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@Natasha Pickowicz

I was in Montreal last week and if you've not hit it up you should definitely try Prato (two doors down from Schwartz's) if you want a great Neapolitan style pizza, we found it on our last full day and had to hit it up again for lunch before we left the following day.

I actually have a few pictures and plans of writing a short article to submit to the slice blog but haven't had chance just yet.

The guys in my local takeaway when at University used to stretch dough like this - I believe they were Scillian. I've tried it myself a couple of times with mixed results :)

I'm more interested in the oven he's loading it into rather than the peel. Is that a stovetop attachment that comes with the stove or something you can buy separately, anyone know? Someone asked the same in the comments on the video months ago but there is no answer :(

I have been successfully making what I consider to be really lovely pizzas using a variation/combination of a few recipes but basically Jeff Varasano's preparation combined with the 101 cookbooks/American Pie one.

These are usually really, really nice, but I long for the flavour of real Naples pizza dough and sauce. My sauce is really nice - but a bit too American/Westernised; read overly seasoned and a bit too sweet - I did try the simple sauce from American Pie but like a previous poster didn't find that satisfactory at all. Any tips in these directions would be great.

However my two main questions should be quite simple to answer:

1. I love the way fresh basil almost melts on some pizzas (pretty much everywhere in Naples does this on a Margherita) but I can't get the same effect. If I place it on in the oven it tends to burn, if I place it on just after I remove the pizza from the oven during the couple of minutes before serving it doesn't get the same effect. Is it simply that as my oven isn't up to fired oven temperatures that the pizza isn't hot enough to achieve this effect?

2. One of my local takeaways (now closed sadly) used to apply a wash to the crust after they removed it from the oven and that seemed to make a positive difference to the taste. Any ideas what that wash would be? I think it was more than just egg-whites.