Breaking Bread with Tom Papa - Episode 26 - Chris Bianco

Episode Date: November 3, 2020

Chris Bianco is the owner of Pizzeria Bianco and has been called America's best pizza maker. He also tells amazing stories and finally solves the great canned tomato mystery once and for all!  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hey, everybody, welcome to another edition of Breaking Bread with Tom Papa. I'm Tom Papa. Thank you so much for coming along for another exciting episode. This is going to be a good one. If you love pizza and you love all good things, Chris Bianca was on with a legendary chef pizza maker out of Phoenix, Arizona, originally from the Bronx, so much to get into. I have, it's incredible how deep we can go. We could do a whole breaking bread season just with Chris.

Thank you all so much for listening. Thank you for subscribing. Thank you so much for spreading the word as we continue to grow this beautiful family of ours. Thank you for going on and giving us a little stars. you like things, giving us nice comments, spreading the word, of course, subscribing audio, or going on YouTube and subscribing there. It all helps spread the word and give everybody a good heads up on what we've already started. I apologize that these recent episodes have been making you hungry. I've gotten a lot of friendly complaints that they have been driven to drink more

wine, eat more cheese, get more bread. And they're actually, I've had a couple of friends actually say that they listen to this podcast while they're cooking, which is always a great thing. That's a great sign for me. And I am with you. I listen to these when we have all these great chefs and all these great people and all these great stories from comedians about what they eat and love. It makes me hungry as well. And I don't get through any of these without going off my good, thoughtful diet and just eating like a maniac as soon as we finish the interview. So we're all on this together. And you know what? Good for us. We should be eating our faces off. It's a short, crazy life, and we should be stuffing our faces with anything that brings us joy

whenever we can. Chris Bianco, I met him first when I was performing with Jerry Seinfeld in Arizona and we went to Chris's pizzeria restaurant and it was pretty mind-blowing to see in the middle of this desert community there was this Italian guy cranking out pizzas from this wood-burning oven that were the best that I had ever had in my life that and growing up in New Jersey and New York, that's saying a lot. And when we met Chris, you just saw that this is more than just somebody who's trying to open a good restaurant. This is truly an artist. Somebody who's very thoughtful and very centered, not just about the end product, but the whole experience and the whole career and his whole life. And this interview will show you that. This is somebody who's very,

very much in tune with not just his career, but life in general. And it comes through, and I think that truly is his secret. I think when people get really good at small things, they become very big things. And Chris Bianco is one of them. And I'm happy to say, this is, I think, the third time we've met, and I'm quickly going to become friends with them. And when the pandemic's over, I'm going to moved to Arizona and live in his restaurant right underneath the wood burning oven. So enjoy it, everybody. This is a great conversation. It took place in his restaurant during the day. There's a little ambient noise. It gets a little wonky at times. Hang in there. It's worth it. I'll do my best to make sure that you can hear it clearly. But there's definitely, this is a live in the moment situation.

It's a little cacophonous at points, but all in all, I think it's worth it. Thank you again, and now break bread with Chris Bianco. Hey, what's happening? Hey. Am I here? You're here. Hey, what's up, brother? How you doing?

Good, good to see you. I'm here for better and for worse. Cheers. Cheers. Salud. A little hydration. It's always good. A little caffeine.

Yeah, that sounds good. Yeah, good to see you. Thanks for coming on. Oh, no, it's my pleasure. It's just, it's good to connect some time somehow in humanity right now. Yeah. Kind of standoff away. I know, I know.

Hopefully we'll, hopefully we'll muddle out of it. Well, one of my, I'll start off by just showing this. I know I sent you a little picture of it in the email, but during the, during the pandemic, I changed the artwork in my house. Yes, I love it. Oh, my God, that is quite the honor. I am honored to be there. I got the...

I saw online you had posted that this is like, I guess probably the darkest part of the quarantine when we were kind of panicked and shutting our doors, and there was a Bianco-Dinapoli poster for sale. I was like, oh, man, I'm getting that immediately, because I had just actually discovered here... Hopefully we brought some good light into the room. Yeah, it's so good.

I hope we brought some good luck. Yeah, so we got it framed and we put it in the dining room where we eat every night. So it's up there. Oh, my God. That's crazy. Well, I'm very honored. My daddy, he'll be very honored. And I appreciate that very, very much.

Oh, it's so great. It's really kind of like, you know, these moments during this weirdness that have been kind of great was, you know, I've always been cooking a lot. And I started just, I started to just kind of focus in on. tomatoes. And I was, you know, it's always Italian cooking. We're Italians from New Jersey. And I was like, you know, I'm always sitting there with crushed and pured and, uh, and whole tomatoes and the different plants. I think about these tomatoes. Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot to get into. So I'm going to get back

to that. But I want to just, uh, start off going off on, on the journey. But you're, uh, we're going to. I'm very grateful. That's very kind. Yeah. We're going to definitely get into it. So, uh, good. Good to see you. And last night, I was just kind of, you know, getting ready for the interview and going through some stuff. And I had opened up a bottle of red wine. And it wasn't good. And listening to you talk and read interviews, you have such a good way of telling people that they should really appreciate the goodness of things and that the quality of things and actually just be a little more thoughtful. And that ended up with me pouring the bottle of the wine down the drain. Well, you know, without I guess pain, there'd be no pleasure at all, you know. Lord knows we had enough of it right now. We are well versed in the reference to pain to sure this year.

But it is. You know, sometimes the thing about wine, you know, my last name being Bianco, it's funny, my uncle Louis, my grandfather's youngest brother. He made wine. They all moved upstate New York. We're from the Bronx. They all moved high and bush New York over the, up in the Cats Hills. Right.

And my grandfather bought three acres with his two brothers, two of his brothers. And they built houses about, you know, it was three acres. They had houses about 50 yards apart, you know, so they felt like they were back in the Bronx. Yeah. But in my grandfather's basement, there was always my uncle Louis made wine and it was called, a Bianco Red. And it was the worst probably wine I've ever tasted. But ironically, it made fantastic vinegar.

So I guess there's always an upside. I guess it's fine. You know, it's kind of like it's like managing people, I guess, in a way. If that's the thing, which, you know, it's fine in our place. You know, bad wine, maybe good vinegar. You know, the worst waiter might make the best line cook. Right. Versa.

but it's uh it's it's it's it's all the you know i mean we struggled our whole life of finding our place i think there's a lot of a lot of metaphors are lurking i'm there to kind of uh keep it in line for sure it to show it's the way i expect yeah so when your brother when your father and brothers were they born here did they come over yeah my father my parents were born here my my grandparents in the middle days, they came very, very young, you know, but, you know, we're mostly, you know, just kind of American school. Right. Hold on.

I love to have you. Oh. Hold on. We're there. There you go. I got you. Nice. But, yeah, I mean, it's very specific, I think, being a New York account.

in New York County, you know, where you think you, I mean, I thought I knew about Italy and so I went back, you know, I remember, I remember being a kid and, you know, like, you know, you're 13 and you're from New York, you kind of know everything you think, and I remember going, and my great aunt lived in Rome, and I remember going down, like, my father, and I didn't have a coffee, and I didn't have a coffee, but I remember when the espresso came, I was like, you know, what's the deal? There's no, there's no lemon peel on this thing. What kind of espresso is that?

Like in New York, you know, with a kid, you'd have a demitaph with an orange peel, you know. Yeah. It's the local, Italian restaurant to kind of let the scene in Moonshuck, you know, the restaurant there. Yeah. And then you kind of learned this, even in that kind of, that humbling lesson, it's, you know, maybe the lemon is really the authentic way, how an immigrant's journey kind of adjust even the smallest pleasures like coffee. Like for instance, you know, I guess the turn of the century when the Italians couldn't get when they,

you know, in the Lower East Side, you know, they couldn't get the bitterness that they had in their espresso. Yeah. They would run their rim on their little kind of cafeteria, little, you know, still pot coffee that they would make. and they've run the rim with a little lemon field to create that bitterness. And that was, you know, it goes back to, you know, next thing I invented will be the first thing. There's always something that comes from a situation that's went to another situation.

Yeah. And, you know, and here we are. Yeah, yeah. It's an amazing thing when I, when I've, we met once before, by the way, or twice, actually. I came in with Seinfeld once. He turned me on to your place the first time. Oh, you remember? And then it was a great moment.

I don't know if you remember this part of the story. We were sitting there eating. We had a show to do that night. And you were very successful. It was hard to get in. And some very big agent was outside in his black SUV or whatever. And they were trying to get in. And they were throwing names around.

And you came over to the table. And you're like, I don't know, do I let this guy in? And Jerry was like, nah. And you're like, yeah, he can wait. I was like, this is a great place. Yeah, well, you know, it's, you know, it's funny, though. I had a lot of, you know, it's our original place, a little, tiny little place, 40s. And, you know, I had a lot of years, over the years, you know, people with, I mean, some people, most people are very kind and I'm very grateful for that.

But, you know, once in a while, you know, few beers in or whatever. You know, I bump in a few months, you know. You son of a bitch, you made me wait for three hours. And I was like, like, listen, dude, I, the last thing I want to do will make you, I wanted to take your money so fast. I wanted to take it now. So the pain you felt in the three hours, the pain I felt, not being able to teach you, but, you know, we're a Dixie Cup, you know, and you can't really put a gallon of water in it.

Yeah. Sometimes it's hard for people to see that. Yeah. Just like you're sold out shows. There's only so many feet now. Yeah, you're used to, you know, but, you know, in L.A., you're always used to be able to throw your weight around and get what you want. It was like, no, there's some integrity to this place.

Yeah, I know. That's a little bit. You know, we have a little bit. I try to do what I can, you know. I think, you know, I try to look out for, you know, all my friends and my extended family. Yeah. But, you know, sometimes, you know, and it's hard because, you know, people, especially now, I would say, are easily offended. And I, you know, and it's, yeah, it's an interesting, you know, a lot of interesting dynamics in the restaurant business.

Yeah. I was always jealous to my dad, you know, at 94 still, 93, no. But, you know, he's a painter, portrait painter. He'd do a painting or he does that tomato can. Yeah. And he lets it go and the world can confirm or deny it's significant. With us, you know, 300 times a night, you know, we're getting how many rotten tomatoes are we get, you know, and then you got to do it the next day and the next day.

So it's not like a film or a piece of art. Yeah. You know, it's something utilitarian and very malleable to the experience or to a person's impression or to the weather or something news or whatever. You know, everything's under the influence. Yeah. You know, there was always the reason I never put reviews up in a restaurant. I never, like, I don't really believe in anything singular best.

I think that, you know, we try to be, there's a lot of places in my life that I think are amazing. Yeah. I've been blessed to eat a lot of great food and on different inspections of fancy or someone's grandma's kitchen. And I look at it kind of like, whatever your spirituality is or anyone, most eternity is, on some type of collective, you know? It's not really a singular island. And I think that's more, when we grow up, we want to be the best baseball player, the best,

and you figure out what the fuck is that. That's not even any fun. Right. So you know, so you look for the identity of being, you know, if you're a comedian, what can be better than being, you know, mentioned, you know, with others that inspire you or your respect. And I think that's one thing that,

like in my business it's not that I don't care what my grandmother thinks I do but but it's it's very much in talking to different comedians and musicians I think there's a lot of parallels of the respect

of your peers you know no absolutely kind of everything like you know the audience is funny it's like yeah they stole my fucking joke you know like whatever that's that funny or like oh did you see that movie about Hendrik it was unbelievable it was the best movie by

Hendrick's going, yeah, but the guy played run-handed. You know, and then all of a sudden, the lack of attention in detail left something to be desired, you know, for the purists or for the ones that understand the struggle. So I think there's something, yeah, I think there's something to see in most. Yeah, there has to be, it's an interesting thing, especially for what you do, in that you are concentrated on doing the thing that you do as well as you possibly can, to make this thing, to make these pizzas as great as possible to like just focus in on that and put all your heart into it.

And for you, you have you in your head what is a great pizza? What is, what am I striving for? But then you have all these people showing up and putting all their influence in it and asking for it. It's, it seems to me that you've maintained like a truth to yourself while also being in a business that has to serve all these people. Well, I'll tell you, that is a very kind words. I'm appreciative of it.

I like to think that I try to keep, I try to keep my integrity. It's like, it's like people say, can I ask you a personal question? I mean, they're all personal questions. Right. You know, there's no separation of work and play. I don't know anything. You know, so I think the integrity part, it wasn't like I had to go to work and have to be this thing or I have to be, you know, like I remember there was a, I forgot.

I mean, Father knows best or something in the book. The movie on TV show in the 50s is allegedly, I guess,

you know, Stanley would have not so flattering book about them. And, but America thinks he's great, you know,

maybe some parallels in politics right now, but we won't get into it. But so it's more about as the people that are around you, see you, your family,

and your friends. And, you know, I just thought that when I opened up in 88, you know, I remember a lot of my relatives because, you know, how many pejorians they are, and there's dominoes and there's this,

and, you know, the independence and the thing. And I was like, yeah, you know, I just want to, I want to understand my slices of pie, my audience. Right. I want to, I did my best to, like, I knew who I was. Right. With all my dysfunction and my, how much of my weekly salary I could spend on food. And I try to, I'm on a napkin, calculate how many of me could there be.

Right. And how many more could I possibly be? And I tried to the best of that day, serve my audience, which is not that everybody else is welcome to that. I guess that is, you know, not because you're a business, but I think there is a lot of parallels in whether it's comedy or music, that, you know, you want to give you an audience, you know, I think the worst thing that can happen in a film,

a comedy show or dinner, the parallels would be when they leave, they go, not what I expected. Right. Most times. And I think because very rarely is not what I expect, enough you can't be surprised and be well, but I would say in the 85 percentile that then not what I expected, you went for an action thriller, you know, you know,

and you've got, you know, a love story. Right, drama. You went for Jim Gassett. again and you got Lenny Bruce, you know, whatever, you know, even though I think Jim Gapkin swore the other day, I guess. But anyway, the, the, I think so understanding what your audience expects you, exceeding that expectation, bringing wrinkles of evolution, which we try to do, even to flower wilds, organic growing, or how can make things better, but not losing, I think, your audience along the way, I think.

Right. You know, it's like my parents. Like, my fucking parents are crazy. You know, they've been married 60 years. My dad's 93. My mom's 80. They're amazingly imperfect human beings. Right.

And I blessed to live long to see them as human beings. They're not my parents. Which I really think is one of the great blessings of life. Yeah. He's actually like, oh, my God, how did you do that to me? And when you did this, like, holy shit, what a struggle to bring kids to the 60s of Vietnam, you know, the 70s, you know, the 70s, you know, struggle, you know, you know, whether it's, you know, J.S.K., Martin

King, Bobby Kennedy, like, you know, bringing your kids through that. Well, I'm saying, when you look back and also you look at, you know, the challenge that were there in New York City, whether it was, you know, you know, drug scenes of the 70s and 80s. You know, other things that, you know, can take itself off, you know. But when I was young when he left the Bronx, I moved to a little town called Austin, New York, up to Westchester County. I know it.

It's on the other side of Capon City Bridge. Yeah. Right next to Mississippi Hollow, beautiful, a tired town all out there. And it's a beautiful part of the world, you know? And it's 22 miles of the city, but it's like 22 million miles away in the way. And how old were you when you moved? Even like those moves.

I was like in first grade, you know, kindergarten. you know, we're so very young. But it was really, it felt like we were moving to the moon. Like, you know, I remember like, like, we lived downstairs, my aunt Margie lived downstairs, my aunt Margie lived downstairs. I'm Bamadhaven in the Bronx. And I remember leaving that day, you know, and the tears.

And, you know, like we were driving away and a car wagon, you know, to the great timbers of the, of beyond, you know, into the woods. You know, 25 minutes up at the Taconic, yeah. Yeah. But it was the world away, I think, and it really helped shape me in my life a lot of being a visitor. I think I'm very safe in the visitor role. You know, like, you know, even though I was born in New York City, you know, I was born in Mount Sinai and Manhattan, go to the Bronx, end up in Austin,

make my way to Phoenix somehow. but but I've always felt very safe as a visitor like not claiming something and I think New York is perfect for that or or place for that because it doesn't need you and I'm very appreciative of that right it's like if you're dead we got a guy for your place you know the sidewalk is moving right and jump on or jump off but there's no time to ponder yeah and I think that it was very helpful to me like when I traveled anywhere to always be the visitor and that was easy. But when I finally made roots where there was in Arizona

where I was back in Arizona and I remember my grandfather was in New York City Fireman in Hooking Ladder 17 in the Bronx. That's when my dad met my mom. My dad lived across the street in the firehouse. There's a beautiful love storybook that I meant. But I remember he was such a sweetheart of a guy and I remember like, you know,

he was such a, no matter who you were walking down the street, he would say, he would remember, you'd look somebody in the eye, you'd say, morning, good afternoon, whatever the fucking was, he was adamant about that. And I remember things changing. I remember in the 70s where, like, you know, like, you know, my mom who worked in cities, she worked in Saxon Avenue for many years. Yeah. And I remember, like, you know, people go, oh, make sure you put your bag over and go on your side,

you know, and, you know, to be safe and all these things. whatever. And my, and my grandfather, you know, was always said, I would see when the out-of-towners come. They grip everything tighter. And it makes people want to take it away more. You know, if you just say, you know, you can fucking have it if you want it, you know. Yeah. But it ain't worth it, you really, you know. Anyway, bad analogy, but we're not very thorough analogy, but I think there was a lot of people growing up. They grew up in New York that were, they know you didn't have to be that hard. We, you know, we cried like everybody else.

You know, every neighborhood was its own world. Right. And, you know, people were vastly different, but eerily the same. And I think all that experience has just helped me, and continues to help me grow within a structure of being a visitor, which we all are. It's interesting because when you say that, because I had heard about you and this legendary pizza, and it's the best in the country, and you've got to say, you. Where is in Phoenix, Arizona? It was like, what?

Arizona. And then meeting you, it was like, no, this guy belongs in the Bronx. So it does make sense that you were that comfortable outsider. I think what's the other thing is, is I'm very kind of maniacal about them. I'm actually, we're actually moving one of our restaurants today. It's a very long story. I won't put you through. But we had a little restaurant of Trotteria, a white table-class Russell Cortado and with the pandemic it was only 1,000 square feet we have to move it to a larger location just to create some sort of distance. So I closed a second location of a bakery I had.

We knew they were there. We're open up Friday. But in all this kind of, you know, whether it's pizza or pasta or whatever, I've always been maniacical about the experience, whether it's, you know, the painting that's behind you or the lighting. I was always on a low budget or no budget. So I was always on, you know, back in the day it was Penny Saver. Now it's Craig Liz or offer up to find, you know,

other people's tawny treasures, you know, that we can find a place for our friends. Or it means something. Yeah. And I think there's, you know, there was something about coming Arizona. I'm going to connect the dots now, that. Yeah. Come in Arizona was a guy with,

which, I think I had a great advantage of your expectations. initially were so low in 1988. Yeah. And I was thinking it's better know nothing to think you know something. And back in 88, people didn't really pretend to know anything. Right. Well, growing up in New York, everybody knew a fucking everything. Everybody knew everything about everything.

Yeah. You know? Yeah, everybody. You know, it's entertaining and I enjoy it. You know, if they believe it's their truth and I never argue, I mean, with them, I mean, it's super cool. But there's something, I mean, I look at Martha, Texas in that way of, like if you could put something in a place like you know i was you know i don't really like

eating blindfold that i think like if we're not blind will we kidding i mean we're kidding ourselves yeah um you know and maybe we'd change our taste buds if we had to look at it so i want the whole tactile experience of a blessed fact yeah of course but i think there's something about um you know when people will come to phoenix you know and today it's a beautiful day it's 70 degrees is beautiful out. It's really pretty magical. And it's hot as hell in the summer. It's terrible.

But right now it's a magical place. And what it did for me was I felt that if I could create something, like I always think, like, I think if I had the antidote of the pandemic right now, let's just say. Okay. Wouldn't that be fun? That'd be great. That'd be great. But if I had it and I was incapable.

to deliver it so it would be useless you know I couldn't it was locked in a vault I couldn't have no needles pills nobody will do it so we had this answer but we had no way

I think very much I see the world in that way of no matter what I have if I render you and capable to receive it right like a joke if it's too fucking loud

if everybody at the bar is talking my mic's not on you know you know whatever I'm not you know I'm going through something I can't. Creating experience for someone and not, you know, what do you mean? They didn't like it wasn't good.

But then you looked at the lighting. It was bright. Right. And the windows were open and it was freezing cold. It was hot as hell or whatever it was. The waiter's an asshole or, you know, anything that happened. I have a fuck of my waiter. But not you, not you.

Not you. But I think so all that collective of everything matters is kind of, this another bad analogy, but, you know, you look at a plane, you know, God forbid there's a crash, and you hear like a pigeon took it down and flew into the turbine, like a pigeon. Yeah. A fucking city pigeon could take down. They couldn't figure out a screen. Yeah, but that one little thing.

You know, that one little thing can take it all down. So I think my life, whatever's a pizza, well, I'm always like, we can get in our way. Yeah. They're going to flip the sign, we're open. What's on our way? Right, right. Some of the door, you know, the guy's the door's an asshole that can get on our way. No place to park.

That's going to get away from my experience. So the more we can ship away bad, the more that we can kind of have the experience and kind of put you on the safe track so you can receive it, to be honest, you know, to give your honest, you know, unkind of affected outside source opinion is the opportunity. And I think if there was anything that was our greatest fortune or whatever, or whatever the word is luck, yeah.

Was that, um, that we worked hard to, that you feel that. So you could see what, whatever you felt for good or indifferent. Yeah. You were there to,

to have it and it was your experience. There wasn't a picture of me and, you know, Adam Costello on the wall when they came or, Sinatra or all these kind of, other people's experience. It's like, all the matters if you think I suck.

Right. That's all they're it. Yeah, right now. But how much, how much of the balance, how much of the balance is the, is the food and the ambiance experience table, walls, all of that? Could you calibrate? Well, I think, I think here's the thing. I know I'm at a time of my life.

I don't give you shit how good your food is. If people are ungrateful to give it to you, you know, or it comes from a source that is, you know, If it comes from a source that's supporting, you know, migrant workers that aren't getting paid a liberal wage report, you know, whatever it is, you know. Like a lot of, I'd say my own family, well, I love Dealey. We grow up, I don't want to know. Don't look in Chris's sock drawer. You know, whatever might have been found in 1987. I don't want to know.

No. As long as it goes to school. Don't dig too deep. But I, yeah, don't dig too deep. but I think we're now in a place where we do want to know. Like I got three kids now. You know, I remember, you know, later my life

and my wife, you saved my life a lot of things, you know. Now I look back and I just think, you know, what could I actually, if anything, share with them? You know, so do you think that, so if I'm understanding you correctly,

it's the food and the place, is kind of all just an extension of you. It is. It all is an extension. I mean, I think that you'd get somewhere. You know, I think if we took a survey,

if we believed every freaking survey, you know, we'd be in a perfect world. I think people aren't as conscious as they think about what annoys the shit out of them, you know? Yeah. You know, it's like a lot of times,

like, you know, people sometimes go on vacation and hope they have a miserable time I'm saying you have to go back again. You know what I mean? Yeah. I remember like, you know, I don't see what it's about some people met. Like, I remember, you know, when I was a kid, you know, we took a bus with a bunch of tourists.

I met as loud of New Yorkers. I mean, what do we got to go here? It looks just like we got the same thing. I wouldn't have to come flying. We got the same thing over here. And, you know, there was a lot of that kind of growing up. Yeah. But, you know, sometimes if you keep looking, you know, you see something that.

who found you or inspire you, move you, or propel you. Right. Want to engage with it. So when you were, when you were, when you were growing up and you're in Ossining, I know you worked in a little pizza place. I did have those pizza. But was there also cooking at home? What was the, where was the exposure?

Yeah, that's an interesting question because, you know, the job I had at a picture here when I, I was 13 years old after school. I go to Algo's pizza. And long gone now, but, you know, carrying the flower, you know, up the stairs from the basement, you know, I got to grind the mozzarella, big block of it. We all used the same, you know, in New York, it was, you know, different today.

But, you know, back then there was a lot of families that were playing a lot of pizzerias, all their ingredients. Right. You know, and it was all the same stuff. Yeah, you had no choice. But on the boxes, it was interesting, and this is another one of his lesson to me, which was, first of all, we never asked any questions in my family. Right.

Like, I mean, our pizza box, it came with the rest of this stuff, and everybody else's boxes that said, you tried the rest and I'll try the best. And I'm like, I think I saw that box down the block. Right. I don't know what's going on. Yeah, who's got the best? And then, like, you know, if you can ask something, you know, to that as you go on and you, like, even my kids now. Yeah.

I want them to, I want them to hopefully best their ability, you know, recognize getting evil, you know. But as far as the best, you know, I would say the best anything is the anything you like the best. Right. You know? Yeah. So it doesn't matter. So if you are now empowered to say, this is my favorite band. Right.

Like the best knowing that's a guy, I can now free myself from that fucking gorilla on my back. And I can just, all I have to worry about is what I did. I got my own refrigerator now. My own freezer, I even got a pantry. I can put the shit in that I like. I can drink the wine that I want to drink. It's very empowering, you know? And I think it's a good way to live, you know.

Yeah. Well, it's a thoughtfulness. It's a paying attention. Like when you're, I think when I was younger, you just kind of ate. and you just kind of like devoured and it was almost like mindless. You were just so filled with energy, you're just putting fuel in you. And you liked some things and your family gave you food, whatever. But I think as you get older, you kind of just keep your eyes open a little bit more.

And it's just being thoughtful about what you're doing, what you're drinking, what you're eating. That makes it, it helps the search for better stuff, I think. Well, I think, I think, you know, yes. And I think it also starts, like it's funny, my... My parents, you know, they're just, you know, not good and evil. I mean, they're both super great, awesome. But my dad was always like, what's the big deal? And my mom was like, oh, my God, what a big deal.

Like, everything was a big deal. You know, this is the biggest deal. I remember, like, this is no bullshit. I must have been five years old. I remember being in a basement. And I remember there was like a half gallon of Breyer's ice cream. And I had like a court of, uh, my mom. That's apple sauce.

And I remember I had a bowl. And I said, what if I take this apple sauce? And I mix it with this vanilla ice cream. And I remember I swirled it up and I swirled it up. And I ate it. And I was like, this is delicious. I remember I went upstairs to my mother. She said, oh, my God, Chris.

That's fantastic. That's so good. And I'm so good to my father. He's like, she's like, hey, take this your son. He makes the apple sauce. She's like, he's like, it's all melting. That was the guy on the whole thing, which is like, it's like too much and not enough. Right.

You know, it worked out good. I think you need that, you know, a little bit. But my mom, my mom was on the fastest side. She's an illustrator, but she also did, she designed wedding bells for Saxe in New York for a long time. Was she a cook? A lot of years in the bridal department. Could she cook? She still is.

You know, she's an amazing cook. Oh, yeah. Like, fucking fantastic. And my grandmother, too, my aunt's, they're all great cooks. And there's one thing, though, that I think that there wasn't any, like, here's lessons of cooking. You want to be a chef. It was all, it was all come to omnipresent.

So, you know, there was always food in our house. And he died, there's food. Right. So if they had a baby, there's a bunch. It's a bun cake, you know. Brunk cakes were hot in the mid-seventh. Yeah. You know, some of my hands will try to,

some of my hands will try to out-bunk each other. It's kind of good comedy. You know, and always the coffee and the percolator, you know. Yeah. Insert. With the cord, the rope on it. Yeah, it's the best. I still love that sound.

If I could get that on my phone, I'd go to bed with it. I percolate. My sister has my grandmother's percolator, and it still works. You should bust it out. I think she works. I think this week, Try that. Make a bunk cake.

And then you can write me, tell me how it goes, the experience. So your house is, but I think, I think there's all those things, like as you kind of make everyone's,

uh, quills of experience, like mine was, we had three magazines, or two magazines at our house. We had NAPTCRAFT, and we had gourmet magazine. And we had probably at every gourmet from,

I don't know, like, like, wow. So, yeah. when I left in the early 80s. And it's funny because we gave them all away

and I'm searching for some old gourmetes now because I love that magazine so much. I think in our world we were swiping, there was something about that receding that magazine monthly. And there was a section there called On the Avenines, which was so well written. And it was about really about a walk down whether it was Park Avenue or Fifth Avenue.

Right. You know, maybe it was the Lower East Side and they would talk about that experience. It was so, you know, it was so visual and amazing. There's something to that. I remember seeing, yeah, you know, the first time I ever saw, you know, lavender from province who's, you know,

on the cover of gourmet. You know, it's about, you know, I think in 1999, one of my great thrills on my life was Ruth Reiko Vennikourmet invited me to Grame did a little story about our pizza or whatever

but the thrill was I'll never forget there was a photographer named Romolo Yaines and he shot probably 20 years at least and I remember when he shot my picture

I was like his day like blowing away because I saw his name a million like on there taking pictures and all of a sudden

like my crappy little pizza or whatever you know, it's going to be more lives by the screen. Oh, huge. And, you know, I remember walking out and getting off the elevator, and it was, they had every gourmet and long, may rest of peace, but every cover of gourmet from 46 when it started or whatever to that time to 99.

Wow. It was inspiring. I think there was something very powerful to me about that. Like, I wouldn't have understood it. when I was in it, but looking back, and you started seeing, holy shit, I remember that lobster with the corn in July, you know, August 76. I remember that. My mom made that same word, you know, and my other great, I think, blessing was when I was a kid,

and I went to that, I saw the asthma a little bit, but when I was a kid, I was pretty sick. Yeah. And it was an incredibly great teacher because it kept me home a lot, and it kept me stuck at home a lot, and I missed my out of school, and I, When my mom's work, she gave me a lot of tasks in the kitchen, the frost, this, or heat this up. You know, and I sit and I looked those magazines, and I remember there was another, it was another TV show. I think it was on Channel 11 back in New York, but it was Graham Kerr the Galping Gourmet. Oh, yeah.

And they were fantastic. Yeah. And he was amazing, and I love that. I remember being a kid. It came out right after the Mike Douglas show. Right. And I remember sitting, being a kid about 3 o'clock, and I just thought it was brilliant. And later on, PBS had great chefs.

and you know, you know, and as I got older and try to get away, separate from pizza, to be, you know, to be a more legitimate chef. Ironically, I thought that the opportunity really was, why can't we do something? Like, I love elevated cuisine, but I also like taking something with great humility and great, um, broad appeal. You know Like pizza It's the most popular food argument in the world Right It's cut into triangles

It's cut into eight slices It's just horrible Fair play, nothing to figure out You know Like it's our first food That we carry away from home It's our first food we eat behind a dugout Or you know, with our friends

With other people's houses So I think there's a lot of opportunity To deliver something familiar And then if anyone gives a shit You can dive deep deep into a minutia of what makes good things good, which is my life's work. Yeah. My life's work is whether it's a care, I want the ergonomics to be great.

I want the materials to be great. I want to make it have great intention. With the tomato, we have a little tomato business as no. I want, I want a mixture our farmers, you know, care much about the earth as we do. And obviously, they do to leave it better than they found it. and be a part of people's pantry. And so I think even like I'm a tomato side jumping stories, like all those things to have a tomato in a can painted by my father,

grown by our friends and farmers, my partner Rob Benaple's a third generation of tomato. A farmer growing packers family. Yeah. They're in San Jose for many years. And all those experiences, I think, lead us to where we are. And also you understand that with all,

my life has been very far as gumplike. I've been more blessed than I could ever imagine. Yeah. You know, I don't have a lot of material things, but I have, you know, I'm the richest person I know. Right. When there's, when you have that, there's, if I could just backtrack a little bit,

I want to go into Tomatoes. This is a good segue into the tomatoes. But I want to just go back for just a brief second because there's a, there's a, you're always talk about how inclusive you are and how you want young people to be moving forward and you're always looking to improve and always trying to be what makes good things good and go forward and bring everything into the future. But at the same time, like what you're describing with gourmet and the lineage, we're also going back.

We're also trying to, like, perfect and preserve the classics. Like, that combination to me is really pretty profound. Well, I've got a theory on that one. It's like, I would say, I say this a lot, and I'll connect to that. But I would say, today's the best day ever. And I say that because I can take all the yesterdays with me to this point. I don't have to give it. They're already with me.

I didn't need to go back. And I look at every gourmet magazine. or every galpin gourmet or every grandmother or shoemaker that gave me a recipe or just Mike's deli in the Bronx that, you know, show me to make mozzarella years ago. Right. taught me how to taste it and, you know, Patel, you know, to tell mothers in New York, all the tomatoes just that's stuff. You know, Arthur Avenue, all those smells and sounds and everything.

They're, they're omnipresent. They're with me. I take them. Oh, as I move forward, it's like, you know, it's like, I just, me go forward. There's a little bit like a kind of rolling stone, but like you learn what to throw from the stone and what to carry, you know, what moths to bring on with you. Right, right.

And so, so I think you learn that. It's like I'm constantly, you know, I'm always saying I'm, I don't waste any time on being right or wrong. I just, like I, I adapt to that moment. Yeah. I was a good idea until I put a nail out while I hit up, you know, waterline. It's not a good idea. You know, you know, but I guess with, so we're having to adjust in there, but I think.

But with, but with cooking, it seems like it's like what you're saying, it's part of your subconscious, and then you just act on it in the moment going forward. Yeah, I'm just saying that, yeah, I'm just saying it's everything. You know, like not to be all feely, feeling about it, but I have a better, probably some of the best relationships that I have are people no longer breathing, you know? You know, really some might be like great aunts and uncles, you know, you know, they've become better listeners and so alive. I think the time skin and bones get them away. So time, I think, has a tendency or an opportunity, you know, to really continue teaching. Right. And I didn't have to leave those memories behind.

I try to see things. Like, you know, my father's father, you know, big sonny Bianco, who was a, you know, work with the construction, a crane operator in New York City. The last job he did was a World Trade Center, one of a thousand people working on the foundation. Wow. But super tough guy, very tough man. Yeah.

But at the end of his life, you know, pussycat. Yeah. And you start to see, you know, thank you guys. You start to see, you know, his own personal struggle. Right. You know, working through the 20s, you know, hanging out in the dock waiting to get pulled for a job or fix their job, you know, fighting through it, you know, getting paid with a barrel of beer, you know, some stores that didn't pay with a barrel of beer. So you'd sell the beer to make money and whatever. Yeah.

And you start to see what made people hard or what made people soft or what made people understanding. Yeah. I had my uncle Louis, it's finally scored. my little boy who came literally after my dad but he says like I love you all the time like a million times and I had this one uncle

my uncle Louis, the guy that made the bad wine actually would say I love you a million times and he was the only one like and my father's side of family my aunt Philomena too I said but really even say it we never really talked about that generation and it's weird like when my yeah

but my he would say it a million times Like when I saw him, he did it. When I see pull me aside and say it. I remember before he passed away, I was probably in my 20s. I was, my early 20s, I was working in Santa Fe. I remember him, his friend Romeo, who he grew up with, they took their, you know, a, you know, Buick Electra and drove down from Connecticut

where they, read D'Darian, drove down to Florida and drove all the way to Mexico. Santa Fea while I was working, came up, and put his little camera. He was even men out of date. You know, with the flash, the cubes, remember those? Yeah, the flashbulb. And I remember, yeah, I remember he wanted to take a picture of me and him.

He had his buddy Romeo. And they were, he was so adamant on getting the lighting wreck because he only had, like, one flash left on the four bulbs. And I remember taking it. And I remember saying, like, I love you a million times. It's such a, you know. It's so great. It's funny.

like the impact of seemingly, you know, yeah. Yeah, it's crazy, especially as a father now. Like you realize that from those relationships, you think like there's this moment where, okay, now I can tell my child this important thing or we're going to do this important day. Those things kind of come in and out, but it's just you coming home after work, sitting down, just drinking a glass of water, talking to your wife. Those little things, those little moments are the ones that end up being the really big,

deeper moments. It's, I mean, it really is. It's everything right now. Like, even, you know, it's kind of crazy. We have my mother-law who lived with us passed away about two months ago. She had stage for cancer, and their cancer was good, but she got. you know, COVID and went to hospital, never came out. And it was difficult, obviously difficult for my wife and my kids.

You know, my kids were in there every night and she was alive. Yeah. But I was very grateful at such an early age that they were able to witness the fragility of life, you know, in the cycle of life. Yeah. And it all goes into it. It's amazing. I mean, that's what makes a great artist, really. it's it's the the fullness of all of that and even not even understanding it at the moment like when you

I'm sure you have a different perspective now 30 years in that you had when you first started in the back of the grocery store making making pizzas right but it's totally yeah totally I mean there's there's nothing you know there was nothing I'd love to say I had this grandiose plan but there really wasn't it was just I know I didn't I moved to a new place and I didn't know what to do except what I did. Right. And, you know, and I started a skating business out of my apartment. I did a party for this French gun, and DiCostas.

Started a grocery store. He liked that I did. He gave me free space in the corner. It wasn't exactly free, but, but, but, but it was, it was, I was very grateful and I was very fortunate. Yeah. And so, like I said, all those things and all those people, you know, I really never have to look back.

I mean, I really try to carry them with me. I try to make, you know, I'm hard to say I'm not superstitious, but I possibly could be because I do a lot of things. I do a lot of things that, you know, like, like when I might, a little building downtown, my original building, I usually do it at that one. Sometimes there are other places, but I always look back and constantly think,

in case the last time I see her, it was fun, you know? Right. And I just want to be always at peace all the time. So, you know, when there is that day, because someday we'll be right that we said we laid it, left it on the field or on the table, you know, is what we were capable to give. And sometimes and most times, especially now,

it's enough. I don't have enough to help a lot of my employees that I had to lay off. And it's such a fucking. Yeah. Just a beyond humbling, helpless experience. Yeah, I know. But could not have seen this coming. Yeah.

Of all the problems, right? Of all the things that could have tripped you up. Yeah, no, I mean, it's, you know, and it's ironic, the irony of, like, as we were fighting with our insurance company that you pay for 30 years and, you know, thank God we didn't burn down. or it wasn't hit by lightning or it wasn't an earthquake in Arizona

or that guy, but the one thing that we could have had some help on was a business interruption insurance which we have. But, you know, luckily for an insurance company in 2002, after SARS, Congress passed,

I'd rather be exempt from pandemic. And so I'm saying, what could be more fucking interruptive been being interrupted by a pandemic, your business. Like it's insane. And, you know, and I talked to my one of our, one insurance broker wrote me and said, hey, I appreciate your struggle, but, you know, he said, he said, imagine what would happen to insurance companies.

I said, well, fucking welcome to the party. You know? You know, I can, I can, not that I can only imagine we are learning that reality. And like, I'm sitting at a table with four corners. Yeah. What didn't make more sense if we could all get a corner, you know? No? Instead of saying, I love to help you drag that table and my other three pals. But, you know, it was just after that last thing, oh, it was a mesh.

Yeah, right. We can't. Oh, you should have been there. My back is still hautes. I can't even. You keep paying that insurance because, you know, I'm nothing else can come up. Yeah, keep making your bills. All right. So let's go, let's go to Tomatoes. For the first time ever, my, my sister, runs a small nonprofit in New Jersey. In Clifton, New Jersey, she has this little farm, and she grows produce and gives it to,

spreads it throughout Patterson and Passaic and all these different cities. And she's got these old farms and she's reworked and brought them back to life. So we got all these tomatoes. And we went down to the Jersey Shore. And my nephews and my brother-in-law and sister and my family, we actually canned, cook down. and can these tomatoes, right? So it really started my brain thinking, like, I mindlessly try and make sauce all the time,

but I'm always, don't really, again, being thoughtful, don't really put too much thinking into the tomatoes. And what in your mind, now you have this brand, the Bianco-Dina Polly brand, which, by the way, was a Gelson's for like a half a second. They were right there next to the,

They'll be back. They'll be back. They'll be back now because we just released Harvest. Okay, good, good. We just released this year's harvest, so they'll be back. So what makes a great canned tomato? And should you go for the whole tomato or should you go for the crushed tomato? Well, here's, I'm going to get to, we're going to dive deep right now.

All right, good. We'll put your helmet on or the air or the scuba here. Here's the thing about canned tomatoes. You know, when I started out, it was almost like a bad word, you know, like, do you use fresh tomatoes? I was like, well, you know, sheepingly, you say, well, no, they're canned. Yeah. And, you know, as you can see, my language can somehow be peppered with inappropriate language,

which is my kids, are the same holster for tomatoes, where the best is not always the most appropriate. for the situation. For instance, like we grow, I mean, we have fresh tomatoes to grow,

and we get them warm from the sun, and we slice them. Sometimes, you know, sometimes if I was eating them, I want to rinse it off. And,

you know, and hit it with some mold and salt and happy days. Right. For customers, they always rinse them. You know,

and they're great eating tomatoes and they're magical for capraising. Right. But for, for, you know, harvest for, you know, tomatoes, it is like a film in that way.

It's happening. We got to put it in the can, literally. Right. You know? And at the peak of its production, right film references here, no? Yeah, it's picked as production. And then it's now suspended for you to Netflix and enjoy the.

Right, right. So the thing about what makes a great tomato as a canned product did not necessarily make it great for an eater the praise it for it. So what I look for in a tomato product, which is, you know, like in Italy, where you'll see San Marzano varieties,

they go very long, you know, in their climate, in the climate, you'll see that, you know, it's a longer, slow growing period.

Where we grow kind of Central Valley and up in the Sack Valley, right um you know with you know we can deal with some extreme heat you're dealing with a lot of you know these are grown organically so you're dealing with you know you know spider mites or bottom end rot or sunburn right so we grow them in a in a in a way we want a shorter squatier tomato okay with a tough skin um with a very low moisture they can hold up as a good flavor profile from the earth like so from the earth meaning that like for For instance, so my partner, Rob DiNapoli, third generation in Central California,

as families are a grower and a packer, you know, canter. But we also partner with three different farmers. Okay. That grow specifically, they're all organic, but like each one might have a different crop rotation, you know, depending on what was last year. Like, for instance, like if our tomatoes this year, where they were planted last year was hard red spring wheat and that was turned in and that that would give the soil the farmer knows what to give the soil not only from a nutrient

perspective right but it would create a passivity in the soil it would allow the rooting system to get to the levels of to our or earth that nature provided to provide a nutritional aspect so got it so so We want to grow things just like in a chair. I was talking about in its utility and its design and its materials. Well, tomato very similar. Right. And we want it to be, you know, a red color because that's going to show not only

it's traditional, but it carries most of the red is inside the skin. Like 80% it comes from the lycopene, which is all that little thin layer that you scraped it on the inside of the skin. So there's new technology, the steam peel, but they get an extreme amount. There's not a lot of waste on that lycopene, so it's more cancer fighting those elements are. Also, look at things that are, you know, we want them, if you took them to lab, they nutritionally calcout as high as they could be. They taste good and they are good. So I think even that simplicity of a lot of times in canning in the 70s and 80s, even in some today,

a lot of like when a salesman, let's just say, would do a cutting for a, for a, for a 70s and 80s, restaurants. Hey, look at our tomatoes. It's super firm. It's just like a fresh when you cut it. Yeah. Well, they aren't super firm because they're canned product. Right. So they're brought to, you know, they're brought up temperature to pack them and to season. So they're actually kickstarted on the process of you, now taking over the baton and carrying them over the finish line in your Sunday gravy or just hand-crushing them for pizza. And the answer your second part was better. Well, again, in the appropriation of it. We use whole peel and we also use crust.

Right. The crust that we do, I started doing because when they came, when the tomatoes were harvested, you saw that some of the big lorries that come in, the big trails are coming, some of the ones in the middle or the bottom would break or get slightly crushed or maybe off size. And those ones are delicious. Yeah. So if we crush them, they already started, we'll be halfway there, not wasting them. And we also use a, a, a color that's called a ragger. A ragger makes it, makes it, makes it, makes a, it's a kind of a grinding that makes it more of a, a, a regular kind of cut more than like you see some like diced tomatoes, which you need to use very firm, almost, almost unriped tomatoes to dice them so they're cubable. It's never, it's natural to me.

Got it. I think, they have to taste good. They have to be a good source. and they have to be appropriate. So that's what I look for. That makes sense. That makes perfect sense. This gives me a good,

I mean, this is going to be a continued journey. But I know from just picking them up. All right, let's do it. Yeah, so good. And they're delicious. Whatever. And the other part, just the other part, well, the other part about that, too, is, you know, there was a lot of things where, like,

the, you know, like doing, like, like, it was a perfect kind of relationship, which was me being a chef, even though I have a little garden, I grow a little bit, I'm not a farmer. Yeah. But we worked with our farmers.

We worked with our canter, my partner, and the end use. We had to see, at the beginning, in the middle and the end, you know, all parts of the story were covered.

So the end user, I could explain as a business owner and as a chef, I knew that they weren't going to be inexpensive, but I wanted to work on the yield. So I could, I knew that some of my, challenges on some of the packs.

You know, I see a lot of water on the top. You know, the viscosity was very thin. So I worked hard on getting the right thickness and the viscosity of the puree that they were packed in. So if you hand crushed them, you know, I was able to do, well, it wasn't really difficult math. I was just watching it, but watching that when you crush them, there's a certain amount of water that's released.

That mixed with the thicker puree. would ultimately leave you with the perfect pizza or pasta, you know, end use to carry on through salt. So, yeah. So good. So good. Yeah. Yeah, again, being thoughtful about every step of the way. I know we've got to wrap up.

We're going to have to do this again when we can sit and actually. Anytime. I'm easy to find. And we'll sit. I don't have much going on, actually. Me neither. We'll sit at a table and drink some wine and get from. further into it. There's so much more I want to talk about. Anytime. Yeah, man, let's do it.

All right. You're the best.