Earlier this month, we published our Q&A with JBF Award winner Chris Bianco. Today our favorite pizzaiolo shares some cooking (and life!) tips.
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Using a passport should be your first cooking lesson.
Go out and get inspired. Then come back and use that technique with your local products.
Free yourself from trying to invent something.
I’ve never invented anything and I’ve never met anyone who has. Everyone is deeply inspired by something that came before. If you free yourself from trying to invent something, you become part of that great lineage of burnt tarts.
Consider the source.
Don’t make fresh pasta with flour from the deli that’s been on the top shelf for years. Like you would with a lie or a bad rumor, consider the source.
Be sensible.
I look forward to the day when organic and local don’t exist—when the words don’t have to exist, and when it is just sensible to eat things grown where you live and in a sensible way.
Get your hands in it.
It’s important to chop an onion at least once. So you can cry.
A bowl of pasta takes a village.
Everything takes a village. Pizza happens in the field, in the proofing room, like wine happens in the field. When you’re actually working at the site, the romance has happened and now it’s time to get physical.
You’re only as good as the people around you.
Everyone around me is better and smarter than I am and they’ve been carrying me for a long time.
It’s the loose wing nut that’s going to bring the plane down.
Everyone is part of the community and everyone is significant. You can make a beautiful consommé, but if there aren’t any clean bowls to put it in…
A recipe is only as good as the situation you are in.
Pay attention to what flour you are using, whether you’re able to roll out the dough, and other factors.
