I got an email from my friend Franco, telling me there was a new pizza video on msn.com. "Watch it", he said.
The video was an episode of : "A Big Life" with Sissy Biggers. In the episode Sissy learns to make pizza for the first time from scratch. I saw the finished pizza and it looked pretty good.
Imagine my pleasant surprise when in the opening moments of the episode, up drives The Big Green Pizza Truck. "It's a small world after all..." I thought!
The pizzaiolo of The Truck were going to teach Sissy how to make pizza. Owners Douglas Coffin and Kevin Spooner, gave Sissy some pizza making lessons as well as truck driving lessons...
Watch the video right here>>> "Sissy Makes Pizza."
Last year I had heard a number stories, about the The Big Green Pizza Truck, a mobile pizzeria, with a full on, wood fired pizza oven, in the back. I knew I had to track down the truck and owner .
I was finally able to track down Douglas and he agreed to do an interview for the April 2006 issue of Pizza News, the newsletter of pizzatherapy.com
Albert: Hi Douglas. How did you get started with the pizza truck: What came first the pizza or the truck? What is your pizza background and how did you get interested in pizza? Because I feel, to make you pizza, you need to have a passion for it.
Douglas: I am sorry to disappoint the pizza fanatics - I am not a pizza nut. I am a caterer and the truck grew out of my catering background, not a passion for pizza.
For many years I have felt that the best food is that which is freshly prepared and eaten right away. In my catering I frequently found the major effort was in creating a kitchen where none existed; once you had everything in place that you needed, the cooking was easy.
I have always loved making bread as part of my catering and at one point became fascinated by wood burning ovens. At one event I built a bread oven in someone's driveway and baked bread there for the event. The crowd loved it.
In response to that reaction I began to create a portable wood fired bread oven. The plan was that I would do bread for other caterers large events. I would build the oven, bake of some bread to serve with cheese as appetizers, and when the guests arrived, have a fire going in the oven, bread rising , and then right in front of them, bake off a loaf for each table for the main meal.
Because I am cheap, I bought an old pickup (1942 GMC 1/2 ton), to pull the oven with. I thought it had real style.
The bread idea was not a success, but two things happened which turned me towards pizza. One, a neighbor kept insisting that I do a pizza party forher. I did and it was a lot of fun. Then, another chef I was working with overheard me talking to a client turning down yet another request for a pizza party.
Read the rest of this three part interview in the following issues of Pizza News:
April, 2006
May 2006
and June 2006
As a matter of fact, Pizza News
even scooped the New York Times on this story!
That's all the Pizza News for now...
Pizza on Earth, Good Will to All!
Albert Grande
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PS: Visit my newest website:
http://bimwah.net
