Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, Part 1: Fanfare for the Pizza Man

LTHF,

The current pizza talk on the board (well, when isn't there pizza talk around here, really?) what with everyone seeming to make home-made pies of late and my mention of the fabulous Pizza: The Movie documentary (coming soon to a brick oven near you) inspired me to begin the first part in a series of posts about Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, specifically, the area directly around my grandmother's old apartment. As I already mentioned, I spent 4 weeks in December staying at my (deceased) grandmother's apartment in an attempt to clean out, donate, sell, and otherwise consolidate the massive amount of possessions that were collected in the place over 47 some-odd years of residence by various family members. A daunting task, to be sure, and one for which I was not completely prepared; even with finally resorting to a free-for-all Saturday afternoon in which people were invited to come and take what they wanted, I only managed to get about three-fourths of the items removed. Simply too much for one man to accomplish in barely a month's time. Regardless, I think I did as well as I could, and the buyer was suitably impressed (he decided to go ahead and sign the contract, and I'm glad I got a chance to meet the man who will be occupying such a spiritually and emotionally important piece of real estate). One of the true joys and upsides of the whole experience, though, was a chance to re-connect with and really get to know the proprietors of some of the local restaurants, many of which are neighborhood standbys which have not changed a bit in the last 25 years.
Though Avenue U, a 5 minute walk northward on Ocean Avenue from the apartment, is the hub of commerce, dining, and transportation in the neighborhood, a few random businesses still hold court and manage to eke out an existence on the mostly residential and less-traveled side streets and Ocean Avenue itself. For the most part they are specialized, small, family affairs: a dental office with one employee acting as hygienist and receptionist; a law office that handles 99% visa and immigration paperwork (a boon to the many, many Russian, and, increasingly, Turkish emigres who are now populating this slice of South Brooklyn); a lamp store; a barbershop (which was Mario and Enzo when I used to get my hair cut there as a young lad, and is now Marek and Yevgeni, but a barbershop nonetheless); and a Halal meat market and grocery (where I would get my quick-fix, ridiculously cheap lunch sometimes of a Kofte Kebab sandwich - expertly prepared, charcoal-grilled lamb patties on bakery fresh pide, with fresh pickles and salad, hot sauce, and yogurt - and an Uludag orange soda (think a cross between Fanta and Aranciata, more tart than sweet) for $2.50, total). These businesses, with a marked lack of subway or foot traffic (Ocean Ave is a major car/bus/fire truck route) and little to no tourist/advertising attraction, survive because they fill a specific niche for the people in the immediate neighborhood. Because of this, and because of the intense competition they face from the busier, more streamlined businesses just up the street, these shops tend to be more cozy, friendly, and a bit cheaper as well. Word of mouth and repeat business are keys to their success, and if quality slips or they can't stay open as late or as often as the other guy, these businesses will not last. Brooklynites, though, are fiercely loyal to their neighborhoods, even going down to a block-to-block level, sometimes, and years of earning the customers' respect and patronage, even given the radical changes in demographics over the years (from Jewish/Italian baby boomers in the 1940's-60's, then a twilight zone for half a generation as the old timers either died off or retired to Florida and the kids grew up, married, and moved to Westchester or Long Island, to the Russian/Eastern European led renaissance beginning in the early 90's and thriving to become the majority today) has allowed such truly mom-and pop (or sometimes mom OR pop) shops and restaurants to keep going.
Half a block south on Ocean Avenue (away from Avenue U), at the corner of Ocean and Avenue W, is the pizza place where, for as long as I can remember, my family and I have eaten. It was, perhaps, only about 15 years ago that the place was finally able to get a proper sign; for years, a ramshackle marquee with the words "Pizza Shop" was the only indicator of what went on in this narrow sliver of a storefront on the corner. This establishment has been serving pizza since at least the late 50's, though probably a little longer. The current owner/operator/pizzaiolo/phone order taker, Joe Donati, couldn't tell me exactly. Joe is 45 and has been working here since he was 17. He took over for Frank, the original owner, when he retired in 1989, and, apparently, re-christened (or just christened) the place as J&L Pizza (for Joe and Louise, his wife) shortly thereafter. The shop is modest and bare - perhaps 6 tables with molded plastic bench seats, a small counter to one side where one can set his/her order down and adorn it with oregano, garlic powder, hot pepper flakes, salt, pepper, or grated cheese (the standard NYC pizza place accoutrements), a pay phone, and maybe the odd copy of the Daily News or NY Post lying around (side note - the New York Post, as yellow and rabidly conservative a tabloid as they come, but consistently entertaining, won my prize for funniest headline of the year. Appropriately enough, being a Jew in a pizza shop, the issue of the Post I espied one afternoon at J&L had a front page story expose of a particularly nasty offshoot of the Russian/Israeli Mafia and their dealings in slave trade, prostitution, extortion, and smuggling. Their succinct, pithy headline about such Jewish mafia dealings, screaming out in 48 point boldface? "KOSHER NOSTRA !!" Hilarious and priceless, if tasteless.) The decorations at J&L consist of a couple of motel-quality still life prints and a framed map of Italy. It goes without saying that ambience is hardly the selling point of this pizzeria.
And, really, it shouldn't be.
Even with probably 99% of J&L's customers being local, repeat business, they do a brisk delivery trade. Joe explained to me that a lot of his long time customers have gotten old along with the neighborhood, and simply cannot get out of the house and walk the 5 or 10 blocks, especially in the bitter cold, to come pick up an order or even stop and rest and eat it inside the shop. As such, he has had to hire a couple of delivery guys who also pitch in and take orders, clean up, take out the garbage, and so on, when the pizzeria gets slammed with orders, usually weekend evenings and during any big televised sporting event. The pizza-making, though, in fact, all of the cooking, is done by the boss (Joe has expanded the menu a bit and now has a modest selection of sandwiches and heros, and a few pasta dishes. I didn't try the pasta (though it looked and smelled good) but his chicken and eggplant heros are very, very good - generously portioned, covered in a nice bright marinara (which is cooked separately from and in a different manner than the tomatoes for the pizza) and a blend of mozzarella and romano, served on a nice crusty roll and then finished in the oven - they are delicious and a steal at $4. In addition, Joe (like many other pizzerias in Brooklyn) offers beef patties (as a concession to the Jamaican contingent - all 3 of them ??) Calzones, zeppoli, the sweet Italian/American fritters, and garlic knots (pizza dough formed into twisted, ball shaped mounds, baked, and covered in garlic butter). Fountain sodas and a cooler filled with bottled drinks (including Snapple, Limonata and Aranciata, and everyone's favorite coffee soda, Manhattan Special) complete the modest offerings. Somehow, Joe manages to make it all work, adroitly and graciously handling several phone orders, walk-in customers, and special orders (a child's birthday party, for example) frequently all at once, with the expert, efficient moves of an experienced, skilled craftsman. The neighborhood pizzeria may be a dying breed, but it is alive and well in Brooklyn. Joe has kept his prices as low as he can without sacrificing quality, and, really, it is his committment to his business and his customers - he is there 12 hours a day, six days a week - that has kept the place going. He is a modest man, a family man of few words, but always friendly and accomodating (even learning a little basic Russian as an olive branch to his customers) even while intensely focussed on every aspect of his business. To put it bluntly, he is, whether he realizes it or not, a modern day hero.
Even with the slightly expanded menu of sandwiches, snacks, and pasta (which, Joe admits, makes up a more than substantial part of his profit) this is J&L Pizza, and the focus lies squarely herein. This is classic Neo-Neapolitan, New Yorkese pizza: breadlike, thin, crispy crust, a thin, bright-tasting and subtly chunky tomato sauce (consisting of just canned whole tomatoes crushed by hand with oregano, very little garlic, a touch of olive oil, and some salt and pepper. The mixture goes on the dough "raw" (canned tomatoes are already partially cooked) and blends and finishes as it cooks with the pizza) and a healthy but not overwhelming topping of roughly sliced, full-fat mozzarella. The result is a slice of pizza with a nice puffy edge (or cornicione) and a browned/blackened bottom that snaps when you bite into it and folds in half nicely. It's not Totonno's or Patsy's or Di Fara's (being cooked in a gas oven - albeit a Blodgett with a stone floor that cranks the heat a little hotter than a Baker's Pride, probably pretty close to the 800 degrees generated by the classic coal ovens, and also lacking the delicate and extremely high quality ingredients used by Mr. DeMarco at Di Fara's) but it's an honest product, made consistently and with great care and skill, and, really, quite delicious. "And let me be even more frank! She was the greatest piece of ass I ever had, and I had em all over the world !!" Uh, no, sorry... Godfather flashback... ahem... this is the pizza that I would have done very, very bad things in order to acquire while I was living in Chicago, that is a taste of my youth, of New York, of pizza made the way it should be and at proletarian prices. Joe's Sicilian pie might just trump his Neapolitan, too. It's got all the qualities I associate with your archetypal NYC Sicilian pizza - a very crunchy, dark bottom crust, redolent of olive oil; a "silky" top crust, resulting from the sauce and cheese layers on top; and the aforementioned bright, tasty sauce and chewy, creamy mozzarella. It has to be all of these elements in combination, in one bite, even, which make me such a fan of good Sicilian pizza. The crust retains more structure and texture while simultaneously absorbing the flavors of the oil from the pan in which the dough rests and proofs, creating, finally, an explosion of crispy/chewy/bready/cheesy/tomato that is just terrific. (Alas, as you can tell by now, no pictures... HOWEVER, if you care to do so, you may find Antonius's post under the topic heading "Really Cool Xmas Gifts Received" in Shopping and Cooking, and see his pictures of J&L's Sicilian pizza, which I, er... Hannukah Harry, I mean, delivered to him and Amata and Lucantonio a few weeks ago. Note the blackened edges and the patches of tomato poking out from under the cheese. It is a fine example of the whole being larger than the sum of its parts. And that's a pie about 16 hours old after being re-heated... still great, but, man, fresh outta the oven, served up on wax paper on a mini pizza pan with a grape soda.... you can take Thomas Keller, per se, a priori, a posteriori, and his butterbean chantrelle mousse with fennel glaze and.. well, I'm sure that's good too, but.... J&L's 9 course degustation just wasn't available that day, sorry.)
Over the weeks I spent in Brooklyn, J&L Pizza became my default lunch and I was grateful to be able to befriend Joe Donati and talk about pizza (he had heard of Di Fara's but had never been - I heartily recommended it to him along with some other places, and he told me about a few gems to try my next time in NYC, perhaps), marriage, the neighborhood, and so on. My grandmother used to get pizza delivered, from time to time, for her Tuesday canasta games, and when I told him the address and apartment, one of the delivery kids perked up from the back -"6C? That was your grandmother? Oh, yeah, sure... really nice woman, of course I remember." Joe was genuinely saddened to hear of her passing and offered me his concern and consolation regarding the job I had undertaken. I kept telling him to just keep making pizza the way he does, and that would be all the consolation I needed. I asked him if either he or his wife collected china or glassware, and he told me that yes, in fact, his wife collects decorative glass. I found a beauiful piece of red depression glass, brought it to him, and he told me it was the first time that a customer had even thought to do such a thing. I soon started getting the occasional beef patty to try or extra slice here and there on the arm, as it were, and every time I would pay for my meal, the price would be just a round, low number - "ahh, buddy, just gimme three bucks." I wasn't looking for such attention, but Joe's business mind is no match for his sense of loyalty and service. He's not in this game for the money (obviously) and his joy comes from seeing people getting pleasure and nourishment from his labors. Like I said, the guy's a hero. For about a week, which covered the days directly preceding and following Christmas, I dug in deep up in the apartment, and worked pretty much non-stop in a frantic attempt to get as much of the stuff cleaned out as possible in a short time. As such, I took my meals in the apartment, usually very modest affairs thrown together from what was left of my few grocery shopping trips earlier that month. The night before I was set to leave NYC, I had an intense craving for Joe's Sicilian pizza and wanted to see him one more time before I left and thank him for feeding me and maybe just try to get across just how special and important his work and business are to the neighborhood and, even, how unique and important his craft as neighborhood pizzaiolo is in these ever-increasingly corporate, banal times we live in (concepts probably foreign to him - did I mention he's modest?). I make my way over to the pizzeria, and tell Joe that I need to get all of his Sicilian slices on the board to bring to Chicago and to have one for my flight the next day as well. Joe tells me it is just as easy to make a fresh pie, and cheaper, too, so that's what he starts to do. I mention to him that I've been busy, swamped, in fact, with the apartment clean-out and wasn't able to come by and see him for the last week or 10 days. Joe gives me a wry smile and tells me that he wouldn't have noticed, as the place was closed up. "Right," I say, "I saw you were closed up for the holidays. Took a little break, huh? Man, you needed it."
Joe smiles again and answers me - "Well, sort of. I had a heart attack."
My jaw drops, and I find myself actually covering my mouth with my hands. Yes, unbelievably, Joe (who, at 45, is without doubt a hard worker, but quite fit and trim, a non-smoker, and with no history of heart disease) was at home on Christmas Eve with Louise and the kids, felt a sharp pain in his arm and chest, and told me that if there had been a delay of five minutes, he'd be dead. Luckily, the EMT's and surgeon were all top-notch and fast to respond. They opened him up, cleared the blockage, and put a stent in faster than you can say "pepperoni." And, not 5 days after this, there was Joe, back at work. I asked him, once I got my power of speech back, why he wasn't in his pajamas with a glass of red wine (thins the blood, you know) cuddled with his wife watching the Tonight Show. He told me, "I couldn't keep the business closed this long. People are relying on me, you know." And there it is. Devotion and dedication, doing one thing and doing it very well, is inclusive of the right kind of attitude - you don't shout from the rooftops what a bad-ass you are, you just do it. Show me, don't tell me. Joe did allow one thing, though: "people came in the last couple of days, worried, concerned about me, praying for me, telling me they wouldn't know what they would do if I got sick or died. I know they were talking about my health, but I realized just how many people depend on my food, too." Tears starting to well up in my eyes at this point, I broke the news to him - "Joe, you've been feeding these people, keeping them alive, for years. Me too, you know - my grandmother and my family have eaten your food I don't know how many times. If you didn't care about what you cook, you wouldn't do it, right? And they wouldn't come back to eat what you make for them. You have no idea how important you are to these people. You're like a hero in this neighborhood." Joe waved off this last comment with his right hand, as is his nature, but then looked at me deeply as I think part of what I'd been trying to tell him finally might have registered. We each took a moment, and then he asked me, "well, lemme get that square pie going for you." I asked him if I could sort of customize it to my particular taste, and he seemed interested and pleased by this, probably because nobody else takes too much interest in the actual process. So, a little extra sauce here, some more olive oil and oregano there, and I told him don't be shy about making it a little well done. Even if it were to taste like crap, it would have been the best pizza ever (sentimental value alone). But, of course, it didn't. Nothing Joe makes tastes like crap, and, in fact, everything he makes tastes wonderful. The pizza was done about 20 minutes later, and he hands me the box, a bag with some beef patties and garlic knots, and another bag with a few Snapples in it. 25 dollars worth of stuff becomes "just gimme 10 bucks, buddy." I hand him the money, tell him to watch the diet, lay off the salsicce, have a glass of wine every night, and just keep being Joe Donati the pizza man. We shake hands, give a quick hug, and promise to see each other... well, whenever. I take one last long breath in J&L, savoring the heady, humid, garlic and oregano infused air and go off into the night.
*****************
The next morning, I'm at LaGuardia, crammed into ATA's end of the terminal with about 200 other people, all of whom are tired of standing, waiting, and being herded along and then back out of the gate (there was a 45 minute mechanical delay). Me, I like to think I'm a smart traveler - I have my big bag checked (don't you hate the people who get onto planes, small trunks in tow, wondering why their luggage won't fit in the overhead as they smash through the bulkhead trying to squeeze it in? JUST CHECK YOUR GODDAMN BAG ALREADY YOU PARANOID BASTARDS!!!) Whew, sorry, didn't mean to take that out on LTH, but, Christ, enough already with this bullshit.) and the only items with me are my MP3 player, a paper, and a bag full of pizza (got some funny looks running that through the luggage scanning belt). I hear overhead - "ATA flight **** will begin boarding in about 45 minutes, we apologize for the delay, Ladies and Gentlemen." A collective, New York accented groan goes up from the crowd, peppered with various epithets and words which someone like me would never say in public (much less on an internet food board). I just smile, put on Miles Davis's "Jeru", (God, I love those MP3 players. As the one I have is not made by Apple, and was bought on 47th Street in Manhattan, I refer to it as my "Chai"pod.), turn to the sports pages, and unwrap and retrieve one of the slices of "square" made for me not 12 hours earlier. It is room temperature by this point, much of the crispness gone, but still retaining the true, clean tastes of the quality ingredients used by Joe. I start munching away, and I notice ever more pairs of eyes greedily and lustily looking at me. I just laugh and smile at them, knowing full well that they sure wish they had decided to carry on some pizza instead of the entire contents of their apartment packed into a chest of drawers with wheels on it. I look at the time, and I realize that Joe Donati is probably just getting in to the pizzeria about now, turning on the ovens, prepping the stations, and checking the receipts and books from the previous night. The same routine he's had for years. I'm hoping that his health doesn't affect his outlook too much - he needs to slow down a bit, for sure, but he can't let it get to him or let it get him down. I realize that this will never happen - if he knows how to do something, it is pizza. He will be there every day (except Mondays, of course - hey, even God rested one day out of seven) to feed people, practice his well-honed craft, and provide for those he loves. Stent in his heart or not, he is Joe Donati, pizzaiolo - an honorable, important function in a community that, whether it knows it or not, respects and loves him and which, in turn, is respected and loved by Joe Donati. Save for our one moment of clarity, where I finally impressed upon him how good his food is and how much a part of the fabric of the community it is, he will just quietly, modestly, and patiently go about his work, probably barely ever receiving a word of thanks or compliment for his efforts. Regardless, he'll keep making pizza the best he can, and I know that it will always be as good as it's ever been. And Joe Donati will neither expect nor miss any adulation or fanfare or gushing compliments about his food or his work. He has never needed it before (though he has known all of this, subconsciously, anyway) and will not need it in the future. Real heroes rarely do.

J&L Pizza
2729 Ocean Avenue (at Avenue W)
Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, NY

Ciao Rebbuccio:

Rebbuccio wrote:HOWEVER, if you care to do so, you may find Antonius's post under the topic heading "Really Cool Xmas Gifts Received" in Shopping and Cooking, and see his pictures of J&L's Sicilian pizza, which I, er... Hannukah Harry, I mean, delivered to him and Amata and Lucantonio a few weeks ago. Note the blackened edges and the patches of tomato poking out from under the cheese. It is a fine example of the whole being larger than the sum of its parts.

Ecco la pizza:





Wirklich ausgezeichnet. Ich kann mir nur vorstellen, wie sie wäre, frisch aus dem Backofen. Mille grazie, otra vez, mijn vriend.

à bientôt,
A

A post worthy of the food. Food worthy of the post.

I guess its too late to get myself on Hannukah Harry's mailing list?

I'm faklempt.