Homemade pizza, sort of deep dish

I haven't felt like writing much, so I haven't been, although I've been reading a lot.

WRT this pizza, the recipe I used (different from the one I normally use, because inexplicably, I left that cookbook in DC), suggests bread flour instead of regular flour for a crisper crust.  That's what I found.  The crust was nice and crisp, even at only 425 degrees.

Note that I doubled the recipe for a sheet pan sized pizza, rather than a single round.

It took at least 5 minutes longer to cook, and I let the dough rise for a couple hours, but it worked fine.

The recipe suggested flavoring the crust.  I did so, with garlic and Trader Joe's Everything bagel spice.

But I used 2 of the 3 packets of yeast I have, and there is no yeast in stores...  And with the TJ spice, I should have cut down on the salt.

The dough did taste a bit "bready" but all along I've complained about crusts not being crisp enough.  This was a thicker crust too, which was more filling, and held up better to lots of toppings.

Sourdough starter.  Because sourdough starter has its own yeast, there is a lot of writing on the Internet about using sourdough to be able to bake, given that stores are definitely out of yeast, while here and there, some are able to stock limited amounts of flour and sugar, which was cleaned out originally (as are still, rice and beans, and mostly tuna fish, at least in our local stores).

There are recipes I want to try, such as these from the Washington  Post, "So long, Thomas’s: These no-knead English muffins are the ones to beat" and "No-Knead Whole-Wheat Bread" but I don't have enough yeast.

Craig LaBan's sourdough boule.

There is a cool article ("Finding sourdough magic at home with help from Lost Bread’s Alex Bois") by Craig LaBan, long time food writer for the Philadelphia Inquirer, about how local bakeries in Philadelphia are usually willing to give sourdough starter to people who ask.  From the article:

My initial attempt to mix flour and water to grow starter in a linen-covered plastic tub on my counter still looks like a take-out container of sludge with no sign of life.

Enter Alex Bois, and the gift of starter.

Bois, who first rose to prominence baking spiral-scored anadamas and roasted potato loaves at High Street on Market, has his own operation now, the Lost Bread Co. And not only is it still turning out exceptional loaves of thick-crusted whole grain breads (many Philly bakers, in fact, now have loaves back in circulation), Lost Bread is selling flour on weekends at its Fishtown storefront it mills from Pennsylvania grain — and is also giving away ready-to-use starter. ...

Bois isn’t alone. Other local sourdough specialists, Chris Di Piazza of Mighty Bread Co. in South Philly and Michael Dolich of Four Worlds Bakery in West Philly, are also willing to share their starters, which can be used and perpetuated.

I think that's pretty cool.  I am also wondering if some bakeries might be willing to sell yeast?  (In my area, at least one resident is offering up starter to her neighbors.  I haven't taken her up on it.

Food culture, civic agriculture, and local food systems.  This is what I am reading and thinking about, in writing a planning document for the 21st century public market, based on asking a couple questions around:

"What does a public market look like in the 21st century when most people's food needs can be well met by traditional supermarket options?"

Civic agriculture is a book on local food systems as a way to re-engage people and build civic participation around food.

An op-ed ("Coronavirus food shopping: It's time rethink how you buy") by a Penn State graduate student, Zachary Goldberg, also in the Inquirer, suggests that the pandemic's shelter in place response and the forced take up of cooking ("Before the coronavirus epidemic, they didn’t know how to cook. Now they are scrambling to learn," Washington Post) by many can lead to a rethinking of and reconnection to a more locally based food system.