Atlanta Weekend Food Update + More Pizza

I have some more pizza experimentation for the scores of readers, but first, an update on some other miscellaneous food related items. 

Souper Jenny’s

I have mentioned Souper Jenny’s before, but this is the first time I’ve gone for their Sunday brunch. I had a coupon for a free brunch plate (buy one get one free), worth $12. Similar to lunch, you can order ala carte, or you can go with the full plate where you order your choice of two items soup, sandwich, or side. It also comes with a roll and a drink. 

I had a huge bowl of chili and an Israeli bagel with fresh figs and blue cheese. Katie had the grits and fruit salad. Way too much food. 

Trader Joe’s

Driving down one of the Peachtree Roads I saw that a new Trader Joe’s has opened in Buckhead. It’s much closer than the other location I have gone to on Monroe, so I am pumped about that. I stopped in and unnecessarily spent $80. But I did get lots of good stuff and one of the soma-trance-induced employees let me open up a bag of dried lychee fruit and taste it without purchasing it. Oh, and it was quite hilarious when she loudly pronounced to me “APPARENTLY, ALL ASIANS LOVE LYCHEE”. Classic. 

Cook’s Illustrated

This actually has nothing to do with Atlanta, but have you ever checked this magazine out? It’s quite short, but offers lots of great quick-tips, comparisons, technique illustrations, and other little nifty things to add to your cooking repertoire. 

Now, finally, I will quickly run though the pizza.

For this post, I’m giving Trader Joe’s pizza dough a shot. Note that they call the Italian oriented products “Trader Giotto”. The Asian items are “Trader Ming” and the Mexican items are “Trader Jose”. Hilarious. 

Anyways, I preheated the oven to 550 and let the dough sit out for about 1/2 hour so it could warm up a bit. 

Then I got my toppings ready: Trader Joe’s basil marinara (actually pretty good), pepperoni, thin sliced onions, jalepenos, mozzarella, parmesan, and arugula (it’s a vegetable). 

Letting the dough hang out for a bit. If the dough recoils when you stretch it out, wait another 10 minutes and try again. 

Topping it off. 

Almost ready. 

You can see the finished product at the top of this post. Above is a picture of the char on the bottom of the pizza, which is pretty decent considering I am just working with a regular oven. 

I served the pizza with the 2006 d’Arenberg The Laughing Magpie Shiraz-Viognier. This isn’t really a “pizza wine” but I was craving a big Australian wine. I happen to really like the Shiraz-Viognier blends; they are always very lush and fruity. I believe this bottle is 94% shiraz and 6% viogner, which is a combination that I understand to have originated in the Côte-Rôtie appellation within the Rhone region of France. In the CR they are legally allowed to use up to 20% Viognier, and the rest of the wine is Syrah (same as Shiraz, no doy). Côte-Rôtie is a quite small region with some very serious collectible wines, and as such, they are usually very expensive. Read: I can’t afford them so I pickup the Australian S-V blends, of which there are plenty of reasonable offerings. 

This particular wine had a very interesting raspberry fruit rollup bouquet, deep ruby red color, and very lush fruit with a little bit too much heat on the finish, which was of decent length with some faint anise. It is clearly Australian and definitely satisfied my particular craving. It improved (much smoother) on day 2 without losing much on the nose. Try a S-V blend if you never have, they are very approachable!