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Focus on Co-op
Suppliers: Organic Joe's
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| Very Italian, Very Local,
Very Organic |
by Suzanne Fisher
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From A. DeFazio Imports and
DeFazio's Pizzeria in Troy comes an innovative, delicious, and
wholesome way to enjoy pizza night in your home. The Organic Joe's
Pizza Kit is now available at Honest Weight, in a freezer in the
Gourmet Foods department. The pizza kit comes in its own pizza box,
which contains two balls of organic whole-wheat pizza dough, two pints
of organic homemade tomato sauce, and a pint of shredded pecorino
cheese, enough to make two pizzas.
I spoke with Rocco DeFazio, the third generation of his family to work
in their Italian food businesses in Troy, and he told me that to use
the kit, it should be opened several hours prior to thaw. When the
dough is soft, Rocco recommends heating a pizza stone at 500° in
the oven for 20 minutes while spreading the dough on a pizza peel with
fingers. (For the uninitiated, a pizza peel looks like a very large
wooden spatula with a short handle. A pizza stone is a large, round
ceramic disc on which one can bake a variety of breads and pastries.)
He says that using a little extra flour on the peel to keep the dough
from sticking, and moving the whole dough around on it as you work,
will help it to slide easily from the peel later. When the dough is
spread, pour on the sauce, sprinkle on some cheese, and tilt the peel
to slide the pizza onto the heated stone, turning the heat down to
475°. Because the stone is hot, the pizza cooks from underneath as
well as on top and it should be ready in seven or eight minutes.
Rocco says that for Italians, pizza is always about the sauce. The
sauce in the kit is made with certified organic tomatoes Rocco has
shipped from Italy. He seasons it with organic herbs and spices
purchased from Honest Weight and suggests trying one of the pizzas
without any cheese at all! When cheese is used, the more traditional
cheese for this pizza in Calabria, Italy, where his family comes from,
is pecorino, made from sheep's milk. He explained that this area in
Italy was not wealthy and the people lived off of what they could grow
on their own farms, which were organic by necessity before the word was
used to describe farming methods. Sheep and goats, being smaller in
size, were easier to feed and manage than cows. Giuseppe DeFazio,
Rocco's grandfather for whom Organic Joe's is named, produced his own
cheeses, wine, and olive oil, and his grandmother even grew her own
silk for fabric!
Now the fourth generation of De- Fazio's, Rocco DeFazio's sons Michael
and Matthew, are the ones who came up with the idea of a pizza kit and
who will be managing the Organic Joe's business. They have arranged for
10% of their profits to go to the Franciscan Center for Service and
Advocacy at Sienna College, where they both have studied. Printed on
each box is the saying: "To get what you want, you must share what you
have."
The DeFazio brothers are putting this adage into concrete action with
their financial support for the center. The directions enclosed with
the pizza kit also encourage sharing, of a different kind: work
together to make some pizza, make a salad, pour some wine and take time
to talk about your day together as you share the experience of a dinner
prepared at home with those you love.
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