I'm with Cathy2 on this one. I pay for a pizza precisely so I don't have to make it at home. Instead, I rely on somebody with (hopefully) more skill and experience in pizza-making and a really expensive oven better suited to the task. Although, in the distant past I picked up half-baked (more like 2/3 baked) pizzas from Pequod's for a party and finished them in the oven prior to serving (luckily my oven gets really hot). The edges were pre-caramelized, and the crust was pre-browned on the bottom. They came out pretty well. Not the same as eating them straight out of the pizza oven, but better than driving them from Morton Grove and letting them sit.

Mike G wrote:

A great many foods are "easy" to make but not everyone has the desire or time to do so.

If you don't have the desire or time, you order delivery.

Homemade seems to be targeting a niche that does have the desire, but doesn't have the will to make it happen. Which I, like Hammy, find a bit sad. The time difference between swinging by Homemade and making your own pizza on store-bought dough or crust is really not significant.

I admit I'd feel different about these issues if they made a really terrific product, though, instead of a rather bland one.

I agree with you about not having the will to make it happen. If it's a Wednesday night and I'm not getting home from work until 9 or 10pm I most surely don't have the will. Maybe you just have more energy than I, and no doubt more sophisticated taste buds, but please don't be sad about it. Making someone sad was most certainly not my intention when I posted that I sometimes like to get a Miesian pizza.

Mike G wrote:

It's no different than stopping at a salad bar in the grocery store.

Exactly.

I buy boxes of lettuce, I buy olive oils and different kinds of vinegars, I spend a couple of hours a couple of times a year pickling beets, I pick up this or that now and then, and I have the makings of terrific salads with, I'm convinced, less time spent than time in a grocery store assembling to-go salads every time I want one salad.

Last minute visit by relatives who brought dinner to our house was a bit of culture shock for us. They called from the store to advise they were bringing a large tub of lettuce, did we have salad dressing. I made a vinaigrette suitable for the quantity they advised. The salad had leaf lettuce, artichoke hearts, hearts of palm, fresh peas and olives. Dressed in my vinaigrette it was a fine salad.

When I tidied up later, I found a receipt for the salad bar was just over $20. Never buying from salad bars, I was floored it cost $6.99 per pound. I already had lettuce in the refrigerator to make as large a salad for less than $5. plus marinated artichokes and hearts of palm on the shelf.

I am certainly not Homemade Pizza's target audience. If I want to make it at home, I will. If I want to have someone do it for me, I will. This in between scenario does nothing for me.

Regards,

Cathy2 wrote:I am certainly not Homemade Pizza's target audience. If I want to make it at home, I will. If I want to have someone do it for me, I will. This in between scenario does nothing for me.

very well put, thats how I feel as well.

Cathy2 wrote:

Mike G wrote:

It's no different than stopping at a salad bar in the grocery store.

Exactly.

I buy boxes of lettuce, I buy olive oils and different kinds of vinegars, I spend a couple of hours a couple of times a year pickling beets, I pick up this or that now and then, and I have the makings of terrific salads with, I'm convinced, less time spent than time in a grocery store assembling to-go salads every time I want one salad.

Last minute visit by relatives who brought dinner to our house was a bit of culture shock for us. They called from the store to advise they were bringing a large tub of lettuce, did we have salad dressing. I made a vinaigrette suitable for the quantity they advised. The salad had leaf lettuce, artichoke hearts, hearts of palm, fresh peas and olives. Dressed in my vinaigrette it was a fine salad.

When I tidied up later, I found a receipt for the salad bar was just over $20. Never buying from salad bars, I was floored it cost $6.99 per pound. I already had lettuce in the refrigerator to make as large a salad for less than $5. plus marinated artichokes and hearts of palm on the shelf.

I am certainly not Homemade Pizza's target audience. If I want to make it at home, I will. If I want to have someone do it for me, I will. This in between scenario does nothing for me.

Regards,

My point is that there is obviously a target audience for grocery store salad bars and Homemade pizza. Not every person's lifestyle allows for unlimited flexibility.

I've made far more salads at home than I've purchased from salad bars, but I also buy bags or tubs of spring mix knowing that I, or my kids, may just want a one-off salad without fuss. There are situations where one is more convenient than the other. I'm not puzzled that places like Homemade exist -- they appeal to people. Certainly not everyone, but apparently enough to keep them afloat and expanding.

certainly everyone responsible for the soon-to-be 3 pages in this thread ought to have plenty of time to make a home-cooked meal

My point is that there is obviously a target audience for grocery store salad bars and Homemade pizza. Not every person's lifestyle allows for unlimited flexibility.

My point is there's a point at which your lifestyle demands a cost/benefit analysis... lot of people working to earn their nanny's salary instead of spending time with their kids, that kind of thing.

I buy tubs of spring mix lettuce too. I just don't pay sirloin prices for it.

Or what you're getting out of it: I used to buy produce at the salad bar for cooking when I lived alone, because I could buy exactly what I was going to eat and not losing 3/4 of it to spoilage. Considering that, it wound up costing less - even at the inflated per-pound price.

Mike G wrote:

My point is that there is obviously a target audience for grocery store salad bars and Homemade pizza. Not every person's lifestyle allows for unlimited flexibility.

My point is there's a point at which your lifestyle demands a cost/benefit analysis... lot of people working to earn their nanny's salary instead of spending time with their kids, that kind of thing.

I buy tubs of spring mix lettuce too. I just don't pay sirloin prices for it.

Wow! That's a lot to assume when you don't even know someone...nanny, don't spend enough time with the kids, what's that all about???

Try reading my previous post in the thread, perhaps?

I make no assumptions about any individual. But I reject the notion that people are forced into eating this stuff. You are only forced into it if you assume you are forced into your lifestyle. But there are many two-career couples, for instance, where the second member works to pay for all the things that make it possible for the two of them to work— two cars, a nanny, overpriced convenience foods, pharmaceuticals and therapy for stress, expensive vacations to escape one's job, the additional and higher-bracket taxes you suddenly have to pay, etc. If that's the life you choose, it's your life, but the verb there was "choose," not "forced." Downshift one of those careers and suddenly you may find you spend startlingly less on the things that made your previous hectic lifestyle possible, and other possibilities-- such as having the time to make a salad yourself-- begin to open up.

I make no judgement on anyone who chooses, or does not choose, to do or not do any of this. But I judge the society that doesn't regard it as possible.

I realize this starts to go far afield of the discussion here, but for me it flows inescapably from the marketing logic behind a product such as "Homemade" Pizza.

Mike G wrote:Try reading my previous post in the thread, perhaps?

I make no assumptions about any individual. But I reject the notion that people are forced into eating this stuff. You are only forced into it if you assume you are forced into your lifestyle. But there are many two-career couples, for instance, where the second member works to pay for all the things that make it possible for the two of them to work— two cars, a nanny, overpriced convenience foods, pharmaceuticals and therapy for stress, expensive vacations to escape one's job, the additional and higher-bracket taxes you suddenly have to pay, etc. If that's the life you choose, it's your life, but the verb there was "choose," not "forced." Downshift one of those careers and suddenly you may find you spend startlingly less on the things that made your previous hectic lifestyle possible, and other possibilities-- such as having the time to make a salad yourself-- begin to open up.

I make no judgement on anyone who chooses, or does not choose, to do or not do any of this. But I judge the society that doesn't regard it as possible.

I realize this starts to go far afield of the discussion here, but for me it flows inescapably from the marketing logic behind a product such as "Homemade" Pizza.

Ok, ok, enough..I'll go back to just reading comments on the board instead of commenting. Geez, all I did was pick up a friggin pizza on the way home from work and say that I liked it. Talk about taking the fun out of something.

My apologies for answering your question sincerely, I guess.

We all use shortcuts here and there— I mentioned both premade dough and Costco pizza above, which hardly makes me out to be Alice Waters— but this is a case where I tried the product once and have to agree with Hammond, just not worth the money and the illusion of home cooking is a fraud.

Homemade Pizza opened a store in Homewood, right next to Pop's. I have to say in all the times I was in that strip mall, I never, ever saw anyone go into the Homemade Pizza store. I just noticed last week that they were closed. With all the pizza joints in Homewood, I can't say I was surprised.

Suzy

sdritz wrote:Homemade Pizza opened a store in Homewood, right next to Pop's. I have to say in all the times I was in that strip mall, I never, ever saw anyone go into the Homemade Pizza store. I just noticed last week that they were closed. With all the pizza joints in Homewood, I can't say I was surprised.

Suzy

I think Homemade Pizza makes a mark in some areas rather than others. I am dubious about its longevity in Oak Park.

I was talking to Burt last night, and I asked him what he thought of Homemade Pizza and he said, not at all surprisingly, "I'm not familiar with it." It'd be hard to find two more antithetical pies than his and HP's.

Standing next to Burt was a neighborhood guy who'd been eating at Burts for, what, 18 years of so, and he said he tried HP once. "Never again," he added between puffs on his smoke.

Mr. Barolo, I completely agree with you on all points. There is a certain niche market for Homemade pizza. I thought it was quite good when I tried it. I was surprised what came out of my oven and didn't think it would be as good as it turned out. I have not had the cookies but I hear they are quite good too. Probably a better product than slice and bake. Most nights I barely have enough energy to open my mouth and put food in it. Its laffable that I would swing by the grocery store buy dough and toppings and put this together to eat. I'm lucky I can put food in my mouth from the plate as I work from seven am to seven fifteen pm. Yes homemade pizza is not for everyone. To each their own. But there is nothing sad about it.

toria wrote:Most nights I barely have enough energy to open my mouth and put food in it. Its laffable that I would swing by the grocery store buy dough and toppings and put this together to eat. I'm lucky I can put food in my mouth from the plate as I work from seven am to seven fifteen pm. Yes homemade pizza is not for everyone. To each their own. But there is nothing sad about it.

"To each their own" is definitely the best way to sum this up.

But just out of curiosity, have you considered keeping a stash of a few Boboli-type crusts and a few jars of good sauce in your cabinet, some roma tomatoes in your fruit bowl, and some nice toppings (fresh mozz, some pre-sliced salami, a block of nice parmesan, a pack of basil, a pack of pre-sliced mushrooms, a few bell peppers & onions that you chopped up in advance, maybe on Sunday night before going to bed) in your fridge?

Then you can come home from work, throw a pizza together in less time than it takes to preheat the oven, pop it in, and by the time you're done going through the mail & seeing if the TiVo recorded anything good, your pizza is done, and it only cost you like $8 instead of $23.

The soul-sucking job definitely makes cooking up a fresh dinner a challenge, as my wife & I know all to well...we've been trying to get ourselves into the habit of going to the grocery store on Sundays with an outline of what we plan to eat during the week, and how we can make preparing that meal as easy as possible so, come Wednesday, we don't say "screw it" and drop $40 on Thai take-out instead

And for Pete's sake all you naysayers, "Homemade" is a trade name. Nobody who buys it is misled into believing they're preparing something from scratch.

Sure, that's why nobody buys Sandra Lee books either.

I've got a great idea: a store that sells powdered cheese and macaroni, which you then assemble and cook at home! Ta-dah! Homemade mac n cheese.

I must admit, I was curious about this place when it opened, but its location in Oak Park kept me from going there, not least because it's across the street from Whole Foods, which has a pretty good pizza deal every Wednesday for a solid thin-crust pie. But even though a couple of friends have since recommended it, I just can't do it. The price is relatively high, and if I'm going to pick up pizza, why wouldn't I pick up a pizza that was already, you know, cooked? Plus, really, making a pie at home (which is what we usually do ) is super easy. Dough freezes well, cheese keeps, the whole process takes 15 minutes. How much time am I really saving by picking up a pre-assembled pie? And if time is truly of the essence, again, why not a pre-assembled and actually cooked pie? Wouldn't that shave off even more time?

I've done boboli zillions of times. I agree. In my opinion, Homemade pizza is better than the boboli crust...you are aware you are eating boboli. Its tons cheaper, agreed. I am not a regular patron of Homemade pizza mostly because of price and its somewhat a distance from my home. But it is not bad pizza. You can trash a concept. You can trash price. But if you have not tried something don't criticize it as "bad pizza". Its not Pequods, nor Burts or any of the so called penultimate pizzas. But it is quite good and uses high quality ingredients coming at a premium price. Me, I love pizza -- never met a pizza I didn't like. Pequod, Burt, Homemade, Spaca Napoli, bring it all on.....thick, thin, Chicago style thin crust, etc etc. Yikes I need to go on a diet!! (hold the anchovies)

Ditto. (Except I have met the occasional pizza I didn't like. That place on Broadway just south of Wellington that keeps slices under a 40W bulb, for one. Oh, and I'll gladly take all those anchovies you're not going to use.)

David Hammond wrote:I am dubious about its longevity in Oak Park.

Unfortunately it is one of the better pizzas available in Oak Park, cooked or raw.

I'd just like to add that Papa Murphys is garbage - even worse than Homemade Pizza Co.

Same concept, inferior products. No idea what the draw is to take and bake pizza.

I think Homemade Pizza makes a mark in some areas rather than others. I am dubious about its longevity in Oak Park.

Evanston has roughly the same demographic profile as Oak Park. It enthusiastically supports two of these places.

I've never been, myself....just sayin'. I would think it *has* to be better than eating some Boboli concoction, though. Blech!

sundevilpeg wrote:I've never been, myself....just sayin'. I would think it *has* to be better than eating some Boboli concoction, though. Blech!

Depends on what you're putting on top of said Boboli. Something that I've seasoned & put together to my own specifications, using sauce & toppings that I like in combinations/amounts that I like, will generally be preferable to me, over something created to please everyone. Not to mention way easier on the wallet, which is one of my key concerns when it comes to a workaday dinner. The day I match all five numbers plus the powerball, I'll gladly throw that last concern out the window though

I have been to HomeMade Pizza Co. before (a long time ago), and I actually had a "Boboli concoction" for dinner yesterday, topped with the results of a quick fridge cleaning: a nice marinara, the last ball of fresh mozz (supplemented with some Trader Joe's Italian 4-cheese blend), the one remaining spicy italian sausage sitting in the meat drawer, some kalamata olives, and some leftover grilled red pepper and red onion, then dressed with a basil chiffonade & a buttload of crushed red pepper (just the way I like it...if my lips aren't burning, it's not spicy enough) just before eating. HomeMade Pizza Co.'s crust was certainly chewier than yesterday's Boboli, but would come at a cost that would have pushed yesterday's cheap & quick dinner into "casual dining" territory.

That said, I would recommend checking out both options before pronouncing one better or worse, or labeling what my wife made for dinner yesterday as "Blech".

Just yankin' yer chain with that last bit

Bobolis are nothing more than a dry, too-thick pre-fab focaccia, and loading one up with a lot of expensive ingredients is, as the late Peg Bracken would have termed it, "...like sewing diamond buttons on denim pants."

The alternative: find a local pizza parlor you like, cultivate a relationship, and you can buy a ball of their dough on your way home - it'll most likely cost less than a Boboli. Crank your oven just as high as it will go, roll out the dough as thin as you prefer it to be, brush with olive oli, lightly sauce with either some crushed canned Italian tomatoes or a canned pizza sauce you like, and top as you wish. (this is why you always keep some Zier's Italian sassich in the freezer, BTW - break it up into chunks, saute it, drain it, add some crushed garlic if you want, and seal it up in zippy bags - and mark the date on it, too.) I bake mine directly on an oven-wide layer of unglazed tiles; takes maybe 15 minutes in a properly heated oven. Keep an eye on it.

Or...just buy it from Homemade pizza and pop it in the oven. NO muss no fuss. Or as as some would say, just order a pizza and have it delivered. And the do-loop goes on.............

I've composed this in honor of the thread:

Ode to Homemade Pizza

Roses are red, violets are blue,
I like Homemade pizza, fie on you
I don’t want to roll, I don’t want to sauce
At this time of night I’ve time only to floss
No chunks, and no saute, and certainly no sassich for me, no way!!
Zippy bags and garlic too
this is much too hard for me to do.

sundevilpeg wrote:Crank your oven just as high as it will go

Try the Steingarten Strategy for getting a crispy crust from a consumer model oven: knock off the thermostat and set the oven to Clean.

David Hammond wrote:

sundevilpeg wrote:Crank your oven just as high as it will go

Try the Steingarten Strategy for getting a crispy crust from a consumer model oven: knock off the thermostat and set the oven to Clean.

I did this tonight with a Homemade Pizza BLT (bacon, fresh garlic, parmesan, spinach, tomato, mozzarella), and it was delicious, bubbly, and quite crisp. For anyone worried about underseasoned Homemade pies, go bacon - it's salty and smoky and complements the crust perfectly.

It seems to me that there are two threads (so to speak) to this thread: one is value, and the other is "authenticity". It seems to be the convergence of the two that really ticks some people off.

I think that the authenticity is mainly an issue because it's a new product, and people haven't figured out how to do it right yet. After all, various members of this forum post now and again about their love and nostalgia for American cured meat products that seem borderline toxic but they've been around for a while and at least their makers have figured out how to be toxic in the right way.

Of course, a "right way" doesn't necessarily follow -- popcorn sure hasn't. I remember about twenty years ago, a co-worker invited me over to watch a movie, and I decided to score points with her little boy by bringing over some cool popcorn. Naturally, I chose Jiffy-pop! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiffy_Pop
I remember that when I pulled it out of the shopping bag she looked at me strangely and said "We usually just use the micro-wave." However, I convinced them to try the Jiffy-pop and her ten-year-old duly got deliriously excited watching the aluminum dome swell under the pressure from the consummating kernels.

I'm sure that at the time that Jiffy-pop was introduced, it also induced chest-thumping from folks who felt that it was a gimmick, over-priced, and got people out of touch with "the real experience" of popping corn (that is, the one they grew up with). And I'm sure that the actual ingredients are not any better than those flat little microwave bags that have taken over the market. But for me, making popcorn was always a special event when I was little, and the popcorn was always Jiffy-pop; so it holds a special place in my heart that makes me despise those microwave bags as a mere consumer product.

And I'm sure that ten or fifteen years from now, we'll be reading posts on this board from twenty-somethings who are nostalgic for Homemade Pizza, because they have fond memories of being a small child and being allowed to pick out their own ingredients with a parent. Some of the posters have talked here about how "heart" goes into cooking. Well, heart goes in in many different ways, and this is one of them. Sometimes I am frightened to think of how many of my own preferences were formed in this way. But maybe eventually someone will figure out how to put the heart in for adults also. It may take someone who's grown up with it...