Category Archives: pizza

Za Beers

I’m taking the same approach with the beer we serve as I do with the food we serve. “Keep it Local” this has been one of our mantras since we opened.

It used to be, a restaurant’s beer list had to be exclusively mass marketed beers, not necessarily good beer. Often times these beer lists were written by your beer distributor. These beers typically included mega brands such as Budweiser, Heineken (YUCK!), Miller Lite etc.. If you were really daring you would include such obscure brands such as Corona or even Amstel.

Then it became okay to add a “craft” brew or 2, Sam Adams did start a revolution, but you still had to offer the staples.

About 15 years ago, you could get away with not offering the national mega brands, however, you had to be prepared for the backlash. “WTF no Budweiser, I’ll just have water” was a common response and not the one we wanted, after all we are in the business of selling beer.

Going forward a few more years we were able to get to the point that we were just serving regional craft beers; New England and New York, which was a big step in the right direction. Enough restaurants were doing the same thing, costumers began to expect a good beer list. And with such a great selection of beers to choose from it was an easy transition. The hardest part was just deciding which great regional beers you wanted to try next.

Now, I am trying to make our beer list as local as possible. One of the hurdles for me is that people expect to see several different breweries on a list, not just a couple. My thought is if you go to a brewery, and most of them are busy, you are only offered that breweries beers. No one complains about that. Also traveling in Europe most restaurants offer just one breweries beers; I’m sure that they are receive financial benefits for doing so. That said, I wanted to make our list as local as possible.

Currently our 12 beer list consist of only beer from within greater Boston with the vast majority coming from the Arlington Brewing Co. and the Medford Brewing Co. If I could get all our beer offerings from these 2 breweries I would, I’m working on it.

These are 2 breweries where I have a personal relationship with the them, I know the people and I want to support them.

One of the Arlington Brewing Co. main people is the father of 2 former Za employees, one of which was a schoolmate of my son. One of their delivery people is another one of my son’s former classmates. These are my neighbors, people that are regular Za customers, they support us, we support them.

As for the Medford Brewing Co. it’s less than 2 miles from Za and the it’s place I go to for a beer with friends, it’s my local. When I place my orders it’s with one of the breweries 2 owners, and the other owner makes the deliveries. This is the type of business that I want to support. Also, on Sunday late morning’s the brewery sponsors a run, it’s casual, not a race. You go at your own pace and decide your own distance. Most people chose between 3, 5 or 7 mile, predetermined routes that all start and finish at the brewery. Nick, one of the brewery’s owners is often running along with us.

By limiting the number of breweries, we are not sacrificing quality. Both the selection and quality of the beers these breweries offer are top notch.

So, the next time you dine at Za, have a beer, most likely it will be from one of these 2 breweries.

Drink a beer or 2, and help us support our local business partners.

Cheers!

Life After EVOO: Embracing New Adventures

I’m sure by now you know that EVOO has closed. Last June, after 26 years we decided it was time step back and take advantage of our health and good fortunes by spending more time with our friends and family; I hope they feel the same way as we do. With EVOO closed I find myself in a great place with less stress and more time to do the things that I have dreamed about doing.

Colleen and I enjoying a bit of our
new found free-time.

EVOO had been a passion for me, I truly loved creating local-seasonal menus, the camaraderie and the rush of working a busy line shift. I am going to miss so many wonderful aspects of EVOO, especially the people, we were blessed with extraordinary co-workers and loyal guests, many of which have become good friends. That said, now several months after closing, I don’t in any way want to go back to long hours, working most nights, weekends and many holidays. Nor do I wish to have the daily stresses of running a chef-driven farm-to-table restaurant back in my life.

Randy and I on EVOO’s last day

Colleen and I still own and operate our pizza place Za in our hometown of Arlington, MA, which recently celebrated 20 years of being in business. Being less than two miles from home it’s a super easy commute, quite often done by bike. The staff, many of whom have been with us for more than a decade, not only do they make my new less stressful, less-hours job easy, they make it a pleasure to be there.

Za Arlington

With some of that extra time I find myself with a desire to continue to write about the things I enjoy. Most of my previous posts have been about EVOO. I now want to branch out and write about some of my other passions, such as the time spent with friends and family, the places I am fortunate enough to visit and sailing adventures may end up being subjects of future posts. I will also continue to write about food and the happenings at Za with an occasional recipe thrown in.

Speaking of sailing adventures, with my next blog I am going to introduce it’s new direction by sharing a multi-part post chronicling a sailing passage across the Atlantic Ocean which I took part in back in 2022. I documented our trip as it unfolded, writing details daily. I didn’t know if I would ever be able to partake in such an ambitious trip again and I wanted to have a keepsake, so I wrote about it. Follow the story and see how we delt with getting to the starting point in the Canary Islands while dealing in a newly post COVID world, provisioning the boat and overcoming a myriad of challenges along the way; ending in Guadeloupe 24 days after we initially set sail.

Avocet sunset

Let the adventure begin…

      Za final cooking instructions

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      1/2 cooked, not cut ‘za

      As many of you know Za is EVOO’s sister restaurant with two locations, one in Kendall Square, Cambridge, abutting EVOO and the original Za is on Massachusetts Avenue in Arlington.  When the timing is not right for you to dine at either restaurant, you can still enjoy ‘za on your own schedule.  Below is the best way I have found for finish cooking or re-heating ‘za. So, if you are not sure what time you want to eat, but you know you want ‘za, don’t serve it soggy and cold.  Follow these simple instructions to eat crispy crusted hot pizza whenever you want with little effort.

      The first thing you need to do is order a stack of za from either location.  They are 10″ pizzas that will serve one hardy appetite or two can share one za paired with one of Za’s amazing salads.  Order a bunch and finish cooking on your time.  I tend to order them early in the day, asking for them to be 1/2 cooked, not cut and refrigerated until pick-up. There is no need to take them home hot.  When I get home I refrigerate the pizzas until I’m ready, whether it’s a few hours or a few days it doesn’t matter.

      When it’s time, preheat your oven to 375 degrees.  Once your oven reaches 375, place a heavy duty cookie sheet on the middle rack in your oven and heat the cookie sheet for 5 minutes, this will ensure a crisp bottom.  If you have multiple racks and multiple sheet pans you can finish cooking several pizzas at a time, however, be careful the temperature on the bottom and top racks can vary greatly from the middle one.

      Now add your pizza, I have found it takes between 8 and 12 minutes to get the crust crispy and the cheese to gooey.  Use a burger flipping spatula lifting the ‘za in the middle.  The sides of the ‘za not being held by the spatula should not droop, the topping should be hot and bubbling in spots. Remove the Za from the oven place on a big cutting board, cut into eight equal sized pieces and serve.

       

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      Step 1: Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees.

       

       

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      Step 2: When oven reaches 375, place sheet pan on the middle rack in the oven for an additional 5 minutes.

       

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      Step 3: Place ‘za on hot sheet pan.

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      Step 4: Look at doneness, brown edges, bubbly cheese.

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      Step 5: Check bottom, za is nicely browned and not droopy.

      cutting za

      Step 6: Cut and enjoy your za.