White Pies

So, pizza is dough, sauce, cheese. You can argue you don’t need sauce to have pizza, but a pizzeria requires sauce. If you’re going to call what you’re making pizza, you need one pizza that’s tomato, mozzarella, dough. Personally, I love white pizzas. Many of my most successful pizzas have been white. People think you need a “white sauce” if there isn’t going to be tomato sauce. But that’s vague. What’s white sauce anyway?

There’s cream, and a lot of things you can do to flavor cream. I’ve been putting cream on pizza forever, but I was inspired by the way Joe Beddia of Pizzeria Beddia makes his whipped flavored cream sauces while helping him during his cookbook party. Joe made this “spring cream” that was cream, garlic, basil, and chives tossed in a Cuisinart. (If you don’t know, the original Pizzeria Beddia was this tiny place in Philly’s Fishtown neighborhood where Joe, the owner, basically did everything and used only the highest-quality ingredients.)