Outer Banks
Best smoker
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I’ll take that bet If you want to argue. 
A commercial pizza oven is 7-800 deg F. Wood fired oven is hotter. Around 850-900. No consumer kitchen oven does that or can maintain a consistent temperature like a commercial or wood fired brick oven. Hotter makes all the difference in the world. Wood fired is best. You get the smoke flavor from the wood. How do I know this? Family on my father’s side was in the biz, owned a few shops. Also going back a few years the company my grandfather co-founded was one of the major suppliers of cheese and pizza crusts to restaurants in WI, IL, IN, IA. Many might be surprised how many pizza parlors don’t make their own crust. Even the mom and pop places.
A commercial pizza oven is 7-800 deg F. Wood fired oven is hotter. Around 850-900. No consumer kitchen oven does that or can maintain a consistent temperature like a commercial or wood fired brick oven. Hotter makes all the difference in the world. Wood fired is best. You get the smoke flavor from the wood. How do I know this? Family on my father’s side was in the biz, owned a few shops. Also going back a few years the company my grandfather co-founded was one of the major suppliers of cheese and pizza crusts to restaurants in WI, IL, IN, IA. Many might be surprised how many pizza parlors don’t make their own crust. Even the mom and pop places.
If that was in California, I believe you. Because no one west of the Mississippi knows what good pizza tastes like.You would lose that bet.
I owned an independent pizza restaurant when I was in my early 30s.
It's the Indian, not the arrow, as long as you use quality ingredients.
I still make my own pizza dough, though we don't eat as much bread as we used to.
Having lived on the left coast for 20 years I can testify to that. The chain California Pizza Kitchen is an exercise in contradiction.
I think I mentioned that I once killed a man for putting pineapple and Spam slices on what he called Hawaiian pizza. I didn't want to do it but it had to be done.
Then there's that drek hippie west-coasters call "white pizza". Goat cheese, arugula and broccoli on a large pita is not pizza. Maybe that tastes OK, but it's weird granola-head nonsense. It's a salad on bread. Not pizza.
I like Indian food. You don't see Indian restaurants slapping whatever shit they have in the kitchen on naan and calling it pizza.
Since I'm on a pizza roll (which is also not pizza)... Does anyone know who eats Chicago deep dish pizza? Answer : Tourists and visiting business people who think it's a tradition. It's not Italian or even Italian-American. It's marketing bullshit two enterprising restauranteurs dreamed up in the 70's. Locals don't eat deep dish pizza. Never did.
Finally, when food giant Stouffers claims there really is a good frozen pizza, they are lying.
I cant deny that looks good Chuck, but you are lone wolf among Chicagoans. Or former Chicagoans. Few eat it and even fewer make it. When you think about it, “pan” or deep dish pizza is basically like a giant calzone with the top down. Ike Sewell and Ric Riccardo invented it. As I’m sure you know it caught fire popularity-wise in the 70’s. Nobody in Napoli knows WTF deep dish or pan pizza is.
Since we are talking about food made in cast iron:
Also in the “few people eat this (in the US) and even fewer make it” is paella. The first time I had it was in a Bedouin camp in the Arabian Desert. I was invited to help make it in a giant wok-like pan over a campfire. It was so good and I ate so much that I laid down on a rug as is the custom and fell asleep immediately. I woke up early the next morning and a camel was sleeping next to me. The rest of the day she followed me everywhere.
I make paella fairly often. The Arab version of it is different from the traditional Spanish or Portuguese variant, but all are very good. Mostly a seafood thing as far as the protein but I have now and then added some chorizo, which changes the character of the dish. I like making it where I live now because I have fresh fish and shellfish available that was swimming hours, not days ago. The rice and the sauce makes or breaks it. I hunt online to get all the right ingredients.
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