Now you can learn how to make your own perfect, piping hot pizza at
Pizza a Casa Self-Sufficiency Center. Mark Bello, owner and preeminent pizza-maker, teaches how-to classes at his pie-making business on Grand Street.
Image appears courtesy of the Pizza a Casa Website
Students jump right in making dough, which results in 4-inch crusts. A menu is provided with a dozen pizza combinations. This is when camaraderie and creativity ignites and top-shelf choices are decided upon from the toppings bar. Think traditional, over-the-top or never considered toppings and you'll undoubtedly turn out a dough-spinning wheel like no other. There's even a topping of bananas with chocolate drizzled on top for that sweet tooth in you. There's a bit of student strategic planning; everyone wants to come up with their own unique, far-out pizza.
Bella, a native New Yorker, dabbled in pizza taste tests in Chicago, but deep dish wasn't his style. So back in NYC, he started a pizza lab. In a garden roof, Bella grew over a dozen varieties of heirloom tomatoes along with basil. He then started teaching at various locations in NYC until he opened his own Pizza a Casa.
Walk-in Pizza a Casa's entrance and peruse the pizza-making tools. Next, beeline toward the back of the store for the four-hour pizza immersion class.
Be sure to wear clothes which look good with a sprinkling of flour here and there. By the time you leave, you'll be proficient in making a pie in your home oven.
Classes are offered to individuals, couples and groups.
