colleen r Food Journal

In a university town, there’s no shortage of pizza joints that cater to students by offering pies at low prices delivered until the wee hours. If cheap and greasy is what you’re craving, Gainesville’s got a ton of pizzerias that will hook you up in 30 minutes or less. But among the myriad “Wacky Wednesday: Large Pizza for $3.99” pizza chains, the shining star of Gainesville’s pizza scene is Satchel’s.

By all logic, Satchel’s Pizza should not be a success. It’s located in the somewhat remote, rundown warehouse district; there’s little available parking; it has a small kitchen with just two ovens and the food can take up to 45 minutes; they don’t deliver; and they only accept cash. Yet the restaurant is packed almost every time I’ve been there, and it’s not unheard of to wait half an hour for a table. So, what’s Satchel’s secret? The food is just that good. They only make three things—pizza, salad and calzone—and all three are absolutely to-die-for delicious.

The pizza is the best I’ve ever had, hands down. The crust is thin, crispy on the outside, chewy on the inside, a perfect complement to the sauce and cheese. Satchel’s offers a variety of toppings from the ordinary (pepperoni and sausage) to the more unexpected (broccoli and tempeh). My personal favorite is spinach and artichoke hearts. They also offer a deep-dish pizza, which I’ve always wanted to try. Satchel’s promises that the deep dish is worth the 45 minutes it takes to make it, and I believe them.

I can’t go to Satchel’s without ordering the salad. Satch’s salad with apples, sunflower seeds, almonds and a walnut (for good luck) is served with their homemade balsamic vinaigrette, which they also sell by the bottle. The salad is so good, sometimes I’m tempted to skip the pizza altogether. (But I never do.)

The menu warns that the calzones may be addictive. I’ve eaten Satchel’s calzone a few times, and it’s always tasty—the crust is just right and the ricotta doesn’t overpower the other ingredients. But unfortunately, the calzone often gets outshined by my love for the pizza and salad, and it’s not something I order on a regular basis.

I used to think there was a time and a place for cardboard-like crust covered with overly sweet red sauce and rubbery cheese. Especially if the time was 3 a.m. and the place was my living room after a night at the bar. But that’s one gastronomic bad decision I won’t be making again. Now that I’ve been introduced to what pizza can and should be, I’ll never go back.

I love bread. Sourdough? Yes, please. Cuban-style? I’ll take two. Crusty pistachio bread from my favorite bakery? I could easily hoover up a half loaf in a day. If my last meal were freshly baked bread, cheese and fruit, I could die happy.

But after three months of no-holds-barred indulgence, I’m back on the healthy diet plan, trying to shrink this belly fat that got a little out of control during the holiday season. Which means that I’m thinking about bread much more often than I’m eating it these days.

Actually baking yeast bread from scratch always seemed daunting and mysterious to me. (Quick breads don’t count; in my mind, they’re more like cake or muffins.) I think it’s the precision and science involved that freaks me out—the yeast has to be active; the flour has to have the right amount of gluten; the water has to be an exact temperature; the dough consistency has to be just so. I generally like to be a little more fast and loose with cooking, and I rarely follow any recipe exactly as it’s written.

But then I got a subscription to Cook’s Illustrated and was totally converted by their recipe for black olive and rosemary bread. They explained exactly what to do every step or the way and made it sound so simple. You know what? It really was pretty easy. And, since bread is basically flour, yeast and water, I felt kind of silly for spending $6 on that crusty pistachio loaf.

Since then, I’ve branched out into other bread recipes and cooking techniques. My current favorite is Cook’s Illustrated’s Almost No-Knead Bread, jazzed up with parmesan and rosemary. The recipe couldn’t be easier—you don’t really even have to knead the dough, for crying out loud—or more delicious.

Last week, I tried baking brioche ala Martha Stewart: one chocolate-swirl and one plain. Mine was a little more rustic than Martha's, but still, it was a pretty good success overall. I took the finished product in to the office today so the festival of carbohydrates can expand my co-workers’ waistlines rather than my own. Because having homemade brioche in the house and not being able to eat any? Torture.