Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

Times must be touch; they're cutting back on the amount of grated carrots, cucumbers and cilantro they put on the sandwiches. I think I got 5 strips of grated carrot on the Veal Meatball Sandwich .. none of th emeatballs were sliced in half ... it looked like the guy just threw the stuff on the bread, flipped over the top half of the sandwich, stuck it in a styrofoam box and handed it to me. I was pleased with the taste of the meatballs but the sandwich I got was nothing like the one pictured above!

I loved the book! I laughed so hard, I cried! The bone marrow part, OMG! I hope the movie does it justice. Maryl as Julia, brilliant! Plus, Nora Ephron is directing it, love her stuff. I'm really looking forward to it, probablly will buy the blue ray too!

I can make my own fry sauce for free if I grab handfuls of Chick-fil-a condiments.

And what I wouldn't give for Guzzo's fry dip recipe....

10 bucks for 9.7oz's of fry sauce! Anybody who buys that is smoking crack. Make your own or send me 10 bucks and I'll buy you some real fry sauce at the store and ship it to you. Out here in the west you can't swing a dead cat without hitting someplace that serves fry sauce. $4.50 for 32 ounces at the store. I ship it to a friend in NY from time to time since it appears to be something special out there. Bobby Flay really seems to think he's gods gift with these prices/products.

'The point is that *all things being equal* we have seen time and time again a skilled NY pizza master unable to duplicate the same recipe in other parts of the country. We hear that often, in fact.'

Do we? I must be getting senile. I can't really even remember hearing about a skilled NY pizza master even _trying_ to duplicate the same recipe in other parts of the country.

I've read that Brooklyn and Queens get their water from a different source than the Bronx and Manhattan. Joe Vitale of Bleeker St renown is making great pizza here in Santa Monica and he told me the water has nothing to do with it. Good for arguing though.

Polly-O is really good cheese, regardless.

@ ratbuddy

You would be surprised at what some processed cheese brands pass off as mozzarella.

I watched the episode, and ended up ordering a large pizza from a local joint that is about as close as I can get to N.Y. pizza. It's damn good though, and has been around since I was a child.

One thing I don't like about Food Detectives, is that it seems nothing they do on that show, is done in a way that ultimately proves anything. There is always a hole in their "scientific methods", and most of the time I feel like they haven't proven a thing.

anyone who knows anything about baking, knows that water has little to do with the end result, unless you're using really crappy water. it's similiar with beer. the main difference is the different salt and nutrient levels of each. if you really want to, you can replicate any water in the world. it's still one of those stupid arguments about why this is better than that. if you look closer at the situation you'll find that any average establishment in nyc for example has more experience with taste and baking than some pizza shop in nebraska. that is the real difference.

For Life magazine (in its second or third incarnation; it's now since folded again). http://slice.seriouseats.com/archives/2005/11/battle_of_the_boroughs_pizza_contest_1.html

They actually used a blind-judging system and were pretty organized, but I knew all the places from sight. They were all so different and distinct that it was easy to figure out which was which. DeMarco's (now closed) won.

I did a Best of Long Island Pizza contest once (my first such event), and it didn't really stipulate much. So the judges talked a lot and things seemed to get a bit skewed. Also, the judges were just weird and random, like some radio DJs, the stars of a Tony & Tina's Wedding production somewhere on Long Island, and Miss Long Island. Not necessarily pizza experts or food people. But that's not always a bad thing. In the end, most people can judge good pizza. The radio guys were very vocal, though, and I think skewed things.

At the PMQ thing, we were told not to really discuss the pizzas, but after a while, it started happening. In that case, though, they had really bothered to get some real pizza people in, and I think the opinions were pretty uniform. We were all a little puzzled by all the weird-ass toppings coming through. http://slice.seriouseats.com/archives/2007/03/judging_in_the_americas_plate_pizza_competition.html

@ratbuddy: I haven't seen it yet, but that sounds like what happens too often in food-judging events that don't have solid protocol set up and agreed upon beforehand. It used to happen here in the SE/Slice office, too. We had to tell Ed to stop talking about what he was tasting as he tasted it so that he didn't influence anyone else tasting the samples.

The best one I've seen was one I judged on for a pizza contest. The people running it—PMQ magazine—had done many, many pizza-judging events, so they had scorecards and laid out the deal—no conferring beforehand. That worked well. Other less-organized deals are in danger of coming under the sway of an especially vocal or knowledgeable-seeming judge.

@chisai, Whichcraft has awesome sandwiches. The bodega you are comparing them to must be in Paris or something because Wichcraft is amazing.

First observation: the steak is way overdone