The frozen pizza of my green youth didn't taste much better than the box it came in. Celeste pizzas eventually added a couple of important new ingredients - flavor and color - but their best quality was still convenience.
DiGiorno Rising Crust advanced the cause a few years ago with pizzas that were actually as good as those produced by some of the workmanlike pizzerias in my neighborhood (which is in itself a disappointment since I live in an area with a large Italian population) but they are much closer in quality to Celeste than to the sublime offerings of Grimaldi's or Lombardi's.
Today I experienced the art of the frozen pizza thanks to American Flatbread, a bakery and restaurant located in Waitsfield, Vermont.
I knew the Ionian Awakening was something special when I ate an unheated piece of red onion that came off when I took the pie out of its cellophane. It was fresh and sweet, better than any onions I've bought in my local supermarkets. After heating the pie for a few minutes on a pizza stone, my first bite caused an endorphin rush thanks to the piquancy of mouthfillingly sharp, creamy Vermont-made feta cheese. Further masticatory investigation proved that the Vermont mozzarella, the kalmata olives and organic tomato sauce atop flatbread baked in a wood-fired clay oven are like a winning baseball club - each is a star in its own right and together they make an unbeatable team.
If they do this well with their frozen offerings, I have to assume that American Flatbread's restaurant must be a deity in the pizza pantheon.
1 comment:
Dear Joe;
Many thanks for the kind remarks. We love to bake for you! Come visit the restaurant/s sometime, as diners watch us prepare and bake the breads in an open kitchen format.
Be well, Jen and all at American Flatbread.
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