tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-44774353850890662732024-03-05T11:56:37.887-08:00Master Pizza Chef Diana's MusingsAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00114223512022518127noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477435385089066273.post-40836105093874650232018-10-08T12:35:00.000-07:002018-10-08T12:35:26.766-07:0013 Ways We Do It Better @ Diana's<br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">1. Not Health Food Just
Healthy Food<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">2. We Only Use Top Quality
Produce<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">3. We Only Use Top Quality
Meats<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">4. We Make Our Sauce Fresh
Daily—and let it marinate for over 24 hours before it’s ready for you.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">5. We Make All Our Artisan Pizza Doughs Daily In House<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">6. We Only Use 100% Olive Oil<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">7. We Only Have Low Fat
Mozzarella<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">8. We Don’t Use Imitation
Meats<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">9. We Only Use Sea Salt In Our
Recipes<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">10. It’s Easy To Order
Vegetarian<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">11. We Don’t Use Fake Cheese,
We Don’t Use Lard<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">12. Awarded Canada’s Best Pizza
2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 & 2009 <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">13.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Special Orders Don’t Upset Us<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I would like to extend the
following term that I've spoken about for years:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Non-food ingredient hangover -
when the food you've eaten has more non-food ingredients than real-food
ingredients and causes your body to feel unwell. Symptoms can include extreme
heartburn, headaches, blurred vision, upset stomach, tiredness, irritability,
you get the picture. What if the main reasons you don't feel good in your body
is because the foods you're giving it aren't actually real food?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00114223512022518127noreply@blogger.com0730 St Anne's Rd Unit R, Winnipeg, MB R2N 0A2, Canada49.8237009 -97.08526219999998824.3016664 -138.3938562 75.3457354 -55.776668199999989tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477435385089066273.post-24826729538928303582016-02-28T10:51:00.000-08:002016-02-28T10:51:54.194-08:00Did You Know About Our Cheese?<div class="MsoNormal">
At Diana's,
we only use 100% Canadian dairy cheeses on our pizzas, with the exception of
the *by request only* Daiya shred, a non-dairy, non-GMO, vegan friendly cheese
and the Buffalo Mozzarella which comes straight from Italy. That sounds pretty straight forward, right? Doesn't
every pizza ever made come with real dairy cheese? Nope, not in Canada, and it
hasn't been that way for a while. Let me
explain. </div>
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The other
day I got a flyer in the mail from one of the pizza chains, advertising a new
line of designer pizzas, with, of all things 100% REAL Canadian Mozzarella
cheese. Yes, it appears that they are
now offering to put REAL dairy mozzarella on their pizzas, but not for the
usual $5 a pizza price. They are
marketing this designer line of pizzas as ‘gourmet’ because they put REAL dairy
mozzarella on them, so they’re more expensive.
Yeah, it's impossible to make a pizza with real-food ingredients for the
low, low price they usually push their pizzas at. </div>
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This is no
surprise to me, as a master pizza chef I've been educating people for years. The facts are that pizza chains are not using
real 100% dairy mozzarella. Most use
either soy or canola based cheeses.
Yeah, you read that right, cheese made from oil, not dairy. The
worst offenders use a cheese made from a petroleum based oil. So the same stuff we put in our cars is what many
non-food ingredient cheeses are made from.
But don't worry, this is a food grade version of petroleum, so you know,
it's like the petroleum jelly they sell that you can use on skin. Except I don't know anybody who uses that on
their skin. Mmmm, can I get extra
petroleum jelly cheese on that pizza? Yeah?! I don't know about you, but I
don't want to eat that. Even if it looks
like something I usually really like, like pizza. Eating that kind of stuff gives me a really
bad non-food ingredient hangover. And I
know I'm not the only one. </div>
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There is a lot of pressure in today's society to get 'the
best deal' and 'the lowest price', for goods and services to the extreme that
many feel that if they don't get the lowest price then it means they have been
taken advantage of. And who wants to
feel that way? While there may be little or no difference between some goods
and services I must be a beacon of reason when it comes to pizza. Not all pizzas are created equal. </div>
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At Diana's, we only
use 100% Canadian dairy cheeses on our pizzas, with the exception of the *by
request only* Daiya shred, a non-dairy, non-GMO, vegan friendly cheese and the
Buffalo Mozzarella which comes straight from Italy. That sounds pretty straight forward, right?
Yeah, that's how we do.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00114223512022518127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477435385089066273.post-28597271762761604642016-02-10T08:23:00.000-08:002016-02-10T08:23:54.275-08:00Did You Know About Our Marinara?<div class="MsoNormal">
At Diana's, we start our award winning marinara with
premium, grade 'A' canned tomatoes. The best and most expensive in the
industry, and I say that with pride! They are bright red in the can, naturally
sweet and don't need any dyes, nor any added sugar. Then we add our own blend of top quality
herbs and spices and let it marinate before we use it on your pizzas. </div>
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Places that make pizzas to compete with the lowest price use grade 'C' or 'D'
quality tomatoes which are orangey/brown in the can. The acid level in these low quality tomatoes
is so high, that it leaches tin flavour from the can into the tomatoes. The more expensive of these low quality
canned tomatoes have a vinyl liner inside the can to prevent the metal 'flavour'
transfer. MMMMmmm, yummeh. People with hyper-sensitive palates like me
can taste that. I can't eat anything
with low quality tomatoes, rather, I can't eat it without needing to chase it
down with some kind of thick pink digestive aid. </div>
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To mask the bitterness of the low quality tomatoes pizza
chain places add copious amounts of sugar.
Sometimes it's actual sugar, mostly it's the equally inexpensive
fructose syrup. A lot of it. The other ingredient they use in copious
amounts is red dye. Red dyes have been
linked to increased aggression in children. Google it. </div>
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If you're a parent and have ever noticed a behavioural
change in your child 5-65 minutes after ingesting a $5 pizza, it could be the
sauce. If you've ever woken up in the
middle of the night with intense heartburn after having a $5 pizza that day it
could be the sauce. Or it could be that
a $5 pizza is made with more non-food ingredients than real-food ingredients
and your body is telling you it doesn't like it. </div>
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Consider that your body takes an average of 30-48 hours to
digest a meal, when you have a pizza from Diana's, you feel great, when you
have pizza made with non-food ingredients, you need digestive aids to help you
cope. </div>
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At Diana's, we start our award winning marinara with
premium, grade 'A' canned tomatoes. The best and most expensive in the
industry, and I say that with pride! They are bright red in the can, naturally
sweet and don't need any dyes, nor any added sugar. Then we add our own blend of top quality
herbs and spices and let it marinate before we use it on your pizza. </div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00114223512022518127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477435385089066273.post-88176858330140079782015-12-30T11:34:00.000-08:002015-12-30T11:34:01.451-08:00Do You Know About Our Dough?<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"> We
make our pizza dough fresh in the Cucina every day using 7 simple ingredients
and we only use Olive oil - YES it's more 4 times more expensive than the
mainstream canola or soy oil but it gives our pizza crust that authentic
Italian bread flavour. And we only use Sea salt in our dough, because
it's what the Olive oil deserves. Did you know that each dough ball is
hand rolled? Yup, you don't let a machine work over this nice of a pizza dough!
And after each dough ball is hand rolled, we let it cold ferment (aka proof/rise) and develop
it's flavours for a minimum of 30 hours before it's ready to be your pizza
crust or flatbread. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Back in 2008 when I took my
certified Italian Pizza School course, my Italian instructors talked at great
lengths about the importance of using Olive oil over other forms of oil or fat,
(*did you know some places use lard???It’s true, I don't want to scare you, but
some places even use imitation lard which is really, really bad for your health!)
and they also spoke at length about the importance of a high quality Sea
salt.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">They spoke about the importance of
choosing a high quality flour, and allowing the dough to develop it’s flavours
at a slowed pace.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> .</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> All of this, they said,
is of great importance to how your body digests the pizza, and if you skip
these high quality ingredients, or one of the steps to allow the flavours to
develop in your dough, your body knows it and will have a difficult time digesting the food.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Knowing that your body takes an average of
30-48 hours to digest a</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">meal, it’s not
something we want you and your body feeling bad or unsettled about later in the
night or the next day.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Rather, we’d like
you and your body to just enjoy all the goodness of all the ingredients that
actually nourish your body and soul, not just fill an empty tummy:).</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">At Diana's, we know that we cater to those
with discerning tastes, those who can appreciate an authentic pizza made with a
great artisan pizza dough. Next post I'll discuss ingredients we use at Diana's vs 'ingredients' mainstream places use.</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00114223512022518127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477435385089066273.post-56039822258361414312015-12-10T11:05:00.001-08:002015-12-10T11:05:19.152-08:00Why I love sharing my knowledge of artisan pizza with home pizza chefs<div class="MsoNormal">
You may not know that
I have been teaching pizza making classes for over 10 years and I’m often asked
why I would share my extensive knowledge about the art and craft of pizza
making. Well, initially it started with
people buying my pizza dough. Then people
started calling the store to ask how to hand stretch it and bake it at home -
which is challenging to describe over a phone, never mind in the middle of a
busy supper rush! Naturally, it evolved
into pizza making classes, both private and with the city of Winnipeg's Leisure
guide. As it turns out, I've found a
similar passion for a great pizza from these kindred spirits and over the years
I’ve come up with several reasons for sharing my extensive knowledge...<o:p></o:p></div>
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A passionate home
pizza chef is rarely concerned with how much the ingredients cost, or how much
time it takes to make it, they are solely concerned with the best quality and
taste.<o:p></o:p></div>
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A home pizza chef...<o:p></o:p></div>
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... stocks their
kitchen pantry with the same simple ingredients that you would find/have found
in their grandmothers’ kitchens. <o:p></o:p></div>
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... won’t use fake or
imitation cheeses – unless there is a dietary restriction. And even when there is a dietary consideration,
you will never find a home pizza chef who searches out the cheapest non-dairy
imitation cheese, rather they are looking for one made with good ingredients
that anyone can pronounce. And one that they find appealing in taste and baking
consistency.<o:p></o:p></div>
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...will never try to
make a pizza for $1. 50* [*in the pizza industry the average $5 pizza actually
contains $1.50 worth of ingredients – and that includes the highly colourful
logo’d cardboard box – the most expensive “ingredient” for a $5 pizza.]<o:p></o:p></div>
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...discerns true
quality ingredients over marketing slogans.
A home pizza chef is concerned with how their body and their loved ones
bodies digest the food that they have so lovingly made. They see the ‘you are
what you eat’ connection with the quality of the food they choose to nourish
their bodies and of their loved ones.<o:p></o:p></div>
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...rarely refer to us as
expensive. They realize that the time and
hard earned money they spend shopping for premium ingredients, cleaning,
prepping, and baking up of those ingredients and then cleaning up after the
meal is a labour of love whereas a business that strives to meet the same excellence
pays its team each step of that process. </div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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We’d thought it’d be fun to see
your creations, so home pizza chefs –especially those who start off with a
Diana’s Cucina dough ball, we’d love to see what you’re making – please post a
pic to our Instagram page and share what kind of dough you used, and what’s on your
pizza creation – each month my team and I will vote on our favourites and the
winner will win a special Diana’s home pizza chef prize! <o:p></o:p></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00114223512022518127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477435385089066273.post-33915583097343783032015-09-28T09:33:00.001-07:002015-09-28T09:34:17.998-07:00<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0aTxiH3VjsQyfD6tHhyphenhyphengC9gBpmM186aMK9z3wfvd_FhSz6rPN7w2MbbckFVq_EIwDQpEDF1TD2YPZoJhf2toAsx3zYOMjgfl_lIlE1RS-cmUk0DEj6yu8koUimBRWm-YIHivGJAAkQVw/s1600/phoney+butter+tart.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0aTxiH3VjsQyfD6tHhyphenhyphengC9gBpmM186aMK9z3wfvd_FhSz6rPN7w2MbbckFVq_EIwDQpEDF1TD2YPZoJhf2toAsx3zYOMjgfl_lIlE1RS-cmUk0DEj6yu8koUimBRWm-YIHivGJAAkQVw/s320/phoney+butter+tart.jpg" width="320" /></a><span lang="EN-CA"><b>Why I
regret buying these butter tarts</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA">It’s not
what you think. It’s not that I regret
buying a treat that I know isn’t totally awesome for my body, nope it’s because
these butter tarts are deceptive. They
look like they’re the real deal. They
look tasty. The font on the front of the
box reminded me of another company (not a baking company), that makes authentic
potato chips and I transferred my trust from that company over to this box. Because of the way the box looks. But as
it turns out, these are not real butter tarts. What do I mean by real? I mean
authentic. What do I mean by authentic?
I mean ingredients authentic to the original recipe. Period.
No modified smodified shortening aka fake butter. Butter tarts means “butter”
is actually on the ingredient list. Like
the first or second ingredient on the ingredients list. Let me
back up. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA">I don’t buy a lot of treats and
sweets for my household, but I’ll buy one every other week. The other day I was shopping with my boys and
we picked up some brownies – ones that are made with real butter and cocoa. I saw these butter tarts advertised on
sale. It’s been a good while since I’ve
treated myself to a butter tart, and I decided that I deserved one that night. I know my boys don’t like them and I didn’t
want the pressure of having to eat an entire box to myself, but I reasoned that
at the sale price it would be ok if I enjoyed half the box before they expired. So I put them in the cart and brought them home. As I prepped and cooked dinner I was
salivating thinking about these butter tarts.
Yes I realize that I’m a grown up and I could have just eaten one in the
truck on the way home or as soon as I got all my groceries unpacked and put
away. But I was waiting to have it for
my dessert. My indulgence, my reward for
a job well done, a good day. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA">I couldn’t stop thinking about them, I even
went lighter on my dinner, knowing that I was gonna eat one of those delicious
looking butter tarts afterwards. When
the time to eat one finally arrived I couldn’t stand the wait any longer. I opened the wrapping and the box. I took one out and took a bite, and I
immediately knew I had been duped. THESE
AREN’T BUTTER TARTS! THESE ARE IMPOSTER BUTTER TARTS!!! I wanted to throw it in the garbage, but for
some reason unknown to me at the time, I kept eating it, more and more
dissatisfied with each bite, feeling the tension rise. Then I
needed to check the ingredient list, to confirm what my taste buds already
knew. I realized I felt that I MUST eat it because I
paid good money for it, and afterall, I waited to enjoy this treat. But I wasn’t enjoying it. Not one bit.
Each time I took another bite I was expecting something different. Like somehow it would magically turn itself
into the thing I was expecting. Didn’t
happen. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA">I finally took the disappointing
imposter butter tart out of my hand and threw it in the garbage. The box with the rest of the phony butter
tarts sat on my counter for days. I want
to give the rest away, but I realize I couldn’t. There’s this part of me that feels like I’m
not being authentic by giving this ‘phoney’ treat away....like ‘here, I think
these are crap, but maybe you can’t tell’. And maybe the person I’d give them too doesn’t
have the hyper sensitive palate I do, maybe they don’t care? But I do.
These aren’t real ingredients, and I can’t give anyone I care about
crummy ingredients that I instinctively know is the really bad stuff to put in
your body. Your body knows the truth,
your body would rather you eat REAL BUTTER with SUGAR instead of modified shortening
– aka imitation lard. It’s not the same,
it’s not even close. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA">Go ahead and google
up the history of margarine and modified shortening. And
you know, a lot of pizza chains use this same ingredient to make their
extremely cheap pizzas – the dough AND the cheese. Yup, same ingredient to create different
phoney foods. Great job modern day humanity;
let’s make fake ingredients just so we
can make cheap imitation foods. My kids
have plastic fake foods to play with, and I don’t even let them put those in
their mouths! And, I’m done with
cheap. I’d rather have paid 3 times what
I paid for the imitation butter tarts for the real thing. If I had done that, I
would have enjoyed them. You get what
you pay for and the truth is, you are what you eat. This lady is all authentic and doesn’t like
imposters...growing up, there was the name ‘poser’ given to something or
someone pretending to be something or someone it wasn’t...so give me the real thing
or throw it in the garbage. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA">I ended up
throwing the imitation butter tarts in the garbage, before the expiry
date. And I’m pretty happy with myself
for doing that; a younger version of me might have attempted to eat another
one, or let them sit on the counter until the expiry date, or given it to
someone else, because I severely dislike wasting perfectly good food. But the wiser me knows that this food wasn’t made
with edible ingredients. So it belongs
in the garbage. And before you start
sending me emails or post comments about being grateful for things I’m just going to
say to stop yourself. Conversely, if you
are ever gifted any kind of food by me, you will know that it’s REAL food,
something I would eat myself, feed to my children, because I care about what
goes in. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00114223512022518127noreply@blogger.com0