting through my third slice.

Delfina's clam pie (unfortunately I have no photo documentation) was fantastic, with toothsome shelled clams scattered about on a sea of spiced tomato sauce. All underscored by a salty pecorino. Boffo.




I also tried a slice from Arnell's Pizza, which would give most NYC corner slice establishments a run for their money. A thin, crisp crust, topped with your standard greasy, cheesy fair. A good sauce-to-cheese ratio. And served up by a gentleman with a slightly toothless grin.

Please also do drop by the Bi-Rite Creamery after—or before!—hitting up Delfina. I sampled their salted caramel and malted vanilla. A+ in my book. I also had the pleasure of tasting Humphry Slocombe's off-kilter ice cream flavors: secret breakfast (bourbon and cornflakes), peanut butter curry, blue bottle coffee, and balsamic caramel.

Victory for the forces of good!