Just yesterday I ordered 2 more bottles of Mike’s Hot Honey to replenish my supply. I like to inject a tiny dab of MHH into sweet cherry tomatoes for a hidden pop of spice on a pizza.

Paulie was the first person I learned about using honey on pizza, as he was featuring it in his backyard pizza tastings before he opened the pizzera.

Nice write up! –K

I’ll have to watch for places specifically calling themselves out as “gourmet.” The only place I can sort of think of off hand is CPK. Meh.

I think I agree with you at the very heart of the matter here (“beware of places marketing themselves as ‘gourmet’”), but I think that American pizza as most Americans know it is … chain pizza. (Sad.) And that anything that deviates from it to these folks _is_ “gourmet.” (“Whoa, it has fresh basil on it? That’s ‘gourmet’!”)

Granted, the old-school mom-and-pop shops (like Ledo’s) deviate from the chain model, but I think those are somehow grandfathered in in people’s minds. Maybe because they’re perceived as being reasonably priced. Or that they’ve been there forever. Or that the chains themselves often started as one of these places.

I get what you’re saying about these places aren’t “gourmet” because these are age-old techniques, but it is novel to many people, and maybe that’s why they perceive it as gourmet.

I love this post and sentiment, because it generates a lot of thought and possible discussion around this issue. I’ve always dreamed of having some sort of “State of the Pizza” talk with a panel of differing pizza folk to shoot the shit about interesting pizza topics. THIS would be a great item to discuss. It deserves a lot more blabbing around than I can adequately do in a comment here.