Summertime is pizza time

Summertime always lends itself to eating a bunch of pizza. The last few weeks have been full of tasty pies, mostly hits, but a notable, I wouldn’t call it a miss, but not exceptional.

First was a great experience with ordering takeout from Red Wagon, off 54th and Penn. We got their double pepperoni pizza, which was cheesy, garlicky, and loaded with pepperoni. It was very good. The second pizza we ordered was called the “Popeye”, which is bianca style pie with spinach, robiola cheese, garlic and sausage. It had a nice lemony zest to it as well, and played a great contrast to the pepperoni pizza. We also tried their caribbean jerk style chicken wings, which were also very good, but could have been spicier. I was very impressed by how fast the food was ready on a Friday night, and how crisp and delicious the pizzas were after a bit of travel in the car.

Another fun and unique pizza experience was at a work gathering out at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. The kitchen space is called Farm at the Arb, and there is so much going on out there. I won’t cover everything but they are doing a pizza night every Tuesday in the summer. We got to explore behind the scenes and make our own pizzas as this work event was a private party and pizza class. Lots of wonderful, fresh ingredients, and the most interesting thing was that they made their dough using Kernza flour. Kernza is a perennial grain that is being developed as a more sustainable alternative to annual wheat. It has a nutty flavor and a chewy texture, which made for a very interesting pizza crust. It would be a lot of fun to experiment with this more at home.

I also had the chance to check out Rosalia, on 43rd and Upton, for the first time in several years. We had tried it once during the Covid pandemic, but this time dined in. Overall the meal was very good, but the pizza was simply fine. I could tell they used excellent ingredients, but I believe their dough was a bit overproofed. It had nice char, but seemed kind of blonde in between, and the crust didn’t have a lot of structure. We got more simple pizzas so I believe that exposed the less than perfect dough. This was likely an anomaly since they are about to open their third location in the Twin Cities. I did very much enjoy the dip trio and roasted cauliflower and broccolini appetizers.

To read a bit more about homemade pizzas recently, check out the post here.