Sourdough Pizza? Yes!

Photo courtesy of Angelo's Pizza

Danny DiGiampietro has been a bread jobber -- a route-man delivering bread from Sarcone's and other bakeries to sandwich shops and other eateries (including Tommy DiNic's) -- for years. But his true love is the baking of bread and its sidekicks. For about a year he ran a small bakery in South Philly while maintaining his route, where he also toyed a bit with pizza-making. For a variety of reasons, the bakery didn't work out, though not because of any flaws in his product. DiNic's only switched to Sarcone's after Danny's closed shop.

Late last year Danny opened a new venture across the river in Haddonfield: Angelo's Pizza, 122 N. Haddon Ave. The menu is simple: pizza, cheese steaks, chicken steaks, fries, salads and escarole soup.

She Who Must Be Obeyed and I stopped by today and were blown away by the pizza. She went for the pepperoni, I opted for sausage. Instead of using crumbled meat, Danny slices the sausage in thin lengths to adorn the pie. The pepperoni is cut in the usual rounds. He uses fresh mozzarella and/or high quality regular mozzarella, depending on the type of pie ordered. And after coming out of the oven he tops most with a little fresh grating cheese.

The crust is thin, crispy and delicate and is made from sourdough. It's what Danny's pies are all about.

I never thought of fermented dough for pizza, but it works. Indeed, sourdoughs are hardly unknown in Italian baking. Danny takes it easy on the tartness, so the sourdough doesn't call attention to itself, but when you bite into the unadorned puffy crust on the pie's margins you will detect a slight tang that complements rather than competes with toppings.

What makes it even more unique is that Danny didn't begin with a commercial sourdough starter. He set out flour mixed with water and let the local Haddonfield yeasts do their thing. Works for me.

He's selling a lot of cheese steaks, too. Danny's picky so he uses prime beef. He's also cooking long hots, which can adorn the steaks or the pizza.

You can watch a cheesy video of Danny at work here.

(Full disclosure: I got to know Danny from hanging out at the Reading Terminal Market when he was making deliveries to DiNic's and consider him a foodie friend.)

Bieler's: 40 Varieties of Doughnuts

Doughnut shop under construction

Alvin Bieler says he'll be offering 40 varieties of doughnuts when AJ's Pickle Patch reopens -- perhaps as early as next weekend -- As Bieler's Doughnuts.

By yesterday some of the equipment had been rolled in, but there are still cases to install and plenty of finishing work to accomplish.

Bieler said the variety will be achieved through a variety of toppings and fillings.

He also said he's learned some of the finer points of doughnut making recently from a master of the trade, and says his product won't quickly go stale when it's stored properly in a sealed container.

As previously reported, the stall will continue to sell prepared salads and pickles when it reopens under the new name.

Italian To Mexican

For a few decades now, some of South Philadelphia's Italian neighborhoods have been recolonized by other ethnic groups. Mexicans have staked their claim to a number of areas, as a visit to the blocks of Ninth Street south of Washington will attest.

Over at 8th and Watkins, a long-time Italian bakery is trying to span both worlds.

Las Rosas bills itself as both Mexican and Italian. I tried a sesame-seeded Italian bread (long style) and enjoyed it. The Las Rosas loaf is on the light side, more like Sarcone's than Frangelli's, with a nicely crackly crust. I also sampled one of the Mexican pastries and savored that as well: a small sweet pastry filled with guava paste.

Most recently the shop was DiGiampietro Bakery, a short-lived try by Danny DiGiampietro in the business. Danny, who still owns the building, went back to his day job of jobbing Sarcone's breads to sandwich shops like DiNic's. His bakery, in addition to making very fine hoagie and steak rolls, did a very nice pizza, too. Before Danny took over, it had been an Italian bakery under different ownership for decades.