Can you remember the last time you got really excited about a new creation on your menu? Or was it on another restaurant’s menu, perhaps even a competitor’s?



I was having a water cooler conversation with some non-foodie friends recently, and the subject was how they were bored to death when they dined out. It seems that a restaurant in my town is having a 10-year anniversary. It’s said that the menu is exactly the same as it was the day they opened. Right down to the soup du jour. The food is fantastic, but the menu is predictable. Once you have eaten your way through it several times, you get bored. I don’t look for a change in this place. It’s obviously working for them, especially in a town with a shrinking population and 22- percent unemployment.

On the other side of the spectrum, I just about fell off my La-Z-Boy when I watched the television commercial in which a huge pizza chain announced that they had re-engineered their pizza from the bottom up for the first time in 50 years. Their customer focus groups stated cruel things about the quality of the old product, so they did what every company would do: gamble hundreds of millions of dollars –– literally their entire future –– on new and improved. They didn’t even give themselves a safety net like Coca-Cola did with the New Coke fiasco.

When is the last time you gave them something to talk about? Your competition is. Your customers may be bored enough to try another place in town.

You would be wise to research, steal, modify, rip-off, reverse engineer, enhance or create some brand new menu items. Break your menu down into small pieces. Do a food cost and menu engineering report. Kill off the duds. Add brand new, delicious, exciting offerings in their place. Get creative. Keep on breaking it until you make it. I’m your customer … astound me. Please. ❖

Big Dave Ostrander owned a highly successful independent pizzeria before becoming a consultant, speaker and internationally sought-after trainer. He is a monthly contributor to Pizza Today and leads seminars on operational topics for the family of Pizza Expo tradeshows.

Q: We recently started serving freshly baked bread in the dining room with bottles of olive oil for dipping. We didn’t realize how expensive it would be going through a lot of oil. Is there a way to cut this cost?



A: An alternative to buying smaller bottles for each table is to buy cases of gallons of oil that will bring you a better value. You can find some nice glass bottles to put your oil in with a pourer in the top. If this is still too costly, I suggest using a 25 percent olive oil blend with 75-percent soybean or canola. One of these should work for you.

We want to add fried mozzarella sticks to our menu, but we really want to make our own. How do we go about preparing them?

You want to find a nice loaf of low moisture mozzarella, cut into ½ inch- to ¾ inch-thick slices and then cut the slices into the same size sticks. Use the standard breading procedure (fl our, then egg wash, then bread crumbs). Freeze for five to 10 minutes, then put them back in the egg wash and into the breadcrumbs. That second coating of crumbs will prevent the cheese from oozing out of the breading while frying. Freeze the sticks until ready to fry.

Business is down and I want to add delivery. There is a particular neighborhood where the crime is high and I wouldn’t want to send a driver there, but I’m also worried about being accused of discriminating. What’s the best way to handle this?

Adding delivery is a great idea. But, remember, it usually takes time to build. Don’t worry about people accusing you of anything. You decide where you will deliver and that’s it. You can reply to anyone accusing you of discrimination that you have added delivery to neighborhoods that will positively impact your business. Let them know that their neighborhood doesn’t fi t the criteria for delivery. You can also be very honest and say that because of the crime rate, you have been advised that is would be a poor decision to send drivers there. It shouldn’t be a problem.

We saw a demo you did at Pizza Expo and you used pesto in a couple of dishes. Can you tell me how you used it and where can we buy it?

Pesto can be used straight tossed with pasta or in a nice pasta salad. You can also mix it with some Alfredo to make a creamy pesto sauce or add a little bit of marinara to that to create a new pink pesto or pesto Rosa sauce. It’s so versatile and can be used in many different ways. Basting grilled chicken is a very nice touch; or adding pesto to chicken salad puts a nice twist to things. I make my own: fresh basil, olive oil, garlic, Parmesan and salt in a food processor works perfectly! ❖

Jeffrey Freehof, owner of The Garlic Clove in Evans, Georgia, is Pizza Today’s resident expert. Send your questions to: Ask Chef Jeff, c/o Pizza Today, 908 South Eighth Street, Suite 200, Louisville, Kentucky, 40203.

It’s now May as you hold this issue of Pizza Today in your hands, but I’m writing this column in March … just days after returning from the International Pizza Expo 2010 in Las Vegas. And let me tell you, my head is still spinning from the three days of informative mayhem!

I don’t know how my colleagues who assemble and run International Pizza Expo manage to make the show bigger and better every year — but they do. This year they raised the bar yet again.

I just got a look at the final numbers, and they’re dazzling. A near-record 6,067 attendees walked the show floor in 2010, making this year’s Expo the third largest in its 26-year history. Looks like the recession is a sidebar to what’s happening in the pizza industry.

The mood at this year’s Expo was upbeat and positive. I talked to hundreds of pizzeria operators from across the nation, and they aren’t fretting over their bottom lines like they were in 2008. They’re feeling good about the remainder of this year. They’re confident they’re turning a corner and that better days are ahead.

I talked to some exhibiting companies at International Pizza Expo who said they signed more deals on the show floor in 2010 than ever before. The pizzeria owners are banking on their gut feelings by buying again. This is very encouraging for the entire industry.

It’s been a rough ride, and it’s not over. But the end is near, and International Pizza Expo 2010 is proof of that. I’m extremely proud of what the Expo folks accomplished this year — more seminars, more critical topics, more prize money at the competitions, more competitive fl air, more attendees … more of everything!

For a recap of all the action at International Pizza Expo 2010, take a look at the article on page 70. If you missed this year’s show, don’t make the same mistake in 2011. The show will run March 1-3, and it’s never too early to start planning for it.

On another topic: Have you heard about Matt McClellan? He owns an independent pizzeria in St. Petersburg, Florida, called Tour de Pizza. He recently went on a 30-day diet in which he ate nothing but pizza, and worked out rigorously. He’s in great shape, and he wants the world to know pizza can be part of a well balanced, healthy diet. To spread the word, he’s cycling up the East Coast this summer in an attempt to gain awareness and improve the public’s perception of pizza’s nutritional value. Check it out by looking at the ad we designed and placed on page 32.

Best,

Jeremy White, editor-in-chief
jwhite@pizzatoday.com

Q: Can you please explain to me how to correctly season my new pizza screens?



A: Pizza screens and many pizza pans should be seasoned before they can be used. Failure to do so will result in the pizza (crust) and the pan or screen becoming as one — not to mention a poor bake quality.

To season new pans or screens, first wash them to remove any protective oil or residue from the manufacturing process. Then thoroughly dry with a clean towel and pass them through the oven for a couple minutes to evaporate any remaining water. Next, wipe the pan/screen with any type of salad oil. Be sure to wipe both the top and bottom surfaces. Then, brush on the oil. A thin coating will do. Place the oiled pans/screens in an oven set at not more than 425 F. This is important to remember, because the fl ash point (temperature at which the oil ignites) of most oils is at around 440 F. If you season pans at this temperature, or higher, there is a possibility that the oil could ignite, resulting in a bit more excitement than you might have bargained for. Allow the pans to bake in the oven for 15 to 20 minutes.

When the pans have been properly seasoned, they will have a slight golden tint to them. Then, as the screens are used in the future, they will not need to be oiled again. Pans, on the other hand, will typically need to have a small amount of oil applied to them to facilitate release of the baked pizza from the pan and to provide for a uniform baking across the bottom of the pan. As the seasoned pans and screens are used, they will continually darken in color (eventually becoming almost black). This darkening in color helps provide for a better baked pizza.

Note that it is important that the seasoned pans and screens be protected from exposure to water. If it is necessary to wash the seasoned pans/screens, do not allow them to soak in water. Doing so will result in the seasoning coming off of the pans in sheets, much like a bad sunburn. The result will be the need to chemically strip all of the old seasoning from the pans/screens and begin the process all over again. The accepted way to wash your seasoned pans/screens is to grasp the pan in one hand, and a soft, plastic bristle brush in the other. Dip the pan/screen into the soapy water and lightly scrub with the brush, then rinse, and dip into the sanitizer, immediately wipe dry with a towel, and place into a hot oven to evaporate any remaining water. Properly cared for, your seasoned pans should remain in good condition and not need to be re-seasoned for several years.

Can you share one of your favorite “tricks” for making a great pizza?

We all have our own special, little things that we do to make our pizzas just a little better than those made by someone else. Here is my special, added touch. Mozzarella cheese is, in my opinion, somewhat monotone, bland and unexciting. I think it is just begging to be blended with another flavorful cheese. For me, that cheese is Parmesan. After applying the requisite amount of mozzarella cheese, I like to finish the pizza with a sprinkle of shredded Parmesan. If there is a significant amount of crust (heel) exposed, I make sure to get some of the Parmesan cheese onto the exposed heel portion, and then spread the remainder over the mozzarella cheese. This provides for both a visual enhancement to the crust, as well as providing for a more complex cheese flavor to the rest of the pizza.

We are making our pizza slices from a par-baked crust, and we keep having problems with the dough bubbling, sometimes even turning into what looks like a giant pita bread. We already dock the dough, what else can we do to prevent this excessive bubbling?

Since you’re making slices from the crust, the easiest way to control the bubbling of your dough during baking is to apply a thin layer of sauce to the surface of the dough just before you place it into the oven for baking. This seems to do a good job of controlling the bubbling. Since you will probably be holding the sauced, par-baked crusts for a period of time, I like to apply a very thin application of olive oil to the crust before applying the sauce. This helps to prevent any moisture from the sauce from soaking into the crust and contributing to a gum line later on, when the slice is baked for the second time. My own personal favorite is to apply some diced garlic to the crust along with the olive oil, as this will add another dimension of flavor to the finished slice. Also, remember to add a little more sauce, tomato filets, or fresh tomato when dressing the slices as this really improves the flavor of the reheated slices.

We are using compressed yeast but we are thinking of changing over to instant dry yeast. How much instant dry yeast should we use to replace our compressed yeast?

There are a number of different thoughts on this. Many manufacturers will suggest that you use a third of the compressed yeast amount as instant dry yeast. However, I’ve had much better success using a little more of the instant dry yeast. My recommendation is to multiply the compressed yeast level by .375 to find the amount of instant dry yeast needed to replace a known quantity of compressed yeast. Thus, if our dough formula calls for 6 ounces of compressed yeast, we would multiply 6 ounces by .375 to get 2.25 ounces of instant dry yeast needed to replace the compressed yeast. You would then add the difference between 6 ounces and 2.25 ounces (3.75-ounces) as additional water to compensate for the slight drying affect of the dry yeast. ❖

Tom Lehmann is a director at the American Institute of Baking in Manhattan, Kansas.

It’s never too early to start making plans to attend International Pizza Expo®. Operators new and old have come to know the good, honest value of attending Pizza Expo. In fact, ask anyone who has attended a past Expo and they’ll tell you there’s nowhere else on the planet that you’ll find 400-plus pizza specific exhibiting companies demonstrating their products and services, except International Pizza Expo. Throw in over 70 pizza specific business-boosting seminars and demonstrations, as well as unmatched networking opportunities and you’ll see why past attendees and exhibitors alike refer to our show as the “Super Bowl” for the pizza industry.

This year, we had another record breaking show in terms of attendance, new exhibitors and total leads collected. In fact, word has it International Pizza Expo has made the list of the Top 200 tradeshows in the U.S., which is a huge honor and a reflection of all the hard work and dedication of our tradeshow staff, not to mention our exhibiting partners and buyers who make it all possible. As a result of this success, we’re making plans to expand next year’s show floor to accommodate the increased demand for exhibit space.

Now, if you want to get those competitive juices fl owing and you feel the need to compete, then we’ve got you covered as well. I know you think your pizza is the best. Here’s your chance to prove it by competing in the International Pizza Challenge™. The International Pizza Challenge is the most prestigious pizza making contest in the world with nearly $30,000 in prize money. The winner of each category, traditional and non-traditional, will take home bragging rights to “World’s Best Pizza” and the $10,000 grand prize. In addition, the top two finishers from each of these competitions will compete head-to-head in a blind-box competition to determine the “Pizza Maker of the Year”. Better yet, the winner will walk away with another $5,000 in prize money. Watch for more information and entry forms for both competitions in future issues of Pizza Today and on the International Pizza Expo Web site.

And that’s not all: energy and excitement will abound when the World Pizza Champions™ and the World Pizza Games® take center stage. Contestants will be able to compete in up to six events, including team freestyle acrobatics, individual freestyle acrobatics, fastest dough, largest stretch, box folding or our newest event, longest spin. Each event winner will take home $1,000 and a “World Championship” plaque.

Last but not least, at the close of the show some lucky pizzeria owner will walk away with $20,000 in cold, hard cash by participating in the $20,000 MEGA BUCKS Giveaway™! Remember, you can’t win if you don’t enter — and you won’t win if you’re not present.

The bottom line is there’s always something new at Pizza Expo that can improve your pizzeria. As always, our commitment to you, our partners, is to produce the biggest and best show ever. In fact, I guarantee attending Expo will be the single best investment of time and money you’ll make in 2011, or I’ll refund your registration fee.

We mean business!

Sincerely,

Bill Oakley
Executive Vice Presiden

Jeff Moogk is the executive corporate chef for Sammy’s Woodfi red Pizza. While menu development at Sammy’s is just one of his duties, Moogk also oversees culinary operations at parent company Ladeki Restaurant Group’s fine dining and catering divisions.

Q. Your position doesn’t just cover the average pizzeria operations. How do you incorporate that experience into Sammy’s Woodfired Pizza?

A. We’re always on the move. In fine dining or pizzeria operations, the basics — as far as using ingredients and toppings — are the same. We’re always trying to innovate. (With catering,) the volume is a lot larger, but the means behind the concept remains the same, and that is to put out the best possible product that you can and please as many people as you can.

Q. This isn’t just your average pizzeria. You offer some non-traditional menu items such as a Kobe beef chili dish and a white tuna and spinach salad. How well do those work in a pizzeria atmosphere?

A. They’re received very well. We always try to move forward, innovate new items and put new items on the menu to keep our regular customers interested and wanting to come back. And, those first timers will always have a large variety to choose from.



Q. Is it difficult for Sammy’s to compete in markets that are know for culinary diversity and excellence, such as Las Vegas?

A. We do quite well in Las Vegas. We’ve won many awards as far as (having) the best salad in town voted by all of the residents, the best pizza in town, even though we’re not on the strip. We’re in the outlying markets.

Q. You’ve added a line of Neapolitan pizzas to your menu. How well are they selling?

A. Those are doing great! It’s a traditional style with basic ingredients, all fresh ingredients, and they’re selling well.

Q. As the company grows, how difficult is it to maintain consistency across the brand?

A. Before we roll any new item out on the menu, or before we open up a new restaurant, we have an extensive training (process) and guidelines in quality control to really, really keep the consistency where it needs to be. That’s the biggest challenge of any multi-unit restaurant. That’s something that we face every day. We try to keep the focus on it every day.

Whether topping an inventive pizza, used in pasta dishes or on sandwiches, sweet peppers are a fresh, healthy and delicious hit with customers. While bell peppers are widely used in the pizza industry, banana peppers, cherry peppers and other varieties are great options for operators looking to expand their selections.

I love to reminisce about days of old and think it’s funny how certain things we see or old friends we talk to take us back to a different time and place. What amazes me even more is when the taste or smell of food brings me back to my childhood. There’s nothing like the aroma of grilled fresh pepper mixed with onion. Doesn’t that bring you back to every fair or carnival you ever went to?

One of my all-time favorites is fi re-roasted peppers. Roasted red peppers make the top of my list. There are so many different things you can do with them for just about every segment of your menu. In the same way when caramelizing onions, fire-roasting peppers bring out more of their natural sugars giving them a nice sweet characteristic. Peppers are grown in so many different colors now that adding orange, red, yellow, purple and green peppers will make any dish visually stimulating.

Whether you use your peppers raw, sautéed, fire-grilled, on skewers or cut into a mince, chop, chunk or strip, they can really bring your menu to life. Let me give you several successful ways that I have used a variety of sweet peppers on my menus and on catered events:

❖ Cherry peppers are great simply added to salads or even your salad bar, but why not take these delightful small peppers and stuff them? The sky is the limit, but prosciutto with provolone, mozzarella or even feta cheese makes a great start! Cutting cherry peppers in half and stuffing them instead of mushroom caps adds a whole different dimension to hot or cold appetizers.

❖ Banana pepper rings are sweet in comparison to a jalapeño or even a pepperoncini, but still offer a tiny bite to them. Again, on salads and salad bars these delicious peppers are irresistible. Don’t stop there, however. When you take your fried calamari rings out of the hot oil, add a dozen or so banana pepper rings to them and toss them together with shredded Parmesan to really enhance your presentation and munchability. I serve Italian nachos in my restaurant, and besides diced tomatoes and sliced black olives, banana pepper rings proudly sit atop of this amazing appetizer, along with Alfredo, meat sauce and mozzarella cheese.

❖ You can create a beautiful Fra Diavlo sauce by using any blend of your favorite peppers cut into chunks and sautéed with garlic and crushed red pepper, then simmered with a great marinara. This sauce can be used for many different pasta dishes. Penne and sausage Fra Diavlo or a Seafood Fra Diavlo with shrimp, scallops and mussels are just two amazing choices.

I know I shared with you that fire roasted red peppers are my favorite, so let me tell you how to fire roast a pepper. First of all, this should be done in a restaurant under an exhaust hood or outside, but not in a household kitchen. I like to rub my peppers very lightly with a little bit of vegetable oil. This will help them burn easier. You then want to place your peppers over an open fi re. You want to burn the outside of your peppers just until they are black. You’ll need to turn them to achieve this consistently over the whole pepper. Don’t be fooled by its outside appearance. Simply set them aside for about 10 minutes until they cool just enough to handle them. Placing the burnt pepper in a bag will help steam the outside of the skin, which will help it peal easier. I then peel the black skin off of the pepper under cool running water. Next pop the core and seeds out and you’re left with a beautiful roasted red pepper that can probably be used in a hundred different ways. Use them on an Antipasto salad or any other variety of salads.

How about chopping that roasted red pepper up finely and mixing it with a cup of ricotta cheese and 3 ounces of gorgonzola cheese to make a ravioli filling? Wow –– now that would be an awesome appetizer or entrée tossed with your guest’s favorite sauce. I’d suggest a nice Alfredo or perhaps a garlic and sage butter with fresh chives.



Roasted Red Pepper Pesto

1 roasted red pepper
¼ cup olive oil
2 cloves of garlic
½ teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons pesto
¼ cup Parmesan cheese

Place all ingredients into a food processor and blend.

To make a roasted red pepper mayo, take ¼ cup of your new red pepper pesto and add it to ½ cup of mayonnaise. One great wrap that I created several years ago using that very spread was called a Tuscan Club wrap. I used a tomato basil wrap with the roasted red pepper pesto, sliced turkey, ham, Genoa salami, provolone cheese, lettuce and tomato. Give it try, because it was a huge hit with my customers.

Don’t forget to be creative with blending an array of sweet pepper throughout your menu. If you want to start with something simple, try a Pepper Palooza Pizza: using your traditional crust, sauce and cheese, add an array of different colored peppers. The look of this pizza alone will invoke others to try this treasure of a pie. So go ahead, pepper things up a bit! ❖

Jeffrey Freehof, owner of The Garlic Clove in Evans, Georgia, is Pizza Today’s resident expert.

Tucked among the sand dunes and high-rise condos on Pensacola’s Perdido Key sits a squat, unassuming restaurant known by the locals as Lillian’s Pizza. Inside, however, there’s a vibrancy to the restaurant that can only be described as comfortable. Owner Lillian Walsh greets family and friends, members of the Chamber of Commerce and even a handful of distributors who sit down and share a table and a slice or two with her. After all, being featured in the pages of Pizza Today has been a goal of sorts, and it’s one that seems to resonate among the locals who call Lillian’s home.



Lillian’s first opened in 1990 less than a mile from its current location. “That was a great spot,” Walsh laments. “We had bought this piece of property and we opened up a yogurt shop (but) we weren’t able to make any money there. It was like $20 a day –– I’m serious –– and like $200 on the weekends. So we started serving the pizza and sandwiches and it just caught on. That’s how we started.”



Daughter Kathryn Hammack, who now owns a snack shop down the street and pitches in at the restaurant when possible, has a different take on her parents’ initial success. “Didn’t someone smell you making a pizza and say, ‘Well, will you make us one?’” she asks her mother (Walsh confirms it) and continues: “They were like ‘This is the best pizza we’ve ever had! Can you do it again next weekend?’ ”

Calls started coming in for orders, and the Walshes found themselves out of the yogurt business and into the pizza business.

At the same time the family took the plunge and bought a bona fide pizza oven, Domino’s Pizza entered their market, “and I was shakin’ in my boots,” Walsh says. “I thought ‘What am I doing?’ But it worked out okay.” Says Hammack: “It’s totally different than Domino’s.” Soon, word-of-mouth got around, and Lillian’s had beach traffic, locals and even skydivers landing for pizza.

The original location weathered Hurricane Ivan in 2004, and although much of the area received devastating blows, Lillian’s reopened just six weeks later. “Ivan put sand up above the height of the bar,” says Hammack. “The whole restaurant was full. We had to dig it out.”

Following Ivan, Lillian’s now-deceased husband, Dave, realized the gulf-front property’s rising value and sold it.

In 2005, the company moved into its current location, a freestanding, custom built restaurant tailored for Lillian’s operations. “At the time, believe it or not, there was a real estate boom here and it was the only lot left on Perdido for sale,” Walsh says. Still, it’s surrounded by condos, across the street from the beachfront, has ample parking and –– best of all –– air-conditioning. It’s no longer a beach shack selling slices to tourists but a year-round venture serving snowbirds and the region’s 10,000 residents alike.

Still, summer is their high season. “By March, when the Spring Breakers start coming down from up north, it’ll be crazy,” Hammack says. Many summer visitors are repeat business as well.

It’s at this point in our interview that Walsh excuses herself. The lunch buffet, it seems, needs her attention. “Let me just check this out. We’re running out of pizza,” Walsh says. Within minutes, new pizzas are flying out of the kitchen and filling the line.

“We had done a pizza buffet for about 12 years, and then we stopped,” says Walsh. “But, with the economy like it is, we started it back. I think it’s a really good thing (at lunch) because (locals) come in and eat and then go back to work. Before, we took too long to get the food out for lunch.”

Lillian’s original pizza is dubbed “The Real McCoy” –– it is a thick Italian-style pan pizza with dough made in-house. But the variety doesn’t end there. “We started out with just the pan pizza,” Walsh says, “and then we learned how to make thin crust. Then someone taught us how to make stromboli. We just kept adding.”

Favorites among the long list of specialty pizzas include Big Dave’s Meat Pizza, named after Walsh’s husband who passed away in 2006, the shrimp-topped Pesto Pizza and the Ranch Pizza, which they sourced from the pages of Pizza Today.

“They all sell,” Walsh says. The Spicy Crabmeat Pizza even placed for best seafood pizza at an International Pizza Expo competition.

“Whenever you add a new pizza to the menu, it keeps growing in popularity every year,” she says. There’s no reason to downsize the menu because the ingredients are interchangeable on pizzas, sandwiches and plated dinners.

In fact, much of the menu is scratch made, including fettuccini and pesto sauces, lasagna, salad dressings, potato salad, meatballs –– even the salsa and margarita mix. Is it worth it to be so labor intensive? Walsh says it is, adding that fresh seafood is brought in everyday by a local fish market.

“That’s why we might not have something. If they didn’t have a good catch that day, then we won’t have it,” Hammack says.

Dough is made twice daily and up to three times every day in the busy summer months. “It depends on when you go in the kitchen what you’re smelling,” Hammack says. Is training difficult with so much made in house? Walsh says yes, but “right now we have enough people to cover everything ,and in the spring and summer we can just hire seasonal help to just make pizzas and do other things.”

As a result of the company’s focus on fresh food and community, sales have increased steadily. Today, Lillian’s Pizza sits on Pizza Today’s Hot 100 Independents list with annual sales over $2 million.

Some days, delivery makes up to as much as 50 percent of business with a delivery area that stretches to the nearby Alabama border and encompasses about a 10-mile radius. On average, Lillian’s employs six to seven drivers in the busy season. “I like to make sure the food gets there hot,” she says. “We were letting drivers take like three deliveries at a time, but we cut it down to two because we got some complaints (that) the food was getting there cold … They’ll take five if you’ll let them, but we only allow two.”

In all, Lillian’s can employ up to 50 employees in the summer. “My Sysco rep says I have a little army. ‘You can do it for less!’ he says. We have reduced it this year during the off-season. We have reduced it greatly. But it’s pretty efficient, still. It gets so crazy here that you have to have so many people to get good service.”



A full bar is available because “when you’re on the beach, everybody wants drinks,” Walsh says. She lucked into a liquor license for sale in the newspaper, but “it only supports the restaurant. We don’t have people coming in here to drink.”



With its single-store success, have they considered opening a second location? Walsh said she had looked at a place in Orange Beach, but ultimately her CPA and banker advised against it. “That’s when all the restaurants were closing,” Walsh says, “so I didn’t. But I wanted to. I really wanted to. “But we probably will when the time is right. I’m just trying to make this better all the time.” ❖

Mandy Wolf Detwiler is managing editor of Pizza Today.

On the PizzaToday.com bulletin boards, April Murray, co-owner of Just Pizza in Gibsonville, North Carolina, recently asked this question: “How many of you actually utilize coupons or not? I am hearing requests from customers for coupons, but we offer pretty good specials that we change every three months or so. Any ideas?”



Like it or not, the pizza industry is coupon driven, and our uncertain economy coerces people to endeavor to save a buck. The consumer’s view of a coupon is that it entitles him to certain benefits, such as cash or a gift. Operator Michael Shepherd of Ohio based Michael Angelo’s Pizza presents a differing view of coupons: “I think they are often a crutch that our industry leans on rather than using our image, brand or quality to bring people in.” Murray concurs. How do pizzaioli aspiring for quality product and excellent service come to terms with consumers who have been conditioned by the Big 3 to expect a deal or coupon and never pay menu price?

Junior Freitas, owner of Stuft Pizza in Santa Clara, California, comments: “A coupon to me is a means to get somebody into my store or back to my store. I try to educate my customers of the benefits of value over price.” Steve Cocca, President of the four-unit Cocca’s Pizza in Youngstown, Ohio, says: “Coupons raise ticket sales and help us get new customers. Most people stick them on their refrigerator so the third purpose is that it can act as a billboard.”

Savvy operators realize the power of coupons, but also know they can be a double-edged sword. Shepherd adamantly states that “deeply discounted coupons by the Big 3 have done tremendous damage to the industry that will take many years to repair. They are reducing our industry to little more than fast food status.” Murray confronts this daily: “We try very hard to instill the idea that we simply give them more for the dollars they choose to spend,” she says.

Murray, Shepherd, Freitas and Cocca all offer specials and featured items. Murray learned that she had to present the special to the customer in the way they wanted to see it. She simply put a box or dashed line around featured menu items, and suddenly the response to these items soared and customers quit asking for coupons. She spoke the language of the consumer. Cocca places the boxed items like his “Family Pack” right on his menu. “I really think people are more cautious about spending and go right to the coupons,” he says. “It does not need to be a big discount. They’re only saving 97 cents, but this works great for us.” Combos or a free item of high perceived value is a great way to pull off this coupon-balancing act.

Meanwhile, Shepherd asserts that “my best coupon is no coupon.” He still uses means of high ROI like Facebook, e-mail and door hanging to meet the expectations of a thrifty consumer with multiple item offerings. Freitas sees similar results offering printable coupons on his Web site. His free cheesy bread with a large pizza purchase has a perceived value of $6.95, while the actual food cost is merely $1.10.

Successful operators understand the industry and their target market, and they adapt to it. The semantics of “coupon” need not be a challenge. ❖

Scott Anthony is a Fox’s Pizza Den franchisee in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. He is a monthly contributor to Pizza Today.

In early March of this year, the Las Vegas Convention Center was abuzz with the 26th annual International Pizza Expo. The industry’s oldest, largest and most respected trade show took place March 2-4 with nearly 1,000 exhibitors and 6,067 attendees.

Pizzeria operators from around the world gathered for the show, which offered 70 educational seminars, two keynote addresses, the World Pizza Games, the Rockin’ Party, a $20,000 MEGABUCKS giveaway and the International Pizza Challenge.

Bill Oakley, senior vice president of Macfadden Protech LLC, the parent company of Pizza Today and Pizza Expo, says the show had a little something for everyone.

“We pulled out all the stops to make sure International Pizza Expo was the biggest and best show ever,” says Oakley. “We expanded our educational program to include more than 70 business boosting seminars and demonstrations. We also added several new industry speakers who addressed the hot issues facing pizzeria operators today.”

Those seminars, says Oakley, are a major reason pizzeria owners attend International Pizza Expo year in and year out. Then there’s the competitive side of the show, another draw.

“Our competitions continue to grow in popularity,” says Oakley. “Pizzeria operators are proud of their pizza, and the International Pizza Challenge gives them a platform to show their peers what they can do.”

Chef Theo Kalogeracos, who has pizza operations in both Australia and Indonesia, claimed first in the non-traditional category of the International Pizza Challenge this year. He then took the win in the ensuing blind-box competition, which pits the top two finishers in both the traditional and non-traditional categories against one another in a timed contest that requires the competitors to work from a predetermined list of ingredients. Additionally, each competitor was required to use a secret ingredient — this year’s must-have was grilled chicken.

“I went with a ‘simple is better’ approach in the blind-box (competition),” says Kalogeracos, who won a total of $15,000 between the two challenges. “Chicken and pesto work well together. And thought it’s simple, it’s also very flavorful. We’re working quickly, so I had to make a fast decision and go with it. Thankfully, it worked out to my advantage.”

In another form of competitive expression, the World Pizza Games continued its fast-paced, high-energy assault on International Pizza Expo crowds again this year. A batch of fresh new faces popped onto the scene at the show, led by Eric Corbin of Grimaldi’s in Tucson, Arizona. Corbin finished first in the “Largest Dough” category and tied for first (with Jay Schuurman of Hookah Bar & Grill in Salt Lake City, Utah) in the Freestyle Master’s Division.

“It’s very exciting, a little overwhelming,” says Corbin, who was mentored into the competition by co-worker Jamie Culliton, a longtime World Pizza Games competitor.

Back on the show floor, Expo attendees were equally overwhelmed with the amount of products and services available. First-time attendee Richard Gray, manager of Garbanzos Pizza in New Plymouth, Idaho, says his store will greatly benefit from his trip to International Pizza Expo 2010.

“We’re just here to take in all the information and maybe make our little restaurant a little better place to be,” he said from the show floor on March 3. “ We’re just amazed at all the information we’ve gleaned from this Expo. It’s fabulous.” Gray was far from the only first-time attendee at Expo, says Oakley.

“This year I was just blown away by the number of first-time attendees, new exhibitors — we had 95 new companies this year — and the overall size of the show,” Oakley says. “I’ve been producing Pizza Expo since 1994, and I think this is by far the best show we’ve ever produced in terms of our educational program, which I think is second to none, demonstrations, networking events, contests and the overall depth and quality of exhibits.

“Pizza Expo is truly the ‘Show of Shows’. In fact, word has it Pizza Expo is now one of the Top 200 shows according to Tradeshow Week magazine, which would be quite an honor. The bottom line is if you’re looking for a product or service for your pizzeria or just an answer to your problem, you’ll find it at Pizza Expo. Everything you need for your pizzeria and more, all under one roof at a single location.”

Next year’s show is scheduled for March 1-3 at the Las Vegas Convention Center. For more information, visit www.pizzaexpo. com. ❖

International Pizza Challenge Scores

Traditional Division, Top 3
1. Eddy Rossignoli, Pizzeria Brian, Venezia, Italy 107.35
2. Jane Mines, Nima’s Pizza & More, Gassville, AR 102.9
3. Gianluca Procaccini, Pizzeria Il Campione, Lido De Ostia, Italy 99.45

Non-Traditional Division, Top 3
1. Theo Kalogeracos, Pizza Boutique, Jakarta, Indonesia 136.4
2. Abe Collins, Goodfella’s Café, Staten Island, NY 132.55
3. John Gutekanst, Avalanche Pizza, Athens, OH 132.15

World Pizza Games Scores

Fastest Box Folding
1. Justin Stokes, Sparky’s Pizza, Urbana, OH :19.17
2. Casey Cole, A Slice of New York, Columbus, OH :22.74
3. David Sommers, Mad Mushroom Pizza, West Lafayette, IN :25.26

Fastest Dough
1. Domenico Sposeto, Italy :45.04
2. David Sommers, Mad Mushroom Pizza, West Lafayette, IN :47.40
3. Jamie Culliton, Grimaldi’s, Tucson, AZ :47.83

Largest Dough
1. Eric Corbin, Grimaldi’s, Tucson, AZ 93.25
2. Pat Miller, A Slice of New York, Columbus, OH 91.75
3. Spencer Glenn, Pizza My Heart, Monterey, CA 87.25

Longest Spin
1. Kazuya Akaogi, Japan 4:18.40
2. Casey Cole, A Slice of New York, Columbus, OH 2:46.40
3. David Sommers, Mad Mushroom Pizza, West Lafayette, IN 2:36.34

Freestyle First Division
1. Eric Corbin, Grimaldi’s, Tucson, AZ 178
2. Pat Miller, A Slice of New York, Columbus, OH 174
3 . Ryan LaRose, A Slice of New York, Columbus, OH 161

Master’s Divisions
1. Jay Schuurman, Hookah Bar & Grill, Salt Lake City, UT 189.5
1. Eric Corbin, Grimaldi’s, Tucson, AZ 189.5
3. Justin Wadstein, Kianti’s Pizza & Pasta Bar, Santa Cruz, CA 179.5

There was a time not too long ago when the only pizza that even came close to being called “seafood pizza” was a clam pizza (a.k.a. white pizza). I have covered the clam pizza idea in this column several times, and it is still very popular (when simplicity meets good taste head on, what’s not to like)? For example, with a clam pizza it is simply a matter of brushing the pizza crust with garlic oil (or just really good EVOO followed by some finely chopped garlic). Now sprinkle –– lightly –– some clam juice over the olive oil and garlic. Next, take a portion of chopped sea clams and spread those over the pizza. From there, I like to sprinkle on dried thyme and finely chopped fl at-leaf parsley. Lastly, sprinkle on a small amount of finely grated Parmesan cheese. Simple, yet delicious!

If only all seafood pizza ideas were so simple. But that begs the question, where do we draw the line between seafood that work on a pizza and those that don’t? The answer to that is split 50/50 between food costs and common sense.

We might agree that caviar is seafood, but we aren’t going to touch that with a 10-foot fishing pole. We might agree that crab would work for a seafood pizza. Here again, though, considering the cost of real crab, how much would you have to charge for that pizza to eke out a profit?

Recently, in some of the more upscale pizzerias, I have seen smoked salmon making its way onto menus more often (made famous by Wolfgang Puck). And we can use the process of how this pizza goes together as a model for working with seafood pizza. By that I mean the crust is brushed with olive oil and baked until it is cooked through. Once the crust is out of the oven (and you can prep this step well ahead), it is brushed with a creamed mixture of fresh dill and sour cream or creme fraiche. The next step is to arrange the chopped smoked salmon on top of the dill cream sauce. This is one decadent and delicious pizza, but once you work out the food costs and what you would need to charge, it might not be for you, so let’s try another approach, this one using shrimp:

Shrimp and Black Bean Pizza




Yield: one 14-inch pizza (scale up in direct proportion)

1½ cups canned black beans, drained and rinsed
¼ cup chopped red onion
½ teaspoon ground cumin
1 clove garlic, minced
½ pound fresh plum tomatoes, diced (about 1 cup)
¼ cup chopped scallions
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 14-inch pizza shell
6 extra-large shrimp, shelled, cleaned, cut in half lengthwise (If possible, grill or sauté the shrimp in olive oil ahead and set aside.)
3 tablespoons chopped cilantro

In a large bowl, combine the beans, onion, cumin, garlic, tomatoes and scallion. Add the olive and toss to combine.

Spread the bean mixture evenly over the crust up to the border. If possible, grill or sauté the shrimp in olive oil ahead and set aside. Bake the pizza without the shrimp or the cilantro. When the pizza comes out of the oven, add the cooked shrimp (you will have about 12 pieces of shrimp) evenly over the bean mixture. Sprinkle on the cilantro. Serve. 

Pat Bruno is Pizza Today’s resident chef and a regular contributor. He is the former owner and operator of a prominent Italian cooking school in Chicago and is a food critic for the Chicago Sun-Times.

Frequent diner programs abound and there’s good reason for this, says Arjun Sen, president of Zen Mango, a Centennial, Colorado-based consulting company.

“A frequent diner program gives you a share of the customer’s wallet space,” he says. “It also helps build a habit. Those who experience a brand three or four times have a revisit intent that is up to 15 percent higher compared to that of one-time visitors.”

These programs enable restaurants to add value without discounting, Sen continues. They also offer an effective tool for shifting buying behavior, for example, encouraging greater frequency of use or visits during off-peak times.

But the programs can fall short. For one thing, Sen explains, today’s society prefers its gratification instant. Consequently, the delayed rewards that characterize many programs appeals to a smaller group of consumers. The remedy? Bump up the rewards frequency and set a low threshold to get them started, he says.

This is what they did, says Nancy Reineking, director of operations at Willow Street Wood Fired Pizza in Los Gatos and San Jose, California. When they first launched their program, customers had to spend $200 to get $20 off (they use a stamp card with each stamp worth $10). Five years ago, they decided to lower the rewards level. Now, after spending $100 customers can get a free appetizer; after 25 stamps a free entrée; and after 30 stamps a free dessert. Customers can redeem as earned or all at once.

Reineking says the program is popular, adding that in one week at their Los Gatos location, 45 stamp cards were turned in.

Steve Rubino, founder/president of Rubino’s Pizzeria, with a location in Herndon and in Ashburn, Virginia, keeps rewards obtainable as well. Customers in his program receive a $10 gift card for every $100 they spend.

“Our customers who use this religiously are a great value to me,” he says. “It’s hard for me to put a finger on how much this has bumped up sales; just say that the card users are a significant part of sales.”

Sen believes in creating levels of usage/rewards. He suggests owners evaluate their traffic and break the thresholds into light, medium, heavy and super-heavy users, based on frequency.

“Then the idea becomes moving people from one threshold to another and keeping them at the heavy end of the spectrum,” he explains. “At the lower ends, the rewards should be frequent and small, becoming more personal and privileged as you move towards the heavy end.”

This strategy also helps restaurants differentiate their program, making it less “me too,” a real issue thanks to the proliferation of these programs, says Sen.

“To make the program really stand out you need to offer something more than ‘buy six get one free’,” he says. “Start by looking at the non-financial rewards, things that will really wow the customer.”

This could include perks like immediate seating, or moving to the top of the wait list, or personal attention from the manager. Other possibilities might be special gifts, such as a free birthday pizza or an invitation to be the first to try a new menu item or to attend a special in-restaurant, invitation-only event. The point is to make the program member feel well-treated and valued (he suggests looking to other industries that really connect with their customers for additional ideas).

But restaurant owners also must think of these programs differently, says James Sinclair, principal of Onsite Consulting, a Los Angeles based restaurant consulting firm. Rather than simply rewarding repeat business, the primary objective should be the collecting and retention of data, not appealing to bargain hunters.

“If you have a customer that always comes in Thursdays, don’t offer him a deal that gives him a discount on Thursday, because he was already coming in at that time. Now, you’ve lost revenue on that customer,” says Sinclair. “Don’t turn a dollar into fifty cents.”

You must outreach to customers and drive traffic and promotions without taking away from the existing traffic you’re getting, he emphasizes. The entire value of these programs lies in their marketing ability, getting the customer’s attention in order to push them towards what you want to accomplish.

“The point of the rewards program isn’t for the customer,” says Sinclair. “It’s for the restauran — disguised.”

This is the strategy behind her program, says Candace Roseo, co-owner of Bella Vista Trattoria & Pizzeria in Wilmington, Delaware. She collects names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, anniversaries and birth dates via the POS system, creating a database of 1,000 customers so far that she regularly markets to.

Reward levels range from $100 to $500, with a free appetizer or dessert at the first level and 15 percent off the total bill at the highest. The program generates good word of mouth; about 25 names are added each week, an indication she’s bringing in new business. But that’s not the biggest value.

“Information is power,” she says. “If you’re not in control of how you touch your customers and how frequently you touch them, well, let’s just say that’s not a position I’d want to be in.” 

Increasing Effectiveness

The following tips will help you wring the most from your program: 

• Make signup easy and convenient. Offer both in-restaurant and Web site signup. 
• Educate staff, says consultant Arjun Sen. When these programs fail, it’s often because the staff doesn’t support it. Train them on program details. Reward them for signing up customers.  Promote it through staff, with in-store signage, on menus and your Web site. 
• Keep it active. Regularly market it to members, for example, via email blasts announcing a new menu item (mentioning that program members heard this first), reminding them of program benefits
• Make changes so the program doesn’t get stale. (Example: restaurant owner Steve Rubino is offering double points nights to promote certain categories.) 
• Keep it consistent with your brand in terms of name and the materials used in the program (such as swipe/stamp cards). All should enhance your image.

Pamela Mills-Senn is a freelancer specializing in writing on topics of interest to all manner of businesses. She is based in Long Beach, California

It’s every restaurant owner’s nightmare: an illness or food poisoning outbreak is traced back to your establishment. Shaking the perception your store isn’t sanitary can be a difficult and expensive process. Instead of betting that it won’t happen to you, take steps to ensure your guests’ –– and employees’ –– good health. Follow these rules to lay the foundation for healthier habits in the workplace.

1 Wash, wash and wash again. “Handwashing is your first and best defense against transmitting illness in the restaurant setting,” says Roslyn Stone, chief operating officer of Corporate Wellness, Inc., a Mount Kisco, New York-based firm that consults with independent businesses on workplace medical and wellness issues. Ideally, workers should wash their hands with soap for at least 24 seconds each time they move from a food-handling task to a non-food-handling task (even one as minor as scratching one’s nose). But Stone acknowledges that this is tough at pizzerias, where one worker might serve food, then take money at the register, then bus a table. Scheduling workers so there’s at least one employee whose sole responsibility is managing the cash register can help, says Larry Parks, owner of The Original Dominick’s in Parkersville, Maryland. Having someone work the counter at all times prevents the food staff from risking contamination by handling money or touching lots of hands.

Some jurisdictions require gloves as part of their food service code, but Stone cautions that gloves aren’t any better than handwashing, and may actually be worse because they can create a false sense of security. She says employees don’t change gloves often enough between tasks, like moving from handling raw meats to cooked. She says hand sanitizers pose a similar problem — they can be a good stop-gap measure, but the mechanical motion of rubbing soap into your hands is what really gets them clean and germ-free.

2 Keep a clean “house.” Hand sanitizers can be good for customers, however. Parks says The Original Dominick’s has sanitizers deployed all around the restaurant, including at cash registers and in the bathroom. To minimize infection from one guest to another, Parks has his staff clean and sanitize the whole table. “You never know when a small child is going to put their mouth on the table,” he says.

Cleaning tables doesn’t just mean wiping down crumbs with the same damp cloth you’ve been using all night, though. Stone advises using quat sanitizer for table cleaning. Quat is short for “quaternary ammonium chloride,” and when properly diluted, it makes an effective but generally safe disinfectant for shared eating areas. Stone says there’s really no need to move to harsher bleach solutions unless you have a Norwalk virus outbreak in your area. “Quats will kill fl u, stomach bug and other basic viruses, but only bleach is effective against Norwalk,” she explains.

3 No matter how snowed under you might be, don’t let workers work sick. It sounds like common sense –– if you’re sick, don’t work. But it’s more complicated than that, both for the hourly workers who lose wages if they don’t show up, and the owners who have to find a replacement on short notice.

The issue of not working when sick is one that Stone encourages her clients to address as early as the interview and hiring process for new employees. “You need to help them understand that because they work in food service, they’re going to be held to a higher standard as far as working while sick,” she says. She encourages employers to put together a “Safe Working Statement” that says they won’t come to work until they’ve been symptom-free from nausea, vomiting and diarrhea for at least 24 hours.

4 As an operator, it is up to you to lead with good training and good examples. And while getting employees to sign health commitments during hiring is a good start, it’s not enough. “Especially in this economy, a well-trained staff is essential because an unhappy customer does not come back,” explains Juliet Bodinetz-Rich, executive director of Bilingual Hospitality Training in Baltimore, Maryland.

Bodinetz-Rich says investing time in one-on-one or small-group training will show employees how seriously you take healthy practices. She also recommends practicing “tell-and-show”: you explain how to do something correctly, then have the trainee show you they understand through demonstration.

And remember that as the boss, you need to be the example. Stone says when an employee you rely on calls in sick, it helps to remember why you have health policies in the first place. “If a pizza-maker calls in sick and you pressure him to come in, someone could die,” she says, noting pizza places are often gathering places for all generations, including the elderly and young children, whose immune systems aren’t as strong as a healthy adult’s. “No one is going to die if their pizza takes a few more minutes because you had one pizza maker instead of two.”

Parks, owner of The Original Dominick’s, says he makes it an even more personal choice for his workers. “We like to eat the food from the store and we take it home to our families, too,” Parks says. “That’s a great motivation to follow correct health procedures.” ❖

Health Training for Employees with Limited English Skills

Sometimes great employees don’t always speak fluent English. Juliet Bodinetz-Rich, executive director of Bilingual Hospitality Training in Baltimore, Maryland, offers these tips for making sure employees with limited English skills are well trained in your restaurant’s health policies:
❖ Bring in someone to assist with translation. You may have another employee who could do this. If not, paying a translator is money well-spent when you consider the financial implications of not having a well-trained employee.
❖ Practice explanation and demonstration. This is a good way to train any worker, but it’s especially helpful for limited- English-speakers.
❖ Make sure the workers understand not just the what’s, but also the why’s of the training. For example, if you’re going over safe food handling, explain the types and dangers of foodborne illnesses.
❖ If you need further help, seek out professionals. Bodinetz- Rich recommends ServSafe food service certification, which is available

Alyson McNutt English is an award-winning freelance writer specializing in home, healthy, family and green topics. She is based in Huntsville, Alabama.

Goodwill Hunting

Problems in the kitchen? Don’t let your customers bear the brunt of it. Have your manager be up front at the table. Admit to the problem and offer to make it right. A simple order of garlic knots while the customer is waiting helps foster good will. And don’t forget your delivery customers. Sending out a low-cost item (such as an order of cheesy bread or cinnamon sticks) and an apology at the door by the driver goes a long way to righting a wrong.

Cold Calling

At International Pizza Expo in March, an operator at the yearly Beer & Bull Idea Exchange offered a great tip: When a pizzeria in his local town goes out of business, he buys the store’s old phone number and has their calls redirected to his own pizzeria. The result? New — and hopefully repeat — business. If a customer is calling, they’re wanting pizza anyway, so luring them in with a new business special gets the order out the door and increases the pizzeria’s profile in town. It’s a win for all!

Proper Programming

If you’ve got a pizzeria, you’ve probably got a television or two in house. And with your focus on the food, it’s easy to forget about programming, and that might turn off some folks. News stations can turn ugly fast, so keep an eye on what’s playing. And honor patrons’ requests to switch channels if appropriate. If there’s a game on, you might just pad checks with extra beer, wings or breadsticks!

Promo Pairing

Want some new marketing materials? Check with some of your distributors. Soda companies, liquor distributors and cheese companies often offer table tents, banners and even branded stickers that can affix a menu to a pizza box — all available at little to no charge to the operator. Ask around ... most companies are more than willing to partner with your pizzeria.

In the Italian restaurant scheme of dessert selection, cannoli is one of the big five (tiramisu, wedding cookies, gelati and sorbetti make up the rest) when it comes to basic choices.

Cannoli (the singular is cannolo) are crisp pastry tubes (or “pipes”) that are fi lled with ricotta that has been sweetened (usually with powdered sugar). That’s the simple, straightforward explanation of what cannoli are all about, but there’s a lot more to it than that, so let’s get into it.

Making cannoli in-house is easy to do, but let me qualify that –– it is easy to do provided you buy the shells and fill them to order. It is not easy to do if you want to make the shells from scratch, which is not something I would recommend. First, there is a lot of labor involved in making those shells, and then there is the vexing problem of consistency. Making the dough for the cannoli, for example, can be a problem waiting to happen. Getting those pastry tubes fried (deep fried, actually) to just the right consistency time after time can be problematic at best. There are any number of distributors and purveyors of first-rate cannoli shells that allow you to go directly to the next step –– putting in the filling –– in no time fl at. In fact, there are some purveyors who sell the whole blooming kit, which includes the shells and the ricotta filling. To keep some control over what I want my cannoli to end up being, however, I like to think that I can take a crisp cannoli shell and fill it to order. In fact, any cannoli that stands out as one of the best should be filled to order (it only takes a minute or two to do that). If the ricotta filling has been sitting in the shell for a period of time, the shell tends to get soggy. To my way of eating, the best cannoli have a crisp shell that cracks and leaves shards of pastry when pierced with the tines of a fork.

And then there are the various ways that cannoli can be “groomed” for taste and presentation. For example, once the ricotta is stuffed into the shell, you can dip both ends of the cannoli into finely ground pistachios. Or you can insert a Maraschino cherry into the ricotta at each end of the cannoli. And those basic ideas lead us into a whole new direction that really adds pleasurable pizzazz to the whole spectrum.

First, let me take you through a few of the basic steps as it pertains to the ricotta filling. The ricotta should not be watery (drain off any excess water, should there be any). This filling is the base from which you’ll work for all of your cannoli recipes.

Basic Ricotta Filling

1½ pounds ricotta cheese
1 cup confectioners’s sugar (a.k.a powdered sugar)
¼ teaspoon cinnamon
¼ (or to taste) vanilla extract

Combine all of the ingredients, whipping vigorously until smooth and creamy.

Now, should you really want to gild this lily to the point of luscious excess, simply replace the half-pound of ricotta cheese with mascarpone. Richness awaits.

The filling is now ready to be spooned into a pastry bag that has been fitted with a pastry tube that has a ½-inch opening (this is the fastest and easiest way to fill cannoli shells). You can fill the pastry bag with the ricotta filling and keep it chilled and ready to fill the shells to order.

And, should you wish to take the flavors to a whole other level, you can add any of the following to the above basic filling: mini chocolate chips, candied fruit, fruit-flavored citron, even colored sprinkles. Create your own mix-in bar for cannoli similar to the way ice cream shops do it.

To serve, lay one or two of the filled cannoli on a plate on which you have placed a paper doily. Now dust the cannoli with powdered sugar and serve.

But wait! There are other possibilities to explore. For example, you can have a lot of fun and add a whole new element to this classic dessert by serving what I like to call “cracked cannoli.” As the name implies, take a couple of those crispy cannoli shells and break them into pieces (small and large are fine). Put the pieces in a dessert serving bowl. Now take the flavored ricotta filling (whatever you choose to use, but I like to do this with the mini-chocolate chips) and drop it in dollops on top of and around the cracked cannoli piece. Using a plastic squirt bottle, drizzle some chocolate sauce over the shells and the ricotta. When I am in a particular go-for-it frame of mind I have been known to scatter finely crushed pistachios over the whole mess. It eats as good as it looks –– take my word for it. And, for a fact, I know kids love the idea of cracked cannoli.

Another interesting way to serve cannoli in a non-traditional way is this: Take an oversized parfait or martini glass. Mound the center of the glass with the sweetened/flavored ricotta. Garnish the ricotta with chocolate chips, ground pistachios, maraschino cherries –– whatever you choose to go with. Now take whole cannoli shells and slip them down the inside of the glass and into the ricotta. The idea here is that each person uses the cannoli shell as a dipper, dipping the end of the cannoli shell in the ricotta mixture, using it as, well, an ice cream cone of sorts.

Pat Bruno is Pizza Today’s resident chef and a regular contributor. He is the former owner and operator of a prominent Italian cooking school in Chicago and is a food critic for the Chicago Sun-Times.