Growing up in New Jersey, I was eating some of the best pizza in the world without realizing it. Pizza in the USA started in New York. Go ahead. Look it up. New York / New Jersey style pizza is the original American pizza.
I also grew up eating some of the best Chinese food, taking it for granted also. Where I live, in St. Petersburg, FL, I’ve found it challenging to find New York / New Jersey style Chinese food that compares to what you get up north. So I had to learn to make it myself. SeriousEats.com has some of my favorite recipes from J. Kenji López-Alt. After making many of his recipes from the website, I was then gifted his 2022 book “The Wok: Recipes and Techniques” by one of my Asian friends. He said that he couldn’t think of anyone else that would appreciate it more than me.
I post all of the food I make on Facebook, and even though I make just about every type of cuisine that exists, most people perceive me as either “the guy that makes all that Asian food”, or “the guy that makes all that pizza”. So I figured, why not combine them and be “the guy that makes all that Asian pizza”.
For now, most of the pizzas here will be using a NY-style dough, but I will be changing things up a bit with the toppings and sauce to make them Asian. There are a myriad of recipe blogs, videos, and books with all of the most popular pizzas, and I don’t want to repeat what’s already been done thousands of times.
Even though I’ve been cooking all of my life–literally since I was a kid–I did a hardcore, deep dive into all things culinary, up-at-dawn, all day, every day for the last 3 years. I’ve enrolled in online culinary courses and lessons with The Culinary Institute of America, Milk Street Cooking School, and Rouxbe Culinary School. I’ve watched nearly every cooking show, and competition, read every food magazine, and have become a certified food judge for barbecue, steak, chili, and pizza amongst others. I’ve judged at The World Food Championships, The World Chili Championships, The World Steak Championships, and pizza and BBQ cook-offs around the country.
I made my first (everything from scratch) pizza in December 2021, and since then have made over 300 pizzas, and experimented with numerous dough recipes until I created my own NY-style dough recipe.
Read my interview on Free the Pizza.
I am the co-owner of St. Petersburg Foodies, where I have authored several local restaurant reviews, and top 10 lists.
My Food Judging Certifications:
World Food Championships Certified Food Judge #1541
Certified Chili Judge #62 by the International Chili Society
Certified Steak Judge #1562 by the Steak Cookoff Association
Certified Pizza Judge #14 by the Pizza Cookoff Association
Kansas City Barbeque Society Certified BBQ Judge #112881
