It's Sip With Nikki's One Year Podcast Anniversary AND the last Episode of 2024! In honor of both, I'm sharing an encore release of our very first episode, with a new intro and teaser for next week!

My guest in our first episode was Dan Richer, a fellow Matawan, NJ born chef and owner of Razza in Jersey City, which was named Best Pizza in North America by "50 Best". He’s the author of the New York Times Best Seller, “The Joy of Pizza” my go-to book for at-home pizza making! With 5 James Beard Nominations under his belt, Dan has dedicated his professional career to understanding the intricacies of pizza and practicing his craft daily. We have a blast talking about:

• All the tips to help elevate YOUR at home pizza game (or get started if you haven't yet).
• How he created his own unique famous pizza style
• The importance of using local ingredients and the always hot discussion of 00 flour and San Marzano tomatoes and if they really make a difference...
• An unexpected wine in our Sip Spotlight and our favorite pizza and wine pairings
• How to get out of your own way to pursue your passions like both Dan and I

Links and Resources for you:

Find and Follow Dan @danricher and @razzanj on IG

Find and Follow Nikki on IG @nikkilamberti or on our Sip with Nikki Facebook Page

Get your copy of New York Times Bestseller "The Joy of Pizza" Here 

Order Dan's Collaboration of the BEST Crushed red peppers here 

Here's the link with my affiliate parter Wine.com for this episodes Sip Spotlight wine

Podcast website: www.sipwithnikki.com: Sign up there to be part of our SIP Community and receive resources and update

Did you know I make my own wine here in Sonoma County? My 2021 Sollevato Sangiovese is available to be shipped to most US States. Use the code PODLISTENER for 10% off. It's a delicious, medium bodied, aromatic red wine that is perfect with pizza, pasta and your charcuterie spread!

• You can sign up HERE to be the first to know when the wines you are hearing about are available in 2025!

You NEED some delicious California Olive Oil from our awesome sponsor American Olive Farmer. Use code SipWithNikki for $10 off your order!

If you'd like to Support the Podcast, you can buy me a glass of wine and get a shoutout on a future episode.

Please leave a RATING or a REVIEW (on your podcast listening platform), or thumbs up and subscribe (on YouTube!)

Questions? Comments? Guest requests? nikki@sipwithnikki.com

Pizza is just this amazing platform for connecting with people and for discovering the world.

Like I never ever thought I would have to study thermodynamics in my career, but I do, and it makes our pizza better because of it.

Hey there, it's Nikki Lamberti and welcome back to Sip With Nikki.

I can't believe it, but this is the Final episode of 2024.

I am recording this in the last few days of December, which also coincidentally happens to be the one year anniversary of the podcast.

And one of the things that I thought would be so cool to commemorate that is to share an encore release of our very first episode.

Now, before I tee that up for you, I wanted to take a moment to thank all All of the podcast angels and sponsors who have supported the podcast over this year through your donations.

I always joke and say, Hey, you can buy me a glass of wine.

But just so you know, those donations go to actually cover the cost of operating and producing the podcast, which is me, your one woman show over here.

And I'm just so appreciative.

It's not too late to be an angel for 2024.

Click the link in the show notes and you can become an angel like so many before you.

So that inaugural episode was with Dan Richer of Razzapizza in Jersey City, New Jersey, my home state.

And I feel like many of you who have found the podcast in the last year and are avid listeners scrolled all the way back in my huge extensive catalog.

To find episode number one.

By the way, the way that you do that is under the show of Sip with Nikki, not a particular episode, but back out into just the show overall.

That's where you can scroll down and then see all the past episodes.

There's such Goodness in there that I'm so proud of that I want to make sure you're listening to and if you click see all you Can scroll all the way back and you'll see episode number one from last december with dan now as you'll hear in my original intro Which i've

left in so I won't go into too much detail Dan and I grew up in the same town and he is just killing it with his very famous restaurant and his accolade Which is the best pizza in new york is actually in new jersey.

That's right And just to double check that this was still a thing, I literally ate in his restaurant again two nights ago.

So I was home for Christmas in New Jersey, and I gathered my sister, my brother in law, my niece, my nephew, and his girlfriend, and the six of us had another big meal.

Phenomenal meal.

Thanks to Dan and his team.

Shout out to Kevin who also works there at Rasa.

You guys are amazing.

I actually did some recording at our meal and I'm going to share that with you in an episode next week.

But to prep you for that, if you hadn't listened to episode number one, we're going to set the stage so you can hear how Dan got to where he is, what he's doing and what makes it so special.

So here we go.

Encore!

So in this week's episode, I am interviewing Dan Richer, who is a New York Times bestselling author for his book, The Joy of Pizza.

He owns a ridiculously awesome restaurant just outside of New York City in Jersey City called Razzapizza.

And we're from the same hometown, and he and I recently reconnected, and he has been such a guru and a guide to help Michael and I elevate our at home pizza game.

So if you like to make pizza at home, if you're trying to make it better, if you want to get started, wait till you hear some of his tips about working with sourdough the importance of fresh ingredients.

We have a couple laughs for sure.

We definitely have a strong Jersey connection and it's a lot of fun.

So can't wait for you to hear it.

Please welcome to sit with Nikki, Dan Richard, my fellow Madawan born fermentation nerd.

Hi, Dan.

Yes.

How you doing?

I'm so excited to have you here.

I'm so excited to be here.

This is so cool.

Thank you for being one of the groundbreaking inaugural guest on Sip with Nikki.

It means a lot to me.

I wouldn't miss it for the world.

In the intro, I shared a little bit with our listeners about your background, but I'd really love to dive in because one of the reasons I was so excited to invite you on is we started in the same place.

We are born and raised in the same hometown in central New Jersey, Rutgers University, which we also have in common, Cook College within Rutgers University, which is the ag school.

And then I read something in your very official fancy bio about Skipping your graduation to travel the world.

So let's start there.

Tell me what took you to where you are at Raza in Jersey City.

Yeah, grew up in WAN and the only college I got into was Rutgers and specifically Cook College.

They didn't want me at the, the real Rutgers.

I only got into Cook College, which they put you out is which

with the cows in the pasture on Route one.

Literally there's cows.

Outside of the dorm, it smells like horse manure 90 percent of the time at that dorm.

I know.

And I wouldn't change a thing about my past or where I went to college because it informed everything that I do.

I was taking the core classes that you were required to about agriculture and sustainability and learning about crop rotation when I was 18 years old.

I didn't think I would ever use that or care.

But as soon as I got out of college, I started to cook and that's when it all came full circle.

But backing up a step, I did skip my college graduation ceremony to fly to Italy because my cousin had an apartment in Rome.

He was studying architecture for a semester there.

And the Rutgers graduation ceremony is like six hours long.

I didn't want to have anything to do with that.

And I was just looking for an adventure.

I had been watching a lot of food network and food TV in general, instead of going to class.

Spoken

like a true Scarlet Knight!

No offense to you overachieving Rutgers alum out there.

I

just had this itch to go to Italy because I wanted to see what the food was all about.

My first job was as a busboy.

In an Italian restaurant in Madelon, do Sal's cafe out

of town.

Yeah.

So I was a bus boy there and I used to hang out in the kitchen, watching them, not thinking that I wanted to do that for the rest of my life.

But just because I was curious, I was a lot more curious about the kitchen than, than being in the dining room at that point.

But I was a busboy, then I became a waiter somewhere else, and then I flew to Italy, and my life became so clear to me.

I knew exactly what I wanted to do, and I took small steps every day trying to get there, and I'm still doing the same thing right now.

First of all, I got goosebumps when you say my life became clear to me.

That's amazing when those moments happen.

And some people in life have had those moments.

Some people are still looking for those moments.

I have experienced that too.

So when you say that, I get the goosies a little bit.

How did

you experience

that?

The first time I came to wine country on vacation and stood in a vineyard and met someone who said, I live here.

This is my house.

This These are my vines.

I made what's in this bottle from what's right here in front of you.

Please taste it and sit down at my picnic table.

And I was like, what is this?

It was just unbelievable.

And that's why I moved here to wine country in 2012.

In your book, and you guys, if you do not have the joy of cooking, pizza.

And if you know me, if you are connected with me on Facebook or Instagram, you should already know this.

You should have already bought it.

I share this link all the time, but Dan's book, the joy of pizza is actually how we got reconnected.

Because even though we grew up in the same town, there's a bit of an age difference between us.

In fact, you're my younger sister's age, but about, I don't know, a year and a half ago, a mutual friend that we have also from that one high school, shout out to Eric ball posted that, My childhood friend, Dan Richer, has just released a book all about pizza.

And I remember seeing that post and Michael and I already had the pizza bug, and we'd already been buying some books and trying some things and making a lot of home pizza.

And I was like, Oh my God, someone from our hometown is doing this?

Wait, he has Raza Pizza in Jersey City, which was voted The best pizza in New York City is actually in New Jersey.

That is one of your accolades, right?

Yeah, for sure.

And I saw that post, and I immediately ordered the book, and it literally became our pizza Bible.

And Michael and I dove into this book headfirst.

This was during COVID.

Then we did a Zoom online class with you, and I was like, Nerding out, like I was going to meet a celebrity.

I was like, Hi Dan, I'm Nikki.

I'm from, I don't know if you know me, but I love your book.

And I was like, totally nerding out.

And we have elevated our home pizza game so much.

And friends and family who are listening, who have enjoyed the, the product can hopefully vouch for that.

But you really take it from everything, diving into the ingredients and the fermentation science and sourdough starter and all of that.

We're going to get into that in a minute, but I remember the day that the book arrived from Amazon and I opened it up and I start reading your introduction and right away you call out how it all started at Pizza Village.

In Aberdeen, New Jersey, sitting under the posters, the faded posters of the Leading Tower and the Amalfi Coast.

And I'm like, I can picture the exact table that he's talking about.

And you talk about how pizza was like just embedded in your DNA.

And you say, the pizza back then may not have been anything fantastic, but it was like a part of who I am.

It all started there at Pizza Village for you, huh?

Yeah.

So then what is it then, going from that and then from going to Italy after college and having that moment of clarity, what is it that you took from the childhood pizza that we knew and loved to say, you know what, I'm going to put my own spin on it.

I'm not going to try to be like Rome or like Naples.

Talk to us a little bit about how you figured out what your unique style that you do now is going to be.

Yeah, for sure.

That was definitely a long journey.

It didn't happen overnight.

I'm not like this visionary by any means.

I just took what I loved about the pizza that I grew up eating and adapted it for the ovens that I was baking on.

So let's back up a little bit.

So I got out of college, flew to Italy, realized I wanted to do this.

So I spent the next few years learning how to cook.

And I worked at a pizzeria that a friend of mine owned.

And he said to me, go work there, learn the business, and then I'll sell it to you.

So for three years, I worked at this failing pizzeria and I was learning their way of doing things, which once I bought the restaurant, I changed everything because I realized like what I did want and what I didn't want, what was working, what's not working.

This pizzeria happened to have two wood fired ovens, which.

Was unique back then.

The place was started in 1990.

I, I started working there in 2003, and I bought it in 2006.

This was before all of the Neapolitan boom that there was during the oh six to 2015 or so.

So it wasn't very common to see Woodfired ovens, but this restaurant had it.

So, the oven that you choose to bake your pizza in is a pretty big determining factor on what you can and can't produce.

If you try to take, uh, your home oven and make Neapolitan style pizza that's supposed to cook in 90 seconds at 8 to 900 degrees, it's not going to come out great because it's a square peg round hole thing.

So I had these two wood fired ovens.

I knew.

I wasn't changing them no matter how much I wanted to change the style of pizza.

Uh, so that was the first thing.

So I have these two very hot ovens.

I knew I didn't want to make Neapolitan style pizza because I did not grow up in Naples.

I

grew up eating that slice of pizza at Pizza Village that you pick up with your hands.

It is crispy.

When you bite into it, it's not soft, wet, sloppy, floppy.

It's not a fork and knife thing.

So blended the two and I came up with a list of characteristics.

About pizza that I loved.

And initially that was, I don't know, six to eight characteristics.

And then I worked backwards to figure out how to recreate them by studying bread, making techniques, studying cheese, making, learning about tomatoes.

From tomato growers, from tomato canneries.

Cause you are in

fact in the Garden State, home of some of the best tomatoes on the planet!

By far.

Yeah, so I, so this list of six to eight characteristics, I added to it over time because I am constantly trying to make it better.

And every time I discover a new characteristic that I want, To achieve, I just put it in this list.

It's 60 characteristics long now.

And this is the

rubric we're talking about that's in the book.

The checklist, aka pizza rubric, which blew my mind when I turned the page and I was like, this dude is no joke with his level of detail when I first saw that.

It's crazy.

Yeah, I had nowhere to turn to, right, because the style of pizza that I wanted to produce didn't exist at the time.

So I had to put it down on paper and I had to name my intention, right?

I had to say specifically, I want a structurally sound pizza that I can pick up with my hands.

So every time I made a trial pizza, if I couldn't pick it up with my hands I knew I did something wrong, and then I studied bread baking.

That was the big move, is studying bread making, because pizza is a flatbread with some condiments baked onto it.

So you really have to understand bread baking, first and foremost, in order to understand pizza making.

And I have to say, now in my close to two years of cooking home pizza from your book, that's probably What Michael and I have learned the most is about sourdough and the starter and temperature and everything that goes into it.

One caveat I want to give is if you're listening to this and you make pizza at home or you're going to get Dan's book and you want to elevate your game.

I definitely second from experience what he says in the book, which is start with some commercial yeast and don't like try all, okay, I'm going to get a new oven and I'm going to work with sourdough starter for the first time because there's a lot of room for error.

Pick one thing at a time.

But we had been making wine with come wine.

I'm such a wine nerd.

We had been making pizza with commercial yeast.

How fun that they're both made with yeast.

Isn't that magical?

And we had gotten comfortable with that.

And then when we started, Michael got a sourdough going during COVID.

Her name is Gladys because she was stored in a Gladware Tupperware.

And he had been making sourdough breads, but we hadn't made pizza dough with it.

And when we got the book, we were like, Oh my gosh, this is crazy.

We have to start using this for the pizza.

And then it, It gets compulsive and you just keep trying and learning.

I can say just as someone who eats these pizzas, and we do this a couple times a month, I find there is a huge flavor difference.

There is a huge textural difference in when you're using a sourdough starter versus commercial yeast.

But tell me why sourdough?

Because you can make pizza without it.

Yeah, I am always chasing flavor and texture.

I found that with, without some, some sort of starter, the flavor is just never going to be quite as good.

And I'm just always after more, I'm still after more flavor.

So we still are constantly tweaking and changing our formulas.

Trying to make it better.

I finally got to eat in Raza for the first time, just this past December, my family and I descended upon you and we're like, Dan, we're coming.

And my parents and my sister and my brother in law was amazing.

And then we just got to go back again this summer.

So in the last.

10 months I've eaten at your restaurant twice, even though it's on the other side of the country.

Yes.

And I have to say that one of the things that's so amazing to me is the consistency, because there may have been six or eight or 10 pies on the table.

We didn't go there for one or two.

And even though the toppings and the flavors and everything we were doing was so The consistency of that dough, of that crust, of that eggshell crunch, but then that airy little bit of chew in there and just structure enough to hold whatever gorgeousness that you have put on there.

But yet delicate enough where the family ate eight pizzas and we're like, we're not even really that full.

Dough must be light.

It's so light.

This dough is so light, right?

So that is really impressive.

And I know that you work so hard to get that consistency of every pie when it's coming out.

It's amazing.

Yeah,

for sure.

And day after day.

Mm hmm.

Because

we could have a good day and if tomorrow's a bad day, that's not a good thing for a restaurant.

Yeah.

Yeah, and that's why I'm here every day and monitoring minute changes in temperature, in the flour, in the amount of pressure that our cooks use with their hands to touch the dough.

Mm

hmm.

All of those things matter.

It's like when I find myself when I'm giving tours to people at the winery, especially if they're new, to learning about it.

And I find myself saying exactly what you said.

Everything matters.

People are like, does where the grape is on the hill matter?

Yes.

Does the day that you pick it matter?

Yes.

Does the temperature of the guy's hands who pick the grapes?

Maybe not so much, but.

I find myself telling people that.

Everything matters.

And I think that is such a cool parallel between these two sciences and food and wine and pizza, where if you just take the time to dial those things in, it's exponential as far as the quality improvement that you can find, which is awesome.

But you

really have to be dedicated in those things in order to achieve greatness.

Yeah.

So when you say that the, when I first met you and we came to the restaurant in December, The way I was like, other than your book that I said, Oh, this guy

is a really dedicated and is a fellow nerd of these things is when you brought out your bread and butter sampler board to us and you talked about your butters.

Can you tease our listeners who are going to come see you at Raza and tell them why they need to have this on the table?

Yeah, it's so weird to start your pizza meal with bread and butter, but honestly, the bread and butter is something that I'm almost more proud of that than making good pizza, because like I said earlier, pizza is a flatbread with some

condiments, and in order to be great at something, you have to break it down to its elements, and there's something so pure and beautiful about something in its natural color.

and stripped down state.

So we have this incredible bread that we bake.

Because I wanted to learn how to make really good pizza, I had to study bread making.

And I've been doing that for almost 20 years now.

So in the process, I learned how to make really good bread.

And we serve it with Three different butters that we make.

And we're not talking about compound butters.

These are unique products that came about because I was curious and dedicated and it's something that we do every day.

And it led to this.

It didn't start out.

This didn't start the way it is now.

Right.

We started with one butter.

It's grass fed cow's cream from Pennsylvania.

We inoculate it with this heirloom Scandinavian yogurt culture.

That's what initiates fermentation.

If you think about sourdough bread, you have your sourdough starter that you add to the new flour and water.

And that's what initiates fermentation.

So we have this dairy starter culture that we nurture the same that we do our sourdough starter.

And we turn it into butter and there's, it's just such an amazing thing because the cows are grass fed.

We're able to see the seasonal variation and changes in the butter based on what the cows are eating.

It's insane.

When you explain that, all six of my family around the table, we all had our mouths open and we were like, no way.

But it makes so much sense.

Yeah.

It's just nature.

variation in nature and what the cows are eating.

Yeah.

They're not eating the same thing in December as they do in April.

And we see it and taste it in the butter.

And I just, I love that.

So welcome to Raza.

We're going to give you some carbs with a side of carbs.

And that's why I love you, Dan.

Thank you.

And sometimes

carbs on carbs.

Like a potato pizza.

Exactly.

Potato ly, which is ridiculous.

Ridiculous.

Hey, speaking of ingredients.

It's one of the things that I love in your book and, and this also, I related to this when I started really getting into pizza a couple of years ago and you like read blogs and whatever books and people are like, you need this double zero flour.

It has to come from Naples and it's hard to find and, and you need these San Marzano tomatoes that are in cans from Italy and you're going all over town and Amazon to try to get these ingredients.

And I'm going to read this out of your books.

I believe the key to mastering pizza is not to adopt an Italian American approach and import ingredients like flour, mozzarella, and tomatoes.

The best pizza comes from exactly where you are, practicing with what you have at home, and finding the best ingredients in your area.

Tell me more about that.

Yeah, come on.

What?

When in the course of humanity did we ever import ingredients from thousands of miles away?

It just doesn't make sense at all.

There are great tomatoes, there are great cheeses, there's great vegetables.

Anywhere you are, as long as you know, a farmer and this sales job that the Southern Italians have done on us is absolutely brilliant and awe inspiring.

Those are my people.

My people are good at sales and marketing.

They got

our entire country, if not the world, to believe that.

To make good pizza, you need this double zero flour from Italy.

When Italy is a very small country, they are not a very big wheat producing country.

They don't even have particularly good wheat as a whole.

But when you look at the United States, we are in the top three wheat producing countries and our wheat is prized all over the world for being some of the best in the world.

So why would I use this product that is milled in Italy, but They don't grow all the wheat to mill this double zero flour.

They're importing commodity wheat, just like everybody else from the big wheat producing countries around the world.

They grind it up and sell it to us.

Like it's this magic thing when it's actually just not at all.

People like me are like.

7 for 500 grams.

Yes, because I have to have that authentic Italian flour.

And I will tell you when I subscribe to the Bible of Dan, that is the joy of pizza and we were like, let's try some local flour and let's find these beautiful local tomatoes.

We live in California.

We,

yeah,

it was better, but I don't want the pizza was better.

And I'll never go back.

And the other thing was for the sauce.

You're not cooking the Sunday sauce on the stove with all the herbs and the cooking it down with the wine, fresh tomatoes, let them shine a little bit of salt, that's it.

And once I learned that it just really made a huge difference.

So thank you for that.

My piece, thank you.

Yeah.

And it just makes sense, honestly.

It does.

No Italian, like a true Italian person living in Italy, is going to import an ingredient to their country.

They're going to use what's right there.

Like Neapolitan pizza requires San Marzano tomatoes and buffalo milk mozzarella.

It just so happens that San Marzano tomatoes are right there and buffalo milk mozzarella cheese is all over the region.

It's what's naturally there.

But to make an authentic Neapolitan pizza in New Jersey, I should be using what's right here.

One of my main jobs at the restaurant is to source these ingredients and to find great cheeses, meat, vegetables.

And that's such a fun part of my job.

Mm hmm.

It's connecting with people over their products, because there's people behind that cheese.

There's cows behind that cheese.

There's land behind it.

And I get to explore all of those things.

And at the end of the day, those ingredients are the building blocks for us to make people happy.

I was also really intrigued that you take that focus on local and the people and the sourcing even to a condiment like chili, red chili flake.

Because in the book there's a spot where you talk about the childhood pizzerias.

We all can picture the sticky silver pleated canister with the stale chili flake.

That probably hasn't been filled in forever and we thought it was great.

Tastes like cardboard.

Tastes like cardboard.

We learned a little bit about your chili flake collaboration and now we have three jars in the pantry and that's all we use.

Thank you.

Can you share with everyone a little bit about your burlap and barrel collaboration?

Yeah, so we have a, spice company here in Brooklyn that they do fair trade single origin spices from around the world.

They personally know the farmers, they import their ingredients, they do the blending here and they were kind enough to create my ideal crushed red pepper, which we call crushed red peppers because it's actually a blend of four different chilies.

And they're just so much better.

It's not just heat.

There's actual flavor in there.

One of the chilies is smoked.

So there's just a hint of smoke to it that you probably won't even recognize, but you're like, Oh my God, this is so delicious.

That's probably what you're tasting.

Fresh chilies, flavorful chilies, and a little bit of smoke.

But we have a whole chili program at the restaurant.

We make fermented chili paste.

Can you say those

magical words again?

You have a whole

Chili program.

Say it again, say it again.

Amazing.

We're like, we would like chili all three ways.

However, you're going to serve it to us.

And you did, right?

Exactly.

So we make this fermented chili paste that is very similar to making butter or yogurt or sour cream or pizza dough or bread dough.

You're just harnessing nature to convert something into something else.

And that recipe is in the book.

It is.

And Michael

made that with chilies from our garden last season.

And it was killer.

So thank you I love that.

I love that.

God, I sound like such a

groupie.

Listen to me.

Oh, please.

And that recipe is so good because you don't just have to use chilies.

You could use that formula.

And I love it.

Make your own pickles from it.

Just do the first half of the recipe.

It's amazing.

Yeah.

And I think there is a movement and I think it came out of COVID.

People really got into gardens and like growing stuff at home and having that access to food locally.

So for sure.

And things like that.

It was definitely

my during COVID my garden never looked better.

It was amazing.

And now our

poor gardens are like.

Come back!

You're so

busy!

You should see mine!

Tonight is Thursday night.

You are there at Rasa right now.

How many pizzas were your team served tonight?

We're typically somewhere between four and seven hundred.

It really depends on the weather.

Like today, it rained a little bit.

So there's nobody sitting outside at all.

And we have a nice big outdoor space.

So everybody's sitting there.

Um, it also depends on how the orders come in.

If everybody wants pizza at the exact same time, then our wait time for takeout goes to three hours and everybody's like, ah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go somewhere else, which is obviously very understandable, uh, but then we'll make less pizza.

For

me, I don't look at that stuff as much as I should.

I look at the big picture and the numbers, but on a nightly basis, I don't care if we sold 450 or 550 pizzas or 700, that's not a measure of success for me at all, like not even a little bit.

I'd rather make.

20 pizzas perfectly and make 20 people so happy than make thousand pizzas, but only 90 percent were great.

It's about joy, right?

And that is, it's in the title of your book and I'm sure people can tell just from me getting signed and talking about this craft and this attention to detail and this cooking with local ingredients bring so much joy.

And I think that's why I have really loved learning from you and experiencing it and then putting our own take on it at home.

It's about the joy.

And

yeah,

I'm all about that.

I'm a joy junkie.

I'm all about the joy from the food and the wine and the people and the travel and all those things.

Right.

You've got to be busy.

And I know you have a wonderful wife who weirdly lived in my childhood house after I did, but that's a story for another day.

She and I have the same name, Nicole.

Shout out to Nicole.

And you have two little kiddos.

So how do you balance it?

I know you're busy with this restaurant.

How do you balance being a dad, being a husband and running this rockstar restaurant?

It's hard.

I constantly feel like I'm not doing a good enough job at any of them.

But I'm doing the best that I can at all of them.

And it takes a lot of recalibrating at times.

Just was in California and Hawaii.

So I got to be with my kids for two weeks all day and night.

It was amazing.

And now I'm like back in the routine at work and I miss them.

I want to go hang out with them.

Oh, how old are they?

Six and seven.

Oh my gosh.

Fun ages.

Yeah.

And you guys wait till you look in this book at the beautiful photography and there are pictures of his kids with him in the kitchen and then on your social media, which is awesome.

There was recently a video of your daughter making pizza in the wood oven.

So I love that they're involved with it and they're cooking with you in the kitchen too.

Oh, for sure.

That's again, one of the, one of the many things I love about pizza is that my six year old son understands what I do for a living.

Mm

hmm.

Yeah.

He can relate to me and he can learn about the world through pizza.

We talk about agriculture a lot.

We're out in our garden talking about food and where it comes from.

And that's obviously relates to pizza.

And eventually when they get into chemistry class in high school, we're going to start talking about fermentation as it applies to pizza.

And then eventually when they're in, Physics class.

We're going to talk about thermodynamics and how that relates to pizza.

And it's pizza is just this amazing platform for connecting with people and for discovering the world.

Like I never, ever thought I would have to study thermodynamics in my career, but I do.

It makes our pizza better because of it

beautifully said, by the way, and it reminds me again of a parallel of one of the things I love about wine is we say historically wine is one of the only beverages that is not bottled in a single serving container.

Now a bottle could be a single serving container for me, but it is meant to be shared, right?

It brings people together.

It is about community and sharing.

And I feel like that is something that pizza and wine.

totally have in common, right?

You know,

I don't think that I ever made that connection because I talk about it with pizza all the time.

And you're absolutely right.

So thank you.

Yes.

So that's a perfect segue to talk about pizza and wine pairing.

So I am all about earrings and I nerded out and asked you this question about, I think it was on the zoom, the cooking class.

I was like, Hi, I'm Nikki and I'm in California and I make wine and we grew up together, but you don't know me because I'm older than you and I make mine.

But like, what kind of wine do you like with pizza?

And you had a great answer.

So before Before we get too specific in taste of wine, which we're gonna do in a minute, just generally, and it depends on the pizza, but what are some of your favorites, go tos, and types of wines that you think pair well with pizza?

I love wine.

I wouldn't be here

if that wasn't the case.

It's my predominant beverage that I drink besides water.

I think so many different styles of wine can pair well with pizza.

Really depends on the mood, the setting.

Like if I'm making pizza outside in a hot summer day, I'm not drinking a big red wine no matter what's on that pizza.

So you could tell me that a big California cab is the best pairing for this pizza, but outside in a hot summer day, I'm not drinking it.

I always like to preface that like it's situation is very important, but I love pet nuts with pizza because they're just so similar to bread making and cheese making and sourdough bread.

Plus I just.

I love drinking them for some reason.

I like a little bubbly.

It's not quite sparkling,

but it's a little frizzante, a little lively on the palate.

The pet nut.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But honestly, I love.

Champagne.

There's pretty much no wine that I don't really love.

As we go into our, our segment of a sip spotlight.

As you guys all know, on every episode, I like to have my guests and I sipping the same wine.

So Dan and I.

Bye.

Both have the same bottle in front of us, same vintage, same wine.

And when I reached out to Dan in preparation of this, I said, all right, we got to pick a wine that we're going to talk about.

It's got to be a wine that you like with pizza.

I'll let you pick.

I'm not going to make you drink Solovato.

I can't do that on every episode.

That'd be a little self serving, right?

So tell us a little bit about what you and I are sipping and why you picked it.

So we're sipping it because I'm Knee deep in this pizza contest that is being held by the Francis Ford Coppola Winery.

They've enlisted me as the head judge for the second year in a row, and I get to come out to California.

Yay!

We're

gonna drink wine and eat pizza together!

Yeah, in, in October to judge this pizza competition.

And so I've been talking a lot with the Francis Ford Coppola winery people and I love them so much.

This is the second year in a row that I've done it and they're just an amazing team.

Amazing family.

I just, I love it.

Yeah.

So we're drinking their Claret, which is one of my favorite wines by them.

I don't think it's possible to realize how good this wine is for 15.

Wait, it's

insane.

I paid 17.

That must be California taxes in there.

Joe, I totally agree.

And I, first of all, for those of you listening, the, the Coppola winery is here in Sonoma County, where I sit and where I live, it's literally about 20 minutes away.

from my house.

It is absolutely gorgeous.

Put it on your list next time you're coming to visit.

It's such a cool place.

They have all of the movie memorabilia, but I will tell you, I have not had the Claret in a long time.

So when you said I'm going with Coppola Claret as what I want to sip, I was like, Ooh, this is fun because I haven't tasted it in a while.

So you've got it in your glass.

I've got it in mine.

2020 Coppola Claret.

Let's see what it is.

Yeah.

Cheers.

That is lovely.

That is a very drinkable, nice bottle of wine for 15 to 17.

Yeah.

I can't tell you how many times we go to the store and I'll buy these bottles in that price range and I end up just either dumping them out.

or putting them back in the fridge to maybe cook with.

I don't understand how it's that good at that price point.

I think just knowing what I know about wine production, it's got something to do with the volume that they make, that they're able to keep this price point where it's at.

And then they've got so many partnerships with great vineyards, not only in Sonoma County, but all throughout California.

Because when I read the tasting notes on the website about this wine, there's different vineyards That they're sourcing from, but it's primarily Cabernet Sauvignon, but Claret, for people that don't know, it's a Bordeaux

blend,

it's a Bordeaux blend, Claret, when people see it on the label, they assume it's French and they say Claret, just like Cabernet, but Claret is actually an English term.

It's a British term.

If you watch the Crown or Downton Abbey, occasionally you'll hear, Oh, go fetch the Claret.

It's an old timey term.

You don't see it on a lot of wine labels, but it is something that It's essentially is a red blend.

So this Coppola Claret is primarily Cabernet Sauvignon, but not enough to call it that.

So it's got some other grapes in the blend.

And which

I realized after.

Drinking this and other specifically Cabernets.

I like the blend.

Yeah.

I think it softens it and makes it a little bit more complex and it's just more more geared towards me.

Yeah.

And what I love about this wine, there is definitely ripe fruit.

Like I'm getting a lot of plum.

There's some nice lac pepper spice.

Um Yep.

It's got a nice sort, little cocoa.

Little cocoa.

It's got a nice

cocoa

kind of cocoa.

And it's funny because when I am teaching people about wine and the topic of claret comes up, whether it's at the winery where I work or when I'm teaching courses about wine or whatever, and people say, Oh yeah, claret, like Coppola.

Like everybody is familiar if they've heard of the term claret, this is the exact wine they think of.

And they go, Oh, is that the one with the gold, the wire cage over the bottom?

Yes.

They have made this wine forever.

And I feel like this would be killer with.

I would just go classic like sausage or pepperoni.

I need some meat on that pizza.

Yeah.

To balance out the weight and the richness of the wine.

What do you think?

For sure.

Yeah.

For sure.

Big red wines and pizza are difficult unless there are big bold flavors on the pizza.

Agree.

Like I, with a white pie, with a delicate white pie, a ricotta pie or a burrata pie.

Um, this might be a little rich for that.

This is great.

I'm pleasantly surprised about this wine.

When you said, let's do a couple, I was like, okay, I haven't done it in a while.

Dude, I was at a hotel and they had no bar or anything.

And I wanted a glass of wine and they had the claret.

in their little market.

Like

the grab and go section.

So I drank this in my bed a couple months ago.

In my hotel room.

Were you literally

in your bed?

Like drinking it in your bed?

It was a tiny hotel room.

It was either in the bed or on the toilet.

Better on the bed I think.

Better on the bed.

Yeah.

And I was like, you can get this in probably at least half of the states in the country.

That alone, it's just, I think it's amazing.

And if you are not familiar of where to find this, there is a link in the show notes on today's episode that you can click on and you can order it and have it sent right to your doorstep.

So check out that link.

Now we're going to go into one of my favorite segments.

And I just have one other question for you, but we've got some listener questions.

So, in anticipation of you joining me here, I have polled the audience and some people that you may or may not know have sent in some questions for you.

So are you ready?

Okay.

Someone named Dana would like to know, what is your favorite food that is not pizza?

Ooh, that's a good question.

Um, I have a lot of favorite foods.

I'm a pretty passionate person.

So, when I Like something or dislike it.

I really like it or dislike it.

I would say my favorite food is ice cream and chicken soup.

It's another one.

Comfort.

Listen to you.

Are you like homesick on the couch in middle school with ice cream and chicken?

That's how I feel pretty much every day in my life.

No, not really.

No, I love that.

So much of food is comfort and it brings you.

back to a time and place where maybe things were a little easier or more simple.

It makes you feel good on a bad day, makes you feel great on a good day.

It reminds you of people, reminds you of places you've been.

And I, I just want, it's one of the reasons why I love working in the food business.

It's so deeply ingrained in who we are as humans.

One other listener question is from a lady named Amanda.

Don't know who could that be.

Oh yeah.

Amanda would like to know, quote, If you weren't making kick ass pizza and shaking up the culinary world, What would you be doing?

That's a good question.

I would be a rock star.

You already are.

Pick something else.

No, you already are.

Thank you.

Really?

Truly?

That was my dream before I got so interested in food.

Yeah, for sure.

And I still play music just about every day.

What

do you play?

A guitar right now.

Nice.

Yeah.

Like acoustic, like electric, like all of them.

Electric.

Yeah, you shred.

I like to rock out.

I do shred.

I shred.

And we're not talking about mozzarella.

You shred.

So that is a great segue to my final question, which is, if there are people that are listening to this that have, uh.

If you have a passion or a curiosity about something that's pulling, I always say that's on their heart or that's pulling at them, what would your advice be to people who are finding themselves with that something bubbling up inside them?

Ah,

scratch the itch of curiosity.

I do it every single day.

I just, I constantly go down those rabbit holes that I'm curious about and when I find something that I'm intensely curious about and want to keep repeating, that's when the greatness really happens.

It's through the practice and anything that you want to constantly, consistently practice, that's what you're going to get good at.

If the curiosity leads you to something that you genuinely want to practice, that's always the right direction to go in.

Along that line, my advice when people always ask about my journey, which has some parallels to yours, is just say yes.

Say yes to the curiosity.

Say yes to the opportunity that's plopped in front of you.

You don't know where it's going to lead, but just say yes and you'll figure out the rest later.

And it all works itself out, right?

Just say, yeah, I

feel like people overthink things constantly and.

It prohibits them from being curious and trying it and continuing with something that they actually like.

We call that getting out of your own way.

Step aside.

Me.

Let me through.

Yeah.

Dan, if people want to learn more about you, where is the best place for them to do that?

You can come Rata.

Heck yeah.

I'm always here.

Heck yeah.

Tell me when you're

going, person, and I will meet you there.

I'll be here Tuesday through Saturdays.

Unless I'm traveling, which I do travel a lot.

Instagram, it's at Dan Richer or at Rotsa NJ, like New Jersey on Facebook.

And again, I'll put a link in the show notes for the joy of pizza.

Awesome book for the chili peppers, plural with burlap and feral.

And I can't thank you enough for your time.

Again, I know you're so busy and you're.

Wedged in your back office in the restaurant there, and the pizzas are burning in the oven, but here you are taking time to share your joy with us, to name your intention, and I just absolutely am so grateful, so thank you for your time today.

I am the grateful one.

I love that you're doing this, and I love that you reach out to me, because I just love talking to you.

I feel like we should do this more often.

Cheers to Coppola, this beautiful 2020 Claret, and hope you have an awesome rest of your night.

Thanks, Dan.

You're the best.

Come

on.

How awesome was that?

I'm so grateful to Dan for his time.

He literally was in the back office of the restaurant.

You could hear the servers and the clangor of the restaurant and it was just so amazing.

It's so cool to learn more about him and I hope that you were able to take away some tips on how to elevate your pizza or just enjoy it more, appreciate it more.

And I hope you get to try the Coppola Claret.

Don't forget, look at the link in the show notes and you can order that right on wine.

com.

Heck, you could order a case at that price and have it shipped.

And I'll also put the notes in there so you can get his book, The Joy of Pizza.

pizza as well as what I think are the best chili peppers on the planet from his collaboration with burlap and barrel.

Thank you to Dan.

Thank you for your time.

It was so much fun.

Thank you for listening.

I hope that you enjoyed it.

And if you did, feel free to like, to subscribe and leave us a review so we can keep doing what we're doing.

Soapwell, everyone.

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