Logo courtesy of Palena

The famous clam pie at Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana

New Haven-style pizza — better known as "apizza" (pronounced "ah-BEETS") to the natives — has created several generations of pie eaters who will settle for nothing less than a crispy, chewy, and charred round straight from the coal-burning ovens at Frank Pepe or Sally's, both located in historic Wooster Square. That's the "old Neapolitan neighborhood that is the cradle of American pizza," according to contributor Nicholas Dawidoff in Ed Levine's book, Pizza: A Slice of Heaven.

Lombardi's might disagree with that statement, but no one can argue with the devotion that New Haven pizzerias inspire. Consider this line from Dawidoff's essay in Pizza: "Frank Sinatra, for instance, used to send from New York for a Sally's pie. (This is nothing; long before Federal Express, the Wooster Square pizzerias were receiving telephone orders from former Yale students and relocated natives whose cravings led them to make arrangements with an airline to have fresh pizzas shipped as far as the West Coast.)"

Or consider the six owners behind Pete's Apizza in Columbia Heights. Two of them were born and raised in the New Haven area (siblings Michael Wilkinson and Alicia Wilkinson-Mehr); two others (Tom Marr and Joel Mehr) have tasted pies everywhere, from Italy to New York, and still opted to open a business devoted to those black-and-tan rounds made famous in Connecticut.

The owners, in fact, will soon be spreading the New Haven gospel further than their spot in Columbia Heights. They hope to open their second outlet on Wisconsin Avenue NW in late spring and even have a third pizzeria planned for Clarendon, which could open by late this year, unless delayed by construction or the 1,001 other obstacles that slow these projects down.

In preparation for these openings, I met up with three of the owners in New Haven this past weekend to get a better sense of the characteristics that define this prized Neapolitan round. For almost 48 hours, we did little else but eat pizza. We hit six different joints, from Sally's to Zuppardi's. We even stopped at Grand Apizza in Cheshire, which is the inspiration behind Pete's dough and sauce.

It was at Grand where Marr and Mehr got into a discussion with their mentor, Rick Nuzzo, over the ingredients and preparations required for New Haven pizza. You can watch the video here.

It's an informative three minutes, but it's by no means complete. Or perhaps I should say that some pizzas we sampled did not conform to the characteristics described by Nuzzo, Mehr, and Marr. Some slices were limp. Some had little char. Some had very little rise and chew. Some seemed to have little or no bread crumbs on the bottom. So over the next few weeks, before Pete's Apizza opens on Wisconsin, I'll catalog our visits to the six pizzerias and try to provide some context on New Haven pies and the apparently many minute variations.

Stay tuned to Y&H for more.

Rumors had been circulating for weeks about pending cutbacks at either Gourmet or Bon Appetit, but Condé Nast's decision today to ax editor Ruth Reichl's print baby sent shock waves through the food community (even if Gourmet's book publishing and TV operations will continue, as will the Web site).

In his business story for the Los Angeles Times, Russ Parsons contacted included a quote from Reichl for a comment about the closure.  "Like everyone else, I found out this morning," she told Parsons' colleague, S. Irene Virbila, the paper's restaurant critic. "I can't talk about it now, it's too raw. I've got to pack up my office."

On her Twitter feed, Reichl added: "Thank you all SO much for this outpouring of support. It means a lot. Sorry not to be posting now, but I'm packing. We're all stunned, sad."

Others are equally stunned about the sudden demise of the 68-year-old magazine. More comments after the jump.

Howard Kurtz on his chat today: "I hate to see any publication go out of business, and I know Gourmet has a big following. But Conde Nast is cutting back big time — only the New Yorker seems to be spared this round of budget cuts, reported as around 25 percent — and so it's just axed three of its magazines."

Ed Levine at Serious Eats was grief-stricken in a blog post today:  "The news hit anyone with a love for great writing and seriously delicious food hard. Really hard. For many of us Gourmet symbolized much of what we love about food journalism: terrific writing, careful editing, and beautiful photos. In recent years Gourmet editor-in-chief Ruth Reichl has also added food politics and harder food news reporting into the magazine's editorial mix, which was much appreciated by me, at least."

The New York Times' Media Decoder found Condé Nast's decision a little shocking: "Condé Nast tends to hold tight to its prestigious titles, making the Gourmet closing all the more startling. In an interview in February, even Paul Jowdy, publisher of the in-house rival Bon Appétit, said that such a closing was unlikely. (To be fair to Mr. Jowdy, the economy has plummeted, and Condé Nast has been hit particularly hard since then. Its magazines have lost more than 8,000 ad pages, excluding its bridal titles, so far this year.)"

Time Out Chicago turns sappy over the news:  "Bear with me while I get sappy: Gourmet has had a bigger impact on my life than any other magazine has or will. It was always in my house growing up, but I didn’t start reading it until I was 22. I was working in a newsroom in New York at the time, living in a dark studio apartment in the basement of a building in the not-yet-hipster Fort Greene, and Gourmet was the only luxury I could afford. Once an issue was released I would carry it in my bag until the next issue was out; by that time, it was tattered and torn and crinkled. (It wasn’t stained with food, though—I hardly had a kitchen to cook in.)"

Texas cookbook author and restaurant critic Robb Walsh reminisces about stories he contributed to Gourmet:  "For Gourmet's Latino food issue, I wrote about taco trucks all over the country and the immigrants who run them — hardly a story I expected to see in glossy Gourmet. Several years ago, the magazine ran my feature about an African-American cowboy cook named Mama Sugar and the Juneteenth celebration she holds at her trailer home and horse farm in Frisco. The story was turned down by other food magazines. It was the first Juneteenth story Gourmet ever ran. But in truth, it was the black-and-white photography by O. Rufus Lovett that made the story."

Image by cbertel via Flickr Creative Commons, Attribution License

Thank God for Ed Levine over at Serious Eats. He's not afraid to speak his mind about food, the problems of his ongoing diet, or the issues that Barack Obama (aka, Mr. Hope and Change) can actually address during his coming administration. Sustainability, organics, and other food issues won't be among them, he believes. Writes Levine:

Many serious eaters have high hopes for the Obama administration when it comes to food matters. They think he will champion Michael Pollan–like causes, such as local, organic, and sustainable food, along with a farm bill that Pollan and company will approve of. With his inauguration a week away it's time to ask the following essential food question: Are those hopes realistic or misplaced?

I think the evidence shows these hopes to be misplaced. Or at the very least we should recognize that food issues are not very high on Barack Obama's priority list.

You can read the evidence that Levine has against Obama right here.

Image by Flickr user jurvetson.

Serious Eats, one of my daily go-to sites about food and culture, has jumped head-first into the year-end list business. The site has counted down its Top 10 blog posts of the year. I'm not sure what it says about us, culturally, that an item about a new fast-food container tops the list. But whatever it says, I'm sure it's not very flattering.

Serious Eats' sister site on pizza, Slice, has also posted its Top 8 items of the year.

Photo courtesy of Serious Eats.