Greetings from Edinburgh, where I have been back with Bean! She loves going on walks to sniff leaves, watch birds, glare at dogs, and taste blades of grass.

As for me, I’ve been enjoying shows at Edinburgh Fringe and films in the Edinburgh International Film Festival, while escaping the extreme heat waves that have frequented North America and Europe. I’m off to Ireland tomorrow.

Schedule

• 07 Jul–15 Jul: Sheffield – Gatsby

• 16 Jul–18 Aug: Edinburgh – Bean

• 18 Aug–25 Aug: Ireland

• 25 Aug–07 Sep: Cheltenham – Weasel and Otto

• 15 Sep–26 Oct: Washington, D.C. (before and after these dates, I’ll be driving and stopping in MN, SD, WI, IL, OH, MA, NH, NY, and NJ)

• 08 Nov–28 Nov: Edinburgh – Boris and Bruno

• 28 Nov–31 Jan 2027: London – Hector

• February–March 2027: TBD

• Mid-April 2027–May 2027?: Cheltenham – Weasel and Otto

As always, if you’d like to get pizza with me and you’re near where I’ll be, send me a note!

Pizza in the Southern United States

Earlier this year I had the opportunity to visit 20 pizzerias across the South. It was a trip where I was able to meet up with a few friends, soak in some historical sites, explore parks, trails, and neighborhoods, and visit the last two states I hadn’t been to before: Mississippi and Louisiana.

Sho Pizza Bar, Nashville, Tennessee

Sho Pizza Bar makes a Neapolitan derivative with three-day fermented dough, resulting in an airy hard-edge and soft bottom. I had a their Bianca with garlic cream sauce, buffalo mozzarella, asiago, olive oil, and lemon zested atop after it’s out of the oven. It strikes a great balance and depth of flavor in just a few ingredients, with a serious zip. If you can, sit at the chef’s counter. I met a couple people there who gave me some tips for finding more good pizza along my route. That, and it’s a great view of your pizza from start to finish. They nabbed a Michelin Bib Gourmand and more recently a spot with 50 Top Pizza, so get a reservation in advance.

Sho Pizza Bar, 1309 McGavock Pike, Nashville, TN 37216

Leña Pizza + Bagels, Cleveland, Mississippi

Leña is the project of Marisol Doyle, from Mexico, who studied pizza in Naples, Italy, and set up shop in the remote town of Cleveland, Mississippi. Cleveland has a population of just over 11,000 people, and is a former railroad town. The presumed Birthplace of the Blues is marked at a plantation just a ten minute drive away, and Cleveland is home to the Grammy Museum Mississippi. Leña is another anchor to the delightfully odd mix of great destinations in what’s otherwise a small and remote place.

Peering inside, it’s like a higher-tier Neapolitan-style pizzeria that feels similar what you’d find in an urban center. Before they unlocked the door on the day I went, I waited in a small line of apparent fans who told me about multiple menu items and previous specials. As they quickly identified me as an out-of-towner, one asked where I was visiting from, as if he was gleefully adding me to his mental map of the people he’s met in the same queue on different days. Overall, a very friendly group who were as excited for pizza as I was.

The pizza itself hits all the notes and hallmarks of Neapolitan pies with accuracy and humanness. A pillowy raised edge and incredibly fresh ingredients in balance. I chatted with Marisol briefly afterwards to thank her for the pizza, and she’s very humble and down-to-earth even with the stack of accolades and being behind what’s likely the best pizzeria in the state.

Leña Pizza + Bagels, 331 Cotton Row, Cleveland, MS 38732

St. Pizza, New Orleans, Louisiana

After culling a short list, I went to five pizzerias in New Orleans. St. Pizza is easily at the top in my book.

I didn’t even get a fresh pie and ordered a pre-made slice, reheated. Mine had a dense and chewy crust with fresh and fruity tomato and a sharp cheese mix. A great range of flavors in a simple slice. It’s a slice shop that reminded me of some of the best slices I’ve had in New York City. Next time, I’m bringing a friend or two and ordering a whole pizza.

St. Pizza, 1152 Magazine Street, New Orleans, LA 70130

Varasano's, Atlanta, Georgia

In the entryway to Varasano’s is a framed copy of the March 2010 issue of Every Day with Rachael Ray, where Ed Levine and Adam Kuban took 64 of the top pizzerias in the country and created a March Madness-style bracket to determine the top slices. It’s a genuine snapshot in time, when there may have been about as many top-tier excellent pizzerias as there were Division I basketball teams. Varasano’s was only ousted by Phoenix’s Pizzeria Bianco, which today is still regarded as one of the best pizzerias on the planet.

There’s a deep, nerdy ethos with pizzaiolo Jeff Varasano. It might be first noticed with Varasano’s logo and wordmark housed in a mathematical cube root. If you were involved with speedcubing the Rubik’s Cube in the 1980s, you’d know him as a world record holder from when he was just 15. On his website you can find an open source version of his pizza recipe with jarringly extensive detail, and there’s an old map and brief reviews from when he used to travel around for different pizzas (this is highly relatable).

All of this is to say that his research, pared with his abilities, equate to pizzas at Varasano’s being dialed in to perfection, even in 2026. The crusts are a long-ferment with a beautiful leopard-print and bubbly edge, providing a crisp and chewy edge that has hints of sweetness and saltiness, but sharply balanced. It’s larger than a Neapolitan pizza, flatter than a traditional New York style, in a size that’s a bit between the two, and with slices that hold gracefully without being too crispy. Precision.

The ingredients, including on “Jeff’s Favorite,” a margherita base with pancetta and garlic, have competitive flavors that are strong but never overpower one another. On the “Chica Bella,” with ricotta, mozzarella, arugula, and lemon, you have savory and creamy and sour that play with other in their distinct notes and never blend together, but taste harmonious. It’s one of those pizzas where a couple friends and I paused a few times to check in with each other that we’re all enjoying the qualities.

There are now many hundreds of pizzerias in the U.S. that meet and exceed the caliber of the pizzerias of that 2010 bracket. If I was filling out a bracket today, I’d probably would pick Varasano’s winning all of Georgia.

Varasano’s, 2171 Peachtree Road Northeast, Atlanta, GA 30309

Bird Pizzeria, Charlotte, North Carolina

Bird Pizzeria, after being a pandemic-era pop-up, got a permanent location in 2021. Owners Nkem and Kerrel Thompson quickly got national attention with write-ups and awards, and in 2024, Charlotte Magazine named them Charlotteans of the Year. They’ve put the city on the pizza map, and I credit their pizza for bringing me to the Queen City for the first time.

Pizza here has a lot of echoes from high-tier artisan New York City slices. On mine, the stretchy mozzarella and fresh tomato sauce gave the illusion it was fused with the crust, making a cheesy, rich blend in each bite. The edges have a hearty chew.

With my timing, I was only able to reserve a pizza for take-out. Next time I visit Charlotte I’ll get a dine-in reservation well in advance, and plan around it so I can spend more of a day enjoying the city. After writing this newsletter, this is the pizza I am craving the most right now.

Bird Pizzeria, 510 East 15th Street, Charlotte, NC 28206

Tonight’s my last night with Bean. It’s always a bittersweet feeling when I have to say farewell to a cat. Bean and I have gone on about twenty walks together, played with a dozen hair ties, strings, and ping pong balls, and we’ve been each other’s companion during the height of summer. And just in the last few nights she has been sleeping on the bed I sleep on and snuggling in the mornings. Tomorrow I’ll be leaving my set of keys in the kitchen, and when she hears humans outside the door she’ll probably meow, expecting me, and most certainly will be very surprised to see her normal humans back to replace me.

Some cats revert back immediately, some adjust for a day or two, and a couple hosts have told me and sent me photos of their cat waiting for me to come back a week later. I hope Bean adjusts quickly, and I hope it isn’t the last time I see her.

That’s all for now! Thanks again for reading.

Again, if you’re near where I’ll be, please reach out and lets see if we can get pizza!

Aaron

P.S. I’m still working on my map of pizzerias I’ve visited, and if you want to see more cats and pizzas, I post almost every pizza and most cats I see (and more photos of Bean on walks!).

Schedule

Here’s my updated schedule through the UK and Ireland, including cats I’ll be with:

• 03 Apr–02 May: Cheltenham – Weasel and Otto

• 07 May–25 May: London (Bethnal Green) – Luna

• 27 May–11 Jun: London (Hammersmith) – Tatiana

• 11 Jun–27 Jun: London (Clapham) – Hector

• 28 Jun–05 Jul: London (Beckton) – Giorgetto

• 07 Jul–15 Jul: Sheffield – Gatsby

• 16 Jul–18 Aug: Edinburgh – Bean

• 18 Aug–25 Aug: Ireland

• 25 Aug–07 Sep: Cheltenham – Weasel and Otto

After these dates, I’ll be in Minnesota and South Dakota for a few days, and then I’ll drive to Washington, D.C. around mid-September until the end of October. I’ll likely be swinging through New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, and New Jersey prior or after my stay in D.C., and I’m planning to return to the UK in November.

If you’re anywhere near where I’ll be, let me know, and let’s get pizza!

New York City Pizza

I have been reminiscing about some newer pizzas I had in New York City earlier this year. Every time I’m in New York I gravitate towards some of the top places I’ve been before (e.g. L’industrie, Scarr’s, Paulie Gee’s, Roberta’s, Ops, Juliana’s, and a handful of places in the West Village…), but on this last two-week stretch I forced myself to go to a place I hadn’t been, every day. Here are some of my top picks from that journey.

Lucky Charlie, Bushwick

Lucky Charlie in Bushwick opened last June, after one of the more crazy and decorated pizzaiolos around, Nino Coniglio, took over the space of one of the oldest coal ovens in New York City. The crust here is crisp, crunchy, and charred, topped with fior di latte, San Marzano, and copious shavings of 40-month Parmigiano Reggiano. It’s a superior pie that’s packed with flavor, and oddly feels nostalgic.

Bon Appétit has an excellent and mildly insane video going through the space and his process.

Lucky Charlie, 254 Irving Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11237

Traze, Long Island City

About a decade ago, Natalie DeSabato started with small-scale pop-ups as a side gig, then took her pizzas full time. In April of last year, she opened Traze in Long Island City.

Here, a 72-hour fermented dough is fashioned into a grandma style pizza, delivering a crust with a delicate but firm crunch, with a bubbly edge. All of the toppings and sauces are made in-house. It's a small shop, and the attention to detail is far beyond most slice shops. Might be the best of the style I’ve had. Afterwards, she gave me a “Traze” sticker which is firmly affixed to the laptop I’m writing on now.

(Thank you Adam for the tip!)

Traze, 21-03 45th Rd, Long Island City, NY 11101

Mano’s Pizzeria, Ridgewood

Mano’s is another pizzeria that feels like it has been around for decades, but opened after the onset of the pandemic. It’s an unassuming small neighborhood shop serving genuinely world-class pizza.

Dough here has a five-day ferment, giving the crust a very tangy and airy, yet very chewy and crispy crust. Their white slice was peppery and had a pronounced but not overbearing dobs of ricotta, striking a delicate balance between the two strong ingredients. I also had an upside-down Sicilian which was very thick, topped with tomato sauce that had a fresh zip, and crisp little cupped pepperoni.

If this was in Manhattan, there might be a queue out the door. If you’re visiting New York City, hop on the L train and change to the M, or hop on the Q54 bus. It’s worth the journey.

Mano’s Pizzeria, 62-98 Forest Ave, Ridgewood, NY 11385

Lucia Pizza, Sheepshead Bay

Lucia Pizza of Avenue X in Sheepshead Bay opened in 2022. Think of pizza as haute cuisine but disguised in a casual Brooklyn slice shop. The menu changes seasonally, and got a slice with a spinach cream swirl, and a Sicilian square. They paired well together with the former being more savory and chewy, and the latter with more pronounced fresh tomato atop of a more crunchy crust. The pecorino finishing cheese was a nice touch on both.

Truly elevated.

Lucia Pizza, 2201 Avenue X, Brooklyn, NY 11235
and three other locations in New York City

Salty Cat

During my stay in New York City, I was living with Salty Cat, who spent quite a bit of time judging me when I arrived.

It took a bit for him to warm up to me, and Salty Cat was more of a sweet buddy to live with. He loved having his toys thrown down the hall for him to chase, but he rarely fetched. He’d ask me to go to the hall and pick them all up, and he’d get ready to chase after them all again in the same direction. He’s also the only cat I’ve cared for who eats kangaroo, because he hasn’t been eating much other food. I learned that yes, you can get kangaroo cat food in the United States. He’s picky eater, and a bit bossy, but genuinely a nice companion.

Thank you for reading!

Yours in cats and pizza,
Aaron

P.S. I’ve been working on mapping everywhere I’ve had pizza if you’d like to see a draft!

Schedule

• 03 Apr–02 May: Cheltenham – Weasel and Otto

• 07 May–25 May: London (Bethnal Green) – Luna

• 27 May–11 Jun: London (Hammersmith) – Tatiana

• 11 Jun–27 Jun: London (Clapham) – Hector

• 12 Jul–18 Aug: Edinburgh – Bean

• 24 Aug–07 Sep: Cheltenham – Weasel and Otto

As always, if you’re anywhere near my route, lets get pizza!

Misha at McCaig’s Tower, Battery Hill, Oban

Over three hours northwest by train from Glasgow is the coastal town of Oban. The journey there is widely regarded as one of the most scenic routes in Scotland, passing through Loch Lomond & The Trossachs National Park, passing by heather moors, Kilchurn Castle, and snow-capped mountains. It goes through the Pass of Brander, travels along Loch Awe, and stops at some of the smallest train stations in the country. The train terminates at Oban, and for me, that’s when I started my hike up to McCaig’s Tower on Battery Hill, which overlooks the entire town, Oban Bay, and the Firth of Lorn. Atop is the reward: Misha, the “Tower Cat.”

Misha greeted me promptly by walking over and and accepting some pats and strokes, and we walked together towards the far wall of the structure to enjoy the view. He left as soon as more people arrived, and he greeted them all as well. It was delightful being in a place steeped in history and beauty as strangers were helping each other take group photos with Misha.

In 2022, Misha went missing, and his whereabouts were a mystery for 20 months. He was taken under the assumption he was abandoned, and he travelled the country and got adopted on the other side of Scotland. Once the Misha’s microchip was finally scanned, he took the journey back to his tower in Oban. Now he sports a collar that includes the words “I am chipped”! He’s popular enough today to have 4.9 stars on Google Maps. I recommend adding him to your Scotland to-do list!

San Ciro’s, Edinburgh

Ciro Sartore made his mark at Pizzeria 1926, which became regarded as an undisputed champion of Neapolitan-style pizza in Edinburgh. Across reviews and forums, many people said it was the best pizza in the city. However, in 2023, he sold the restaurant to new owners. With a bit of a surprise soon after, he opened San Ciro’s.

The interior is both a tribute to Naples pizza and Naples football. Scarves and jerseys cover the walls, which are painted in the colours of SSC Napoli. The menu reads like a team roster, with each pizza having an associated non-sequential number. I got one with mozzarella, pecorino, taleggio, black pepper, and olive oil, with a ball of burrata in the centre. A surprisingly well-balanced pizza, atop of a solid no-frills Neapolitan crust with a thick chew and light crisp.

148 Leith Walk, Edinburgh EH6 5DT

Matto Pizza, Edinburgh

Matto Pizza has three locations around Edinburgh. Lively and salty crust. I got one with a white base, mozzarella, goat, Gorgonzola, Taleggio, Parmesan, black pepper, and basil. Overall a salty pie, just before the edge of becoming too much. Made for an excellent lunch.

12 Cadzow Pl, Edinburgh EH7 5SN

Pala, Edinburgh

Pala opened less than a year ago, with limited hours. They serve authentic Roman-style slices, and on my visit, the place seemed to be a magnet for people who speak Italian. I nabbed a slice with potato, garlic, and Taleggio; and one with prosciutto, ricotta, and cherry tomato. Very crispy crust and top notch ingredients. Quite stellar.

On my second visit to try more slices (and to take better photos) there was a lengthy queue out the door that disagreed with my empty stomach. I’m excited to see how they’ll scale to demand (and hopefully they’ll be trading more than four evenings a week). I’ll return this summer.

7 Jane St, Edinburgh EH6 5HE

Dough Man’s Land, Glasgow

Glasgow’s Dough Man’s Land is a vintage horsebox with a wood-burning dome oven stuffed in. Pizza using dough with '00' flour and a long ferment that goes 48 hours in two stages, usually. Due to the unpredictability, they said my dough was from six days prior! That’s an unwieldy dough to work with, but the results can be packed with flavour. My pizza had a lively leopard print texture with very pronounced salty and sour edges. Very delightful.

As they’re mobile, Dough Man’s Land is available for events, but can be regularly found in Finnieston near Kelvingrove Park.

Derby St, Glasgow G3 7TU

Errol’s Hot Pizza, Glasgow

Behind an unassuming storefront on Victoria Road in Glasgow is Errol’s Hot Pizza, a tiny pizzeria with only a few seats. No website other than a rudimentary booking system. I failed to secure a spot for myself online, and am thankful they were able to squeeze me in the minute they opened. Pizzas here have a high-tier crispy crust with hard edges and slices that hold well whilst being very thin. I got the namesake “The Errol” pie that had bits of guindillas for a punctuated spice, thin salami slices, and just enough Gorgonzola for underlying salty notes. It’s an excellent pizza, and probably my top pick in Glasgow. Their photos are better than my photos.

379 Victoria Rd, Govanhill, Glasgow G42 8RZ

Bangin’ Pizza, Dumbarton

Dumbarton’s Bangin’ Pizza has excellent 48-hour dough from a hybrid flour resulting with a gentle crispy edge and an airy chew. Mildly sweet tomatoes balanced well with fresh mozzarella. Cut into quarters, the slices worked great folded. I bet you can smell it by watching the steam:

15 Castlegreen St, Dumbarton G82 1HG

Bean, Edinburgh

When I was staying in Edinburgh, I stayed with Bean, an independent cat who loved monitoring birds outside, sitting in cardboard boxes, had funny poses, and loved playing with and hiding hair elastics. I had a Kinder Surprise egg which has a small plastic container under the chocolate. I repurposed it by putting a 5p coin inside, and it turned into a new toy she loved.

I’m looking forward to staying with her again this summer!

As always, thank you for reading!

Keep in touch, and if you’re near where I’ll be later this year, lets get a pizza!

Yours in cats and pizza,
Aaron

For a good portion of 2025, I was in the UK and visited 101 different pizzerias. I recently recapped some of my faves across London. Below are a bunch I had across the country except for Scotland, which I’ll cover in another post soon. Are you in England? Planning to be? I recommend putting these on your to-do list!

Flint, Newcastle upon Tyne

Flint is a small and cozy neighbourhood pizzeria outside of the city centre of Newcastle upon Tyne. Pizzas are close to a Neapolitan style done with a 48-hour fermented dough. I got a Margherita, and they add shavings of Spenwood cheese, bringing a bit of cheesy sweetness and milky notes. The crust had a heartier crunch and leaned delightfully salty. Truly excellent pizza here.

Flint, 218a Chillingham Road, Heaton, Newcastle Upon Tyne, NE6 5LP

Dough & Brew, Warwick

Macaroni and cheese pizzas generally range from “well-executed gimmick” to “total disaster”. I believe my first encounter with them was at the now-closed Mesa Pizza by the Slice in Minneapolis, where it was associated with heavy drinking (both as a vehicle to ingest a massive amount of carbs to offset a stomach full of alcohol, and you might need to be inebriated to think ordering it is a smart idea). I’ve had a bunch of mac and cheese pizzas when I spot it on menus across the Midwest U.S., usually near college campuses, and it’s generally a mistake. I think the best mac and cheese pizza I’ve had was at Proof in downtown Honolulu (which sadly has since lost its pizza chef and evolved into a night club), which somehow managed to fuse the cheese and macaroni very well with the other aspects of the pizza, making it a genuine ingredient.

On the contrary, at Dough & Brew in Warwick, the macaroni and provolone cheese is fine on its own, but it is as if the underlying crust is simply the fancy vessel to serve it in. And that vessel is fantastic: a sourdough crust fermented 72 hours with a thick, firm chew and a sharp sour taste. It’s absolutely high-tier, and while having mac and cheese on it wasn’t bad, I’m excited to go back sometime and try a more traditional pizza with this crust.

Dough & Brew, 45 Brook St, Warwick CV34 4BL

Bag of Nails, Bristol

Bag of Nails is a small pub with a salty vibe with almost a dozen cats in it! Loved it so much that when some friends travelling from Virginia were around, I took them here. Many of the cats keep to themselves, but some just wander about on the bar and mingle with the patrons. I genuinely have no reason to visit any other pub in Bristol. Go visit these cats over a pint!

Bag of Nails, 141 St George’s Rd, Hotwells, Bristol BS1 5UW

Otto and Weasel

For about a third of my trip to the UK, I stayed in Cheltenham with Otto and Weasel. They’re a pair of Burmese cats with outsized personalities. They’re attention-seekers who love playing with strings, wands, catnip bananas, and tunnels and cubes to jump in.

They’re genuine goofballs, and adorable. I’m excited to be staying with them again in April 2026.

Pizzarova, Bristol

Pizzarova started out of a Land Rover with an oven in Somerset, and eventually opened up a shop up in Bristol. They now have five locations, and I visited three. The clear winner for me is the “Margherita Deluxe” with the expected tomato, basil, and mozzarella, with the addition of some juicy sun-blushed tomatoes, very thick Parmesan shavings, and some chilli flakes for heat. It’s all atop of a rich sourdough crust with a pronounced sour twang and a bit of sweetness. It’s strong, and well-rounded. Click here if you’d like to see this pizza steaming.

Pizzarova, 289 Gloucester Rd, Bishopston, Bristol BS7 8NY

The Dough Thrower, Cardiff

I made a quick trek to Wales to visit The Dough Thrower, and was able to get one of their rare “Cymru Roars” pizzas, which won in the British Street Food Awards. Rare, as their ingredients are not always easy to acquire: roasted Lion’s Mane mushrooms, slow-braised Welsh leeks, roasted garlic, and Blaenafon “Taffy Apple” cheddar cheese. It’s a very savory pizza with a variety of textures from chewy to creamy to crunchy, all atop a crust that’s very thin, chewy, and malleable. The kind of pizza that feels like street food, but posh.

The Dough Thrower, 96 Whitchurch Road, Cardiff, CF14 3LY

Gigi’s Pizza, Bristol

Newer pizzerias with New York style slices have been a fresh thing in recent years across the UK, and sadly many I tried are not spots I’d recommend. That said, places doing it well include Bad Boy Pizza Society and Alley Cats Pizza in London, and 5 Boroughs in Winchester. If I were to name a top New York style pizzeria in the UK, I’d send people to Gigi’s in Bristol. The gritty interior and exposed ceilings feel like a corner slice shop in Brooklyn or Queens, and the slices themselves are elevated versions of the standards. Firm slices, sourdough crust that has a decent chew on the edge and doesn’t easily flop. A rarity on that side of the pond.

Gigi’s Pizza, 47 Old Market Street, Bristol, BS2 0EX

Nell’s Pizza, Manchester

Nell’s has six locations around the Manchester area, and I popped into the Northern Quarter spot. I got the “Magic Number” with mozzarella, vodka sauce, salsa verde, buffalo ricotta cream, basil oil, basil, and generous shavings of ricotta salata. Like a tricolour pizza in terms of competing tastes, and overall pops atop chewy, firm crust that hold like New York style slices. Again, a rarity! I’d have this weekly if I lived in Manchester.

Nell’s, 39 Edge St, Manchester M4 1HW

Thank you for reading!

Have a wonderful 2026, and let’s get pizza soon!

Yours in cats and pizza,
Aaron

A quick housekeeping note: if you have tried to call or text me using my US phone number, it wasn’t received. Sorry! My phone carrier only lets me roam so long, so my service is paused and I have a UK-based provider. Please reach me on Signal. If you don’t use Signal, text me on WhatsApp, Discord, Google Chat (it still exists!), or send me an email.

Schedule

I’m wrapping up my stay in the UK, but I am coming back in 2026! Here’s where I’ll be eating pizza and some of the cats I’ll be with:

• 14 Oct–01 Dec: Edinburgh, Scotland – Bean

• 01 Dec-03 Dec: Manchester, England

• 05 Dec–09 Dec: Minnesota – Butterscotch, Mabel, and Joanie

• 10 Dec: Madison, Wisconsin

• 11 Dec: Chicago, Illinois

• 13 Dec: Akron, Ohio

• 14 Dec–20 Dec: Washington, D.C. – Tuxie

• 20 Dec–02 Jan 2026: Brooklyn, New York – Salty Cat

• 02 Jan–TBD: Washington, D.C. – Tuxie

• 03 Apr–02 May: Cheltenham, England – Phoebe and Otto

• 13 Jul–12 Aug: Edinburgh, Scotland – Bean

If you’re going to be anywhere around my route, lets get pizza!

Jambie and Trixie

My cohabitants outside of London were Trixie and Jambie. A perfect day for them started with lounging in the back garden in the sun, sitting in high places to monitor for other cats and small animals and chasing butterflies. Indoors, Jambie would tackle a black cloth spider and Trixie favoured clawing a cactus-shaped scratching post. Quite thankful to live with these delightful friends.

Crisp

Crisp in Hammersmith was one of the more difficult pizzas to get in London, operating out of The Chancellors, a pub on Crisp Road. The process to get a pizza was to order days advance with very limited availability, and then show up at the day and time of your order. There were walk-in slots if you wanted to queue, sometimes announced the day of, and I was able to sneak in on one.

It lives up to its name: an amazingly crisp crust that’s gently charred, with a leopard-print bottom. I had their namesake pie with San Marzano, buffalo mozzarella, and “lashings of Pecorino.” The lashings were a clear understatement, as it was a whole soft cloud of cheese serving a delightful contrast to the crust. Overall rich, yet light. Instantly became one of the best pizzas I’ve had in London.

They’ve since temporarily closed their location at The Chancellors, and this month opened a new location in Mayfair. It’s on my to-do list, although there are no bookings available through the rest of the year, and as of this recent witty review by David Ellis, there’s now a five-hour queue if you want to just turn up. Good luck, if you have a go of it.

Hammersmith: 25 Crisp Road, W6 9RL
Mayfair: 24 North Audley Street, W1K 6WD

‘O Ver

At ‘O Ver, near London Bridge and Borough Market, I ordered The Vesuviana. Crust had a perfect pillow-like texture with a crisp, made with purified Mediterranean seawater. The whole pie was covered with an almost gluttonous amount of fresh buffalo mozzarella, topped with equally sweet and sour semi sun-dried Piennolo cherry tomatoes from Mount Vesuvius, tiny bits of chili, and large dollops of ricotta. Equally loudly sweet and sour and salty, hitting the edge before overindulgence. World class, and beautiful.

They have another location in St James’s, which I marked to visit if I’m in the area.

Borough: 44-46 Southwark Street, SE1 1UN
St James’s: 1 Norris Street, SW1Y 4RJ

081 Pizzeria

081 is the dialing code for the city of Naples, Italy. Here in Peckham, 081 is the name of pizzaiolo Andrea Ascuiti’s first pizzeria. It started as a popup during lockdown, and eventually got a small, permanent home. After Andrea and chatted about our favourite pizzas, we discovered that he was eating through New York City, the pizza capital of my home country, at the same time I was doing the same in Naples, the pizza capital of his home country. Now here we are in London, he’s now a pizza maker, and I am a pizza eater, so I ordered the namesake pizza, “081”. It’s buried at the bottom of the menu even if it’s one he’s most proud of.

The 081, at 081 Pizzeria, is a Montanara style, is where the dough is first fried, and then baked. In a traditional Neapolitan-style pizza, much of the air in the dough is pushed to the edges before it goes into the oven, making the cornicione – the thicker edge of the crust. In contrast, this pizza is allowed to rise evenly throughout the pizza during the frying and baking processes. Very few pizzerias in the world are able to pull it off well. Here, the result is airy and thick, yet light and crunchy, with the taste of olive oil without being oily. While not an everyday pizza, it is a genuinely impressive treat, and a very hearty lunch.

I later visited his new, larger, location in Shoreditch, where the quality is matched and equally recommended.

Peckham: 66 Peckham Rye, SE15 4JR
Shoreditch: 46 Great Eastern Street, EC2A 3EP

Ace Pizza

Ace Pizza has a permanent kitchen residency at Pembury Tavern in Hackney. I got one with vodka sauce, Napoli tomato sauce, mozzarella, house-made pesto, and Gran Moravia, a nutty, hard cheese. Excellent crisp edge and chew, with just hints of sweet, sour, and salty in the crust, a result of their 48-hour ferment with a biga starter. Overall, the cheese and pesto brought an almost intense sharpness, yet it was surprisingly light. Extremely elevated for a pub.

Pizzaiolo Rachel Jones, earlier this year, opened a second location near Victoria Park, which is high on my to-do list.

Hackney: 90 Amhurst Road, E8 1JH
Victoria Park: 126-128 Lauriston Road, E9 7LH

Dough Hands

The Spurstowe Arms, nestled between Dalston Junction and Hackney Central, is home to Hannah Drye’s Dough Hands. I got the “OG.” Very firm and crispy edges, with slices that hold. The OG is topped with tomato, mozzarella, pepperoni, jalapeños, oregano, and finished with Grana Padano. It was spicy to the point of testing my tolerances, yet overall had great balance. One where after a few bites you sit and ponder all of the competing flavours. Excited to try her newer location in South London.

Dalston: 68 Greenwood Road, E8 1AB
Nunhead: 15 Nunhead Green, SE15 3QQ

Arthur

I was staying in Woking, a town in the London commuter belt, where getting to and from the train station involved taking a bus or a healthy 40 minute walk. On days I chose the latter, I frequently would encounter a white cat monitoring a public footpath.

I inquired with one of the humans living near his home, who told me his name is Arthur, and that he is apparently well-known by locals. Arthur let me pass every time.

Thank you, as always, for reading! If you want an up-to-date log of the pizzas I’m eating and the cats I’m seeing, find me on Bluesky! And I look forward to having pizza with you.

Yours in cats and pizza,
Aaron

If you’re new to my newsletter, I am a digital nomad taking care of cats and eating the world’s best pizza.

Schedule

I’ll be in the UK for about four and a half months with a total of five cats:

• 23 Jul–27 Aug: Woking – Trixie and Jambie

• 28 Aug–09 Oct: Cheltenham – Phoebe and Otto

• 14 Oct–01 Dec: Edinburgh – Bean

If you have any pizza tips anywhere in England or Scotland, I want to hear them! If you’re anywhere near where I’ll be, let me know. I would love to get pizza with you!

Pizzeria Beddia

After spending a month this year eating through as much pizza as I could in Philly, it would be weird to not bring up Pizzeria Beddia. Locals who eat pizza remember in 2015 when Beddia was surprisingly named the best pizza in America by Bon Appétit. The subsequent hype it receives when it gets regularly highlighted by national and international best-of lists is met with a mix of local pride and a collective eyeroll. Is it really that worthy of these accolades?

My first visit was in 2017, when Joe Beddia would make a total of 40 pizzas a day, and he was the only person touching the dough and ingredients from the starter to taking the pizza out of the oven. It was all done out of a tiny corner studio on Girard Avenue and Shackamaxon Road in the Fishtown neighborhood. A queue would line up outside before they opened at 5:30 p.m., and if you’re one of the first 40 in line, you’ll place your order and be given a time to come back. I ordered the first pizza listed on the peg letter menu on the wall: tomato, whole milk mozzarella, Old Gold aged cheese, and olive oil. On the same board, all of the local purveyors of the ingredients were listed, and I wished I could spend the week to consume it all. Unfortunately, I just had this one evening in March. I was asked to return more than three hours later, just after 9 p.m., to enjoy my pie.

By then, with winter snow still on the ground, it was getting even colder outside. Inside was dark, with just a few overhead lights on in the kitchen, and the windows were now fogged up. It was as if the pizza oven was responsible for heating the room too. My pizza came visibly steaming, and I got a spot at the standing-only table for those of us who wanted to sample a few bites before taking our boxes home. It was an intimate experience, akin to being in the room with a private chef.

On this pie, the crust struck a sharp balance of an abundance of sweetness, saltiness, and olive oil where if one of those qualities were present alone, it might feel like too much. The texture was crispy on the edge and bubbly, with large pockets of char and spots. Chewing it was soft, but when held as a slice, firm. The sauce was fresh as if it was crushed from tomatoes that morning. One of the unique stars of the pie was the Old Gold gouda, sourced from Hidden Hills Dairy, a couple hours west in Pennsylvania. It’s aged at least a year, and serves as a savory, salty, and almost caramel-like ingredient on every pie on the menu, and counterbalances the sauce. Overall, an exercise in having the highest quality and freshness, proportioned perfectly. At the time I wrote it was “the epitome of this style taken to the next level.”

Making 40 pizzas a night is not a sustainable business model, and Pizzeria Beddia closed a little more than a year later.

In 2019, Pizzeria Beddia reopened in a new location within a short walk, with a very large dining room, full sized kitchen, and the capacity to handle hundreds of pizzas a day. On subsequent visits, to my surprise, they were able to scale extremely well. The dough is high hydration, long fermented, and sticky, making it a lot harder to handle than most, but it seems as if they’ve pulled off being able to work with it and maintain the same level of quality.

Today, the Old Gold cheese on every pie has been replaced by another local gouda, Highlander, and it’s otherwise difficult to distinguish between the pies I’ve eaten there in the last year compared to the ones from when it was lauded one of the best in the country. Pizzeria Beddia is still impressive.

Pizza Shackamaxon and Pizza Richmond

In the void left by Pizzeria Beddia’s original location, Pizza Shackamaxon emerged (named after the cross street), with a reconfiguration of the tiny space into a new pizzeria serving New York-style slices and pies. No delivery, no pre-orders, no phone number, just a walk-up take-out window. They have a thin menu with about five choices; they seem to stick to what they’ve perfected.

It’s high-tier New York style thin crust that holds firmly in a hand while still having a soft bottom. The cornicione at the end is chewy with a thin crisp edge. It is the best New York style pizza I’ve had in Pennsylvania.

The success of Pizza Shackamaxon allowed them to birth a sister location, Pizza Richmond. With more space, they have dine-in tables and can accommodate delivery. Still a thin menu (about seven choices), but they have honed in on what works great.

Sally

A gem in Philadelphia’s Center City, Sally was a charming surprise. I got the “Pesto,” which lived up to its name more than any other pesto pizza I’ve had. Very pronounced sourdough crust, with some of the freshest basil pesto I think I’ve ever tasted. Smothered in a lot of Grana Padano without being overbearing. Excellent vibe and delightful barkeep. Would be perfect for a date night.

Pizza Jawn

One of the more difficult pizzas to get, Pizza Jawn moved in with their sister restaurant, Bar Jawn in Manayunk, with an online system to reserve a timeslot with a pizza in advance for the next Friday and Saturday. It’s worth the effort to get this chewy, thick crust pie that feels like a hybrid between a long-ferment neo-Neapolitan pie and New York style. Comes with a hearty but not overbearing amount of cheese and sauce that blend more than balance. Somehow, it all holds together like magic. And they have some of the more creative pizza boxes in the business from Pizza Bib.

After having dozens of pizzas in the area, I was also a big fan of Paulie Gee’s Soul City Slice Shop and Pizzeria Vetri.

Cats

I’ve been honored to return to homes I have been to in the past. For the first half of this year, I reunited with Goldie and Olive in Chicago; Yoshi near Boston; Tuxie in Washington, D.C.; and Bartlett, Flynn, and Provenza in Minneapolis.

Yoshi’s companion, Kiku, passed away last year due to an aggressive lung tumor. In her stead, Yoshi has become oddly attached to a big white sheet, as well as a grey felt cat cave that he plays on top of, so it remains flat. Every morning, Yoshi would lead me down to the sheet and saucer (which I’d later refer to as his Unidentified Felt Object or similar iterations) to receive pats before and after breakfast, as well as some play time in the early evenings. He’s talkative as ever, too. A great pal.

The last time I saw Flynn and Provenza, they were kittens. Now they’re full-grown, but still kittens somehow.

Tuxie is getting into her elder years. When I was doing work, she would hop up next to the warm laptop fans. I’m was happy to accommodate by putting up a cushion, and I gave her my webcam so she could be the star she is.

Thanks again for reading! I’m excited to go back to the UK for a while. Keep in touch!

Yours in cats and pizza,
Aaron

P.S. If you’re on Bluesky, I have been sharing a more exhaustive view of the pizzas and cats I’ve seen there.

• 25 Jan - 29 Jan: Chicago, IL

• 01 Feb - 01 Mar: Philadelphia, PA

• 01 Mar - 13 May: Belmont, MA

• 30 Aug - 09 Oct: Cheltenham, UK

If you’re going to be around any of those places, let me know! I’d love to grab pizza with you. Seriously, reach out! I also have a big gap after my time in the Boston area, so if you have any suggestions as to where I should plant myself for a bit, I’m all ears!

Napoli on the Road

At the end of 2024, I went on a road trip through England and Wales, with a list of close to a dozen pizzerias. Included on this list was Napoli on the Road, which was highlighted in The Times’ list of top pizzerias in 2024, as well as scoring the title of the best pizzeria in Europe by 50 Top Pizza.1

I got the “Cheesewick,” cheekily named after the West London district it’s in, Chiswick. The Neapolitan-style crust has a crisp edge with a soft, airy interior with bubbling, lightly charred bits on the edges. The melody of ingredients were all individually strong: buffalo ricotta, fior di latte, stracciatella, Parmigiano Reggiano chips, Blue Stilton, and house-made Piennolo cherry tomato jam. Each bite earned a pause to examine the richness of flavours and the diversity of textures. The sweetness of the cherry tomato jam after a crunch of Parmigiano Reggiano in the form of a crispy chip was one of the pairings of tastes I’ve never had before. It’s a bold pizza, but never felt overpowered or out of balance.

Best pizza in Europe? I am certainly not qualified enough to say. But I will claim it’s one of the top ten pizzas I’ve ever had.

My friend who I brought there got a pie with slow-cooked beef and onion ragu, fior di latte, 24 months Parmigiano Reggiano DOP, and olive oil. He was so impressed that he got another reservation for the next week. For me, I had to continue on with my travels.

Cats in England

No visit anywhere is complete without cats, and I am lucky to have friends who had me meet theirs while I was in their town. Persia, for example, was a fast friend and loved playing with a purple straw.

Olive was cautiously curious of me, but was far more interested in the flying bug that snuck into the house.

I was also spied on by a tuxedo cat in Oundle.

Stile Napoletano

I visited a number of cities this trip that I had not been to before, including Chester. I arrived early to hike atop of the Chester city walls that form a perimeter around the city centre, which have existed in some form over two millennia. There are idyllic pedestrian roads lined with shops and restaurants, and in the middle of it all is my final destination for the day, Stile Napoletano.

I got the Provola e Pepe, with San Marzano tomato, Parmesan, smoked mozzarella, black pepper, chili oil, and basil.

The crust here rises high, and reminds me of Canotto style (Italian for “dinghy,” like a small inflatable vessel). It was airy and chewy, and beautifully charred like a delicate leopard print. The bit of heat and pepper added to what’s otherwise a pizza Margherita served as a welcome warm-up on the otherwise rainy day. While large, it’s easy to tackle, and I left feeling a spring in my step.

Ffwrnes

I spent a day wandering around Cardiff, the capital of Wales. My lunch destination was Ffwrnes (Welsh for “furnace” or “oven”), in the upper floor of the bustling Cardiff Market.

I got the “Hey Pesto” with basil pesto, mozzarella, Grana Padano, chopped cherry tomatoes, basil, cracked black pepper, and olive oil. Very juicy tomatoes, as if they were just sourced from another part of the market I was in, with notably creamy mozzarella. The slices folded easily into handheld sandwiches, while I watched pigeons supervising the area. Ffwrnes be a regular stop for me if I lived in Cardiff.

Tomorrow I’m off towards Chicago to enjoy some thin crust stalwarts I haven’t had yet, and to visit the latest Paulie Gee’s outpost in Wheeling, Illinois. If you have any pizza tips, or want to get together for a slice, reach out!

Yours in cats and pizza,
Aaron

P.S. If you’d like to see more photos, including cats and pizzas from my trip in England and Wales, I put together a gallery.

It has been a long time since my last missive, so below is a recap of where I’ve been in the last couple years. Blue dots are where I’ve stayed for a while, and green dots are places I’ve explored short-term.

I spent much of September and October of this year in Western Canada, primarily in Calgary. The YYC Pizza Fest took place in the middle of my stay (YYC is Calgary’s airport code), which highlighted dozens of area pizzerias and made my research easier. I took notes and photos of at least 34 different pizzas I tried in Western Canada during this time.

Noble Pie

Calgary’s Noble Pie is an incredible gem.

My first attempt to try it with a couple friends resulted in failure: they have an online waiting list, and we got on it with a queue of twenty or so parties in front of us. This was untenable for our hunger at the moment. Days later, I went solo at the hour they opened to snag a seat at the bar.

The interior décor of Noble Pie is a nod to the vibe of classic pizzerias with wood paneling, stained glass light fixtures, and classic Coca-Cola branded menu signs. A cabinet behind the bar is decorated with paper menus and postcards from some logos I recognised. I stood up and leaned over to get a closer look, and noticed stuff from Paulie Gee’s and Roberta’s in Brooklyn, Pizzeria Beddia in Philadelphia, Scottie’s in Portland, Scarr’s in Manhattan, and a bunch more. All souvenirs from the best pizzerias in North America. The pizza I’m about to get has to be good, right?

And it was. When I got my pie, the most noticeable visual feature of the crust is the bubbling and blisters on the edges.

When yeast in pizza dough ferments, it traps carbon dioxide gas which expands when heated. This impacts the flavour as well as the airiness and texture of the crust. In Neapolitan style pizza, which is commonly fermented for 24 hours, it's normal to see the result of this process look similar to a leopard print around the edges and on the bottom. In New York style, which is commonly fermented around 24 hours and sometimes up to three days, seeing some bubbling and a few darkened blisters on the edge of your pie is normal. If you try fermenting dough beyond a couple days, it becomes increasingly difficult to control and to make consistent. That, and if you’re a restauranteur, a multiple-day fermentation process means you are having to start your prep for Saturday’s pizzas that many days prior in the week.

The crust here has a wild combination of large, medium, and very small bubbles and blisters encompassing the entire edge. It’s unique and impressive. I had to inquire with Noble Pie’s owner and pizzaiolo, Mike Lange. He told me their “dough starts with a poolish1 and undergoes a four to five day cold fermentation.” Four to five days! He added, “we’re definitely pushing the boundaries of the fermentation but I’ve found this timeline works best for our dough’s unique character.”

Picking up a slice is reminiscent of a premium New York slice, where you can grip it with a couple fingers and your thumb, and with a slight bend it holds its shape without drooping. It’s firm but pliable, and resists cracking. The flavour richly hits the main tastes oddly evenly: it’s a bit salty, a bit sweet, and a bit sour. It has a thick chew while still feeling airy, with a crisp edge.

I got the “Sweet Cheesus” where atop the crust and tomato sauce is aged and fresh mozzarella, caciocavallo, Grana Padano, and Pecorino. Sicilian oregano and Mike’s Hot Honey finish it off. The medley of cheeses is less of a blend and more of an orchestra, where the notes of saltiness, milkiness, and bitterness played in crescendos as I pondered each bite. Mike’s Hot Honey adds a layer of spice and sweetness, in balance, with a stickiness that keeps the mix on your tongue and inside your mouth for a few moments longer.

On my second visit, a friend and I got the exact same pizza again. We would sometimes pause to look at each other to express that what we were tasting was incredible.

I’ve sought out over a hundred pizzas in all ten provinces and in every major city across Canada and I cannot think of a place that is as close to pizza perfection in the country as Noble Pie. It’s also in the top ten pizzas I’ve ever had in the world.

Noble Pie, Back Alley Entrance, 720 11 Ave SW, Calgary, AB T2R 0E4

Archie and Ronnie

For my stay in Calgary, I was housesitting for cats Archie and Ronnie, who quickly became great coworkers. Archie recently had dental work, including removing a tooth, which resulted in a periodic, adorable smirk.

Archie otherwise would follow me around from room to room, cuddle at night, and out of all the cat toys in the home favoured hair ties.

Archie’s adopted sister, Ronnie, would bathe in the sunlight and soak up energy by napping throughout most of the day, and would sometimes get zoomies in the evening. Overall, delightful companions for my stay.

Exploring Calgary

I was lucky to visit a dozen breweries, hundreds of kilometres of bike trails, a couple films at the the Calgary International Film Festival, a bunch of cafés, cultural and art events, a hockey game, and see the aurora borealis a few times. If it isn’t on your radar, look into it!

Bonus Pizza Notes

Posto Pizzeria and Bar. Unique Neapolitan-adjacent pies. I loved the #8 with pineapple, gorgonzola, pancetta, and fresno chilies.

Actually Pretty Good. Understated name. I enjoyed the “Full Nelson” with white sauce, Grana Padano, pecorino, mozzarella, rosemary chili bacon, fermented honey garlic.

Pulcinella. High-tier Neapolitan. I got their namesake pie with vine-ripened cherry tomatoes, parmigiano, basil, and buffalo mozzarella.

Keep in touch!

Yours in cats and pizza,
Aaron

Name the best pizza city in the world. I’d wager your answer is going to be New York City, Rome, or Naples. But what’s after that?

For me, it’s Portland, Oregon. I am certainly not alone. A few experts claim Portland is better than New York City. The quality, diversity, and inventiveness of pizza in Portland in part thanks to its overall food scene over the last few decades. It’s an environment where chefs are encouraged to experiment and break boundaries with a dining population deeply attuned to what it consumes. Starting up a restaurant in Portland is more affordable and has fewer barriers compared to places like New York City and San Francisco, enabling more people to give their ideas a go. Dozens of high quality farmers’ markets and proximity to hundreds of purveyors of locally grown ingredients rounds out an ecosystem where creativity and excellence in local food has been more the norm than the exception for a long time.

Frequently, I would have a pizza out of a food truck or a small pop-up that would seem mid-tier for the region, but put in another city it could be the best pizza around. All said, here are some of my favorites in Portland:

Cafe Olli

The word “artisan” gets thrown around a lot. Like “luxury” condos and “natural” foods, “artisan” is so broadly interpreted and applied it’s usually a meaningless descriptor. However, Cafe Olli is one of the few places that genuinely embodies “artisan.”

Cafe Olli is a small shop with a impressive amount of detail given to each pie. I sat at the far end of the counter overlooking the prep area and the oven while I watched my pizza being prepared. From a ball, the dough was meticulously handled and stretched, and cheeses were pulled apart with bits delicately arranged. Corn was sprinkled around the pizza with care. More time was spent preparing my pizza compared to the time it spent in the oven. And when it was out, basil and bits of cheese were individually placed atop.

The crust is similar to a Neapolitan style with a thicker crust and more of a sourdough flavor. When holding a slice, it just barely held all of the ingredients. A few times I tackled it with a fork and knife. All of the flavors here, the sharper cheeses, corn, and peppers, all balanced and mellowed each other out without squelching. A very smooth, delightful pie.

A few days after I took this photo, the New York Times named it one of the top 50 restaurants in the U.S. they are “most excited about right now.” A friend and I returned the next week and explored more of the menu. I had the whipped ricotta toast with citrus marmalade, lemon, and bee pollen: probably the best toast I’ve ever had. Cafe Olli would be one of my mainstays if I lived in Portland.

Lovely’s Fifty Fifty

Lovely’s Fifty Fifty, which opened in 2010, set an incredibly high bar for pizza in Portland. Chef Sarah Minnick was trailblazing in experimenting with edible flowers, plants, and foraged ingredients. Relationships with local farmers and growers gives her a full palette to make creations aligned with ingredient seasonality at a depth far beyond most pizzerias. All of this atop a solid sourdough crust. On my last visit, I took a group of six so we could try a few different pies, including:

• Cosmic gold potatoes two ways, with curly kale and parsley pesto

• Valley sweet peaches with sweet corn, escarole, and guanciale

• Fresh mozzarella with basil and salami

All of the pizzas felt light and fresh, as if the ingredients were picked up at the farmers’ market earlier that morning and prepared that afternoon. Quite possibly, they were.

We each got a scoop of ice cream afterwards (ice cream is the other “50” of Lovely’s), and we all left with great energy and joy. It’s one of those pizzerias where you feel like you’ve experienced something spectacular as you walk out.

Minnick is the subject of Netflix’s “Chef’s Table” Season 2, Episode 6, and she was just deservingly nominated as a 2024 James Beard Semifinalist for Outstanding Chef.

Ken’s Artisan Pizza

If Lovely’s Fifty Fifty is the cornerstone of Portland’s pizza scene, Ken’s Artisan Pizza is the foundation. Opened in 2006, it has since become a world-class institution (currently ranked third in the U.S. and 18th in the world by Italian judges). The best part here is the crust. If you can imagine if the crisp texture and flavor of the most premium baguette with the chew and lightness of the best Neapolitan pizza you’ve ever had, and fermented longer to have more complex flavors pop out of the dough: that’s the magical crust of Ken’s.

Ken Forkish has retired to Hawai‘i, but the quality sustains. On my last visit I got the seasonal “Cherry Bomb” with “marinated cherry tomatoes, mozzarella, LAN-ROC bacon, fried shallots, etxegarai cheese.” I had to look ingredients up on my phone before I ordered: LAN-ROC is a local farm, and etxegarai is a smoked aged sheep’s cheese. A great mix of sweet, salty, and savory.

Scottie’s Pizza Parlor

If I claimed that Scottie’s Pizza Parlor is Portland’s best New York style slice shop, I might be underselling it. I think it’s the best New York style slice on the west coast, and if Scottie’s landed in New York City, I think it would be one of the best slice shops there too.

Scottie’s took a New York formula and adapted it to locally-grown wheat, and slowly fermenting the dough. The result is a distinctly New York-like crust with sourdough notes that holds ingredients strongly. Scottie’s uses California-grown tomatoes and local cheeses. One of the slices I had was their award-winning “#1” pizza, with a mix of fresh and aged mozzarella, basil, shaved Parmesan, and olive oil. It’s almost buttery, and melts in the mouth in a way that deserves pause to process the flavor.

Pizzeria La Sorrentina

Pizzeria La Sorrentina was a big surprise for me, as it is tucked away in a strip mall in suburban Vancouver, Washington. I wouldn’t have noticed it if I wasn’t living nearby. Pizzaiolo and owner Daisuke “Dice-K” Matsumoto grew up in Japan, moved to Sorrento, Italy to study pizza and Italian food, and opened up an unassuming under-the-radar pizzeria.

It’s high-tier Neapolitan pizza to a precision, with a wide menu of standards and creative combinations.

Around the time I was finishing eating, chef Dice-K went through the dining area and walked straight to my table and asked me how my pizza was. I was taken off guard to be singled out, and he said he knew I knew a lot about pizza because I was wearing a Mozzeria shirt. Busted! This led to a lengthy conversation about pizza around the world and sharing our favorite places, which went on well after the place closed. He walked through which flours local pizzerias were using, and pointed me to some of his favorites in the region. I returned twice after my initial visit; it’s a great neighborhood pizzeria.

Cashew and Zoom

In Vancouver I stayed with cats Cashew and Zoom.

Cashew, an orange cat born in France, does not abide by rules. The immediate neighbors knew his favorite hiding spots, and Cashew would even get trapped in others’ garages. Two neighbors I spoke with shared loving affection with a sliver of disdain for Cashew. I’d call for him every night and shake treats, and even then, it was up to him when he’d decide to come back. This is not a normal situation when I am responsible for others’ cats, but one I got used to (with a lot of email documentation with Cashew’s regular humans, who were on the other side of the planet, and were very used to Cashew’s… independent demeanor). When inside, as if he is self-appointed royalty, Cashew has a small pillow and a human hairbrush he prefers to get brushed with, which I dutifully employed, and then I’d let him back outside again as it would be his next immediate request. One time I was a little late on letting him out and he broke out of the house, damaging a screen window. Oh, Cashew.

Zoom, by comparison, was much more routine and predictable (and not destructive). An old and scruffy cat, she would do rounds of the back garden every morning while I worked on my laptop on the back porch. It was a predictable, methodical, clockwise pattern every day. The back yard was her domain, which she stuck to. A cute sweetheart.

Hiking and Biking

I was lucky to go on wonderful hikes and bike rides almost every weekend along the Oregon Coast, Columbia River and in Portland. Take a peek at an abridged gallery here.

More for your Portland to-do list

After enjoying dozens of pizzas in the Portland area, in addition to the above, I strongly recommend all of these as they range from great to fantastic in their own right: Apizza Scholls, Basil & Board (Salem), Crust Collective (Vancouver), Dove Vivi, Flame Pizza, Nonavo Pizza (Vancouver), Nostrana, Pan Con Queso, Pizza Thief, Please Louise, Ranch, and Reeva.

Schedule

I’m sticking to Massachusetts this month, wrapping up my time in Belmont, heading to Wellesley in a couple days, and then going to Cambridge for the next week. I’ll be in D.C. starting in April for at least a couple months. I’m figuring out my June and July, which will likely keep me around D.C. and Virginia, and will be back up in Minnesota by mid-August. From there, it’s tempting to go back to Portland. Or Canada. Or Europe?

Have any suggestions as to where I should go? Do you need a long-term house sitter? What are you up to? I’d love to hear from you!

Yours in cats in pizza,
Aaron

Moto, Seattle, Washington

West Seattle’s Moto, a small pandemic-era Detroit-style pizzeria, skyrocketed in popularity in part due to their great pizzas, but in large part with how difficult it was to even get their pizza.

Moto opened out of a small cottage in January 2021, months before most people were eligible to get their first coronavirus vaccine and before many pandemic-era restrictions in Seattle were lifted. Neighbors working from home were treated to a rare restaurant opening amid closings.

Quickly, Moto reached capacity where people had to put their order in days in advance. It was all advance order takeout, so one couldn’t simply walk up and order a pizza.

How far in advance one needed to order turned from days, to weeks, and then into months. Of course at that point, a pizza that takes three months to get became even more newsworthy, sustaining its rarity and allure. Moto throttled how far in advance you could order a pizza, so fans needed to tune into their Instagram account to find when their next opportunity would be to buy a pie, and then wait for months to eat it.

For me, that time frame was just 46 days. I was in the middle of Wisconsin when I saw a post announcing slots becoming available for the time I’d be in Moto’s area. I quickly texted a friend near Seattle and arranged a day we could plan on meeting up (and if she agreed with my menu choices). I got my order placed within minutes. I’m glad I got in, as it wasn’t long before that month’s pizzas were all claimed.

A month and a half later, I got my taste!

It’s fantastic Detroit-style pizza. Caramelized edges surround a crust with a gentle, fluffy rise with notes of sourdough. It’s a mix of a tomato sauces that apparently react differently with various temperatures. The cheeses are premium and fuse into the crust. It wasn’t fully clear where the cheese ends and the crust begins. The pepperoni had a notably spicy bite that wasn’t overpowering, but certainly poked the sides of the mouth. It’s hearty, but not heavy. Overall, a great balance.

Moto owner Lee Kindell, now running four Moto locations, drove over to join us as we were finishing up and to talk pizza. He asked how it was, and I confidently said it was in the top five of Detroit-style that I’ve had. I pointed to places like Blue Pan in Denver, Wrecktangle in Minneapolis, and my favorite, Paulie Gee’s in Chicago. Moto is in those ranks. I also said I think it’s better than Austin’s Via 313, Brooklyn’s Emmy Squared, and even better than Buddy’s, the pioneer of the style in Detroit.

He wanted to critique his pizza too, and asked if he could see how it looked when it first came out. I handed him my phone, and he started pinching my photos to look at the details. “We can do better,” he told me, and pointed to what he saw were flaws, and how he is having some limitations to how hot he’s able to get his oven at his original West Seattle location (and how he’s solving it). It’s a detail that’s probably just tens of degrees difference just to impact the dough and cheese a little bit differently. It isn’t a noticeable temperature difference once served. Nonetheless, I started seeing his deep attention to detail, as well his ambition to be the one of the world’s best.

He asked me what city I was heading to next, and before I could finish the word “Portland,” he started pulling out his phone to show me photos he took at Portland’s Lovely’s Fifty Fifty just days prior. We started comparing notes about our favorite pizzas around the world. For someone who just started a few years ago, he talked as if he’s been in the pizza business all his life, and had an eagerness to experience pizza from the world’s greats.

Kindell walked through big plans for growth and expansion, including the story of how he got into making pizzas at T-Mobile Park. In short, it was persistent and aggressive networking, and eventually a couple guys turned up for pizza who were the people responsible for procuring vendors at the stadium. Fast forward, he served one of the top dogs with major league baseball during the All-Star game at his location in T-Mobile Park, who apparently loves the pizza. This led us into dreaming about what it takes to get Moto into other stadiums.

We also talked about what cities - some far outside of Seattle - might be a great fit for Moto. In sum, a conversation about his passion for making excellent pizza turned into a big discussion on how to scale a business.

Lee Kindell has a ton of passionate energy, an expansion plan that checks the boxes, and already has experienced investors lined up. When I visited, the whole team felt excited to be there and were proud of the work they were doing. And because the pizza is, indeed, great, I left knowing this is just the beginning for Moto.

Aspen and Loki

My companions in the Seattle area were Aspen and Loki. One of Aspen’s favorite spots was a portable bed that zips up, which was just always left unzipped.

Loki was a bit more skittish, and was usually one part cautious, and one part frightened, until there was enough courage to get pats. Then it was purr city.

Hiking in the North Cascades

While I was in Washington, I was lucky to spend a day with my cousin and her partner to explore the North Cascades. We took the 10.5 km / 6.5 mile Chain Lakes Loop, which was one of the more exhausting but most rewarding hikes I have ever been on.

More photos from that hike, are here.

Dantini, Seattle, Washington

Dantini is tucked in an industrial area connected to Old Log Cabin Distillery, the new name of Batch 206 Distillery. Dantini is one of Seattle’s pop-up pizzerias that served primarily or exclusively takeout through the height of the pandemic, and its popularity has them scaling into having a dine-in space with the distillery.

They’re known for the pizza we ordered: pepperoni with with garlic confit. It’s a fantastic New York style derivative with thick, crispy edges and an amazingly firm but soft crust that holds ingredients like a magnet. My dining companion picked up a slice sideways with the ingredients facing me and the edge facing the table, and the sauce, cheese, garlic, and pepperoni all stayed in place.

Magic aside, those ingredients made for a slightly spicy, garlicky, and almost creamy mix that was hard to quit.

I had a bunch of pizzas in the Seattle area, and Moto and Dantini are now at the top of my list.

What’s your favorite pizza these days? Anything you’re looking forward to in 2024? Let’s catch up!

Yours in cats and pizza,
Aaron

Caradaro Club started serving pizzas in the late 1940s, making it the first pizzeria in Milwaukee. Since its founding, the original Caradaro Club went through multiple changes, expanded to multiple locations, changed ownership, and the original location burned down. A subsequent location also burned down, and most of the other locations closed. Fast forward to today, the Caradaro Club lives on in a residential neighborhood in a different building with an owner unrelated to the founders.

From the outside, the place looks unmistakably like a café. There is an oversized coffee cup and saucer atop, as if it fell from space and wedged itself irreversibly into the roof. Before Caradaro Club moved in, a different pizzeria was in the space, but prior to that, the building used to house a cafe and it was never updated. Caradaro Club took over the space in 2010, and today the coffee cup remains.

I got to sit down and chat for a while with Caradaro Club owner Wally Kutch. He’s an energetic and proud pizzaiolo, excited to tell his slice of the Caradaro Club story.

Kutch was an engineer and pilot, and one of his main gigs was building the iconic popcorn wagons for Koepsell’s. In the early 2000s, Kutch and his girlfriend were at Summerfest, the yearly Milwaukee music festival where attendance exceeds the population of the city. There, he noticed how people queued up for popcorn at the wagons he built. Afterwards they decided to get pizza at one of his favorite places, Caradaro Club, at their final location outside of Milwaukee. He told the owner they just got back from Summerfest and suggested they should be selling pizzas there. “They’d make a killing,” Kutch said. Caradaro Club’s then-owner said it would be too much work to set up at Summerfest. As well, the owner was tired and getting ready to retire. This quickly led to a $1,000 transaction of earnest money towards buying out the business.

After the transaction was finalized, Kutch recalled that “one day in February 2003, the prior owner was behind the counter. The next day it was me. I didn't say nothin’, and I didn’t tell nobody.” The public was apparently unaware the ownership had changed, and he wanted to keep the pizzas and service consistent.

He opened up a second location in 2010, bringing Caradaro Club back to Milwaukee, in the location with the giant coffee cup lodged into on the roof. At the time, he was offering to sell the huge coffee cup and replace it with a giant slice of pizza. That never happened. Almost a decade and a half later, there is no clear signage to indicate it’s a pizzeria. Inside, the place has a mix of old furniture in well-used condition. There were no patrons nor a traditional front of the house, so I legitimately thought they may have been closed when I first walked in.

The pizza itself is actually high-tier traditional thin crust. It has a straightforward cracker-like thin edge that isn't too hard, but not too light where it could fall apart. The red sauce is portioned well so the cheese on top still fuses with the rest. It’s absolutely no frills, but standard-setting. It’s of the best thin crust pizzas I've had in the region, and probably the cheapest.

I asked Kutch if there were any changes to the recipe since he got it, and he confirmed that he hasn’t changed a thing. However, between the original Caradaro Club’s rectangular pies and by the time Kutch took the helm with their circular pizzas, it’s impossible to determine what else, if anything, might have changed. Shape aside, it’s probably as close as you can get to the original first pizza in Milwaukee.

Caradaro Club isn’t serving pizzas at Summerfest as Kutch initially envisioned, but neighbors are lucky to have the standard-barer for local pizza, and a slice of history, within reach.

For further reading on Caradaro Club prior to Kutch’s ownership, Milwaukee journalist Bobby Tanzilo has a well-researched piece on Caradaro Club’s history.

A Cat on the Ozaukee Interurban Trail

I stayed in Brown Deer, Wisconsin for about a month with proximity to the Ozaukee Interurban Trail. It’s a rail-to-trail project that was formerly the Interurban Electric Railway between Milwaukee and Sheboygan. No passenger trains run this route anymore, but the paved trail connects to all of the same towns the train did, and it blends seamlessly with Milwaukee County’s Oak Leaf Trail, an understated name for a trail system of over 135 miles connecting almost anywhere in Milwaukee. Overall, I was able to bike in the region very easily.

On the Ozaukee Interurban Trail, just south of Cedarburg, a cat greeted me. I stopped, and after it realized I was an acceptable human, it showed me its home in the trees.

There were no houses nearby, but it’s clear that this cat has some people regularly providing it food and fresh water. A nice treat to be lured off the trail this way.

Flour Girl & Flame

After enjoying pizza at over a dozen pizzerias in the Milwaukee area, my favorite by a long shot is Flour Girl & Flame in West Allis. After a couple visits, my favorite is their unique take on Detroit style using local ingredients. The dough is made from local Wisconsin wheat, fermented for two days. The tomatoes in the marinara sauce and the basil tasted as if they were picked fresh that morning. Like most Detroit style pizzas, there is an ample amount of Wisconsin brick cheese, but they augment it with fresh mozzarella, cheddar, and provolone making it a bit creamier. The chew is a bit thicker and a bit more dense than a traditional Detroit style pie, and its notably less greasy. It’s probably in the top five Detroit style pizzas I've ever had, and Flour Girl & Flame is certainly one of the top five pizzerias I know of in the state of Wisconsin.

Schedule

From Wisconsin, I went to Chicago, to Minneapolis, to Fort Collins, to Seattle, to the Portland area, to San Francisco, then back to towns in Oregon. I’ll be recapping some of the pizza and cats and other things I visited there soon! Spoiler: Portland is one of the best pizza cities in the world.

Later this week, I’ll be back on the road towards Minnesota where I’ll be until late January 2024. I’ll be in the Boston area all of February and most of March. In April, I’ll be back in Washington, D.C. for at least a month. From there on, my schedule is up in the air!

How are you doing? What’s new? If we’re in the same place in the coming months, lets get pizza!

-Aaron

If you’re new to my newsletter, I am a digital nomad with a remote job, taking care of cats where I go, and eating the world’s best pizza. Here’s where I’ve been and where you can find me!

Schedule

• Apr 12–May 22: Scottsville, VA – Phinny, Tony, Greyson, Gertrude, and Elliott

• May 29–Jul 06: College Park, MD – Lucy and Oscar

• Jul 08–Aug 02: Brown Deer, WI – Karim

• Aug 02–Aug 13: Chicago, IL – Goldie and Olive

• Aug 13–Aug 18: Minneapolis, MN – Bartlett, Flynn, and Provenza

• Aug 26–Sep 02: Fort Collins, CO – Mazie

• Sep 07–Sep 11: Woodinville, WA – Aspen and Loki

• Sep 11–Oct 21: Vancouver, WA – Cashew and Zoom

• Oct 22–Nov 04: San Francisco, CA – Boo and Ollie

• Nov 11–Nov 30: Bend, OR – Mo and Finley

• Dec 01–Dec 06: Hood River, OR – Strava

• Mid-December: Isanti, MN – Butterscotch and Mabel

If you’re in the Bay Area, or if we haven’t connected yet in the Pacific Northwest, please reach out!

Scottsville, Virginia

An opportunity turned up to care for a home and some cats in Scottsville, a town I had never heard of south of Charlottesville.

I generally stay in places where there is a lot to do and explore, or where I know people. However, Scottsville has a population around 550, just one small café, only a few options for food, and a small brewery. Everything outside of town is a good drive. For someone who normally stays in cities or nearby suburbs, Scottsville is not my typical stay.

However, I had a very enjoyable interview with the hosts, and the timing was great for my schedule. Even though it was five cats, I decided to give Scottsville a shot!

Scottsville is a town on the James River, and once a major port and county seat. To summarize a couple hundred years of history: county boundaries were revised, Charlottesville a half hour north became the county seat, the railroad came through, the civil war brought destruction to much of the port infrastructure, and flooding changed the built environment. Trains no longer stop. A lot of the jobs in the town from decades ago are no longer there. Today, Scottsville, like many small towns in Virginia and across the U.S., struggles to keep its vitality.

Some neighboring towns are effectively dead with boarded up buildings with perhaps a church, a gas station, and a discount store. Some worry that without some changes, Scottsville could eventually face a similar fate.

Before I arrived, one of the biggest discussions was a proposed conversion of an old tire factory building into apartments. It’s located within a short walk from the main part of town and even closer to the river, so it could be very attractive housing. The arguments for and against this proposal mirrored housing discussions I’ve heard ad nauseam in densely populated areas: more neighbors bring more tax revenue and support local business while bringing new ideas and fresh energy; but more neighbors may be a strain on infrastructure, cause more traffic, noise, crime, a handful of other arguments that boil down to a fear of having more people around. The proposed zoning change to allow those apartments ultimately failed, narrowly.

This discussion on the direction of Scottsville’s future came up repeatedly, and for me, it was most often at the tiny bar at the James River Brewery. This region of Virginia is known for a wide variety of destination wineries and breweries, and Scottsville is lucky to have one of them. While the brewery has a good share of tourists, it is also a default home bar to many locals and one of the few actual places to gather in the evening. It was easy to figure out who is local and who is visiting based on the shape of their drinking vessel: visitors are served with generic pint glasses, but the regulars have 0.5 liter steins with handles. I inquired how to get in this “Mug Club”: $60 for the calendar year, but you get a buck off every drink (and $2 off on a specific weekday) in your nominally larger stein. It’s limited to just under 200 members due to availability. The mugs are numbered and stored behind the bar, but you can decorate them as you please with stickers. I was only going to be in Scottsville for a month or so but while I was drinking a pint, I figured I could make the math work out, so I got one of the few available.

That mug, #154, became my key to the town.

When someone else with a mug saw me with my mug, I was approached as someone they should know. Showing some commitment to a local institution separated me from people just passing through. Within a couple weeks, I felt fairly attuned to a lot more of the goings on in the town, and even a taste for some drama. I started getting invited to join my new, albeit temporary, neighbors on adventures outside of the brewery, such as events at other wineries and breweries, campfire gatherings, and even an impromptu night swim in the river. I also got a lot of great local intelligence on places to explore regionally. Eventually, when I’d walk down Valley Street through the center of town, some people would recognize me, wave, and greet me by name.

I can’t think of anywhere else I’ve ever lived where I felt part of a community so quickly. It felt jarring at first, but quite comforting to have just a taste of being part of small community.

On my last full day in Scottsville, I joined a few friends for “Music Bingo” at a winery near Charlottesville, and we came back for a couple more drinks at the brewery. Everyone there knew it was my last day, so it was a de facto going away toast for me. Goodbyes were paired with contact information being exchanged, and the discussion was about when, not if, I was coming back to Scottsville. This was wrapped with a few offers of places to stay for when I return. The night ended at the nearby campground with a ride around the grounds in a golf cart with cheap beer, followed by a campfire while watching the sunset.

In all of the places I’ve stayed recently, Scottsville has certainly been the most welcoming. And yes, I’ll be going back, at some point.

(I also had enough beer for that month and half, so I have quit drinking for the rest of the year!)

Five (then Six) Cats

Oh yeah, I did say there were five cats. Actually six by the end…

Most of them were outdoor cats. Phinny (aka Sarah), the smallest of the bunch, was one who was allowed to come in at nights. At least, she was supposed to, and I found myself calling for her most evenings. She also wins the award for being the cutest, and would prance and bounce around like a young doe.

The other cats spent most of the days and nights outside.

Gertrude would come by for food. Then go to the other houses around for more.

Varmin, or Tony, used to live with the host family at a different house, and then this orange ran away and never came back. Time passed, the host family moved, and somehow, Tony showed up again, but at the new place!

Greyson was the elder cat, who overcame issues with a wound on his abdomen and a loose tooth during my time with him. Almost deaf and almost blind, and then one fewer tooth (but a healed tummy), Greyson was regularly game for pats (and more food).

Elliott, or Mr. L, LL Bean, Mr. Bean, or just “Bean” or a few more names I forgot, had a regular food route between me and one of the neighbors, and was regularly monitoring the other neighboring property.

With some changing travel plans with the hosts where I was caring for these cats, I was invited to stay longer, and I was very happy to. Included in this extension was a special delivery of another cat, named Traveler. In short, a relative of one of the hosts was in the process of moving back to France, but at the time lived in Phoenix. That relative flew out with Traveler so Traveler could join the cat gang in Scottsville instead of the complications of moving him to France. I got to help socialize Traveler, but honestly he was one of the easiest cats to work with. A real buddy.

Pizza Bones, Richmond, Virginia

I had a lot of pizza in Virginia and North Carolina during my stay in Scottsville, and my favorite, by far, was Pizza Bones in Richmond.

It’s aptly named, as the “bones” of the pie are stellar. The crust is hard and firm with a chewy core, yet crackle when bent without falling apart. The slices are thin as a Midwest tavern-style pizza but in a Neapolitan shape and texture. The bases of the slices are soft, but they somehow don’t droop (mostly) when held. The dough certainly had time to ferment: it was a bit like sourdough, slightly acidic, with a note of salt.

The cheese and sauce fuse with the crust to where it’s indistinguishable where one part ends and the other begins. The orangish color and oily texture may have the appearance of cheapness, but the flavor of the mozzarella is milky and a bit tart, and the sauce has a slight sweetness while almost being meaty.

The menu is simple: cheese, pepperoni, or special. All are 14 inches. Perhaps, the acute focus on the basics is part of why these pizzas are flirting with perfection. Certainly the best cheese pizza I’ve had in Virginia.

I believe this is Ashley Patino’s first restaurant in Richmond, and by the taste of this, she is certainly a rising star. I liked it better than Pupatella, which used to be my favorite pizza in Virginia. It’s at my top of my list to revisit the next time I’m in Richmond.

Postscript

Recently, a friend from Scottsville texted me this photo:

Apparently this kitten had been just found and adopted by said friend. “She's really sweet,” and “that's the big news around town.” I think I’m being lured to come back!

Keep in touch! I’m on Signal and Discord constantly. I’m even posting on my Instagram Stories again. Or shoot me an email and let me know how you’re doing! I’d love to hear from you.

-Aaron

This email is mostly a lot of pizzas and a quick update on my schedule.

(If you’re new here, where I live is where I’m cat sitting, mostly through Trusted Housesitters.)

Schedule

• Jan 10–Apr 05: Belmont, MA (near Boston) – Yoshi and Kiku

• Apr 12–May 22: Scottsville, VA (near Charlottesville) – Phinny, Tony, Greyson, Gertrude, and Elliott

• May 29–Jul 06: College Park, MD (near D.C.) – Lucy and Oscar

• Jul 08–Aug 02: Brown Deer, WI (near Milwaukee) – Karim

• Aug 02–Aug 13: Chicago, IL – Goldie and Olive

• Aug 13–Aug 23: Minnesota (TBD)

• Aug 26–Sep 01: Fort Collins, CO – Mazie

• Sep 03–Sep 10: Tacoma, WA (near Seattle) – Molly

• Sep 11–Oct 21: Vancouver, WA (near Portland) – Cashew and Zoom

If you’re near any of these places, please reach out!

I would truly appreciate seeing you.

Thank You

To those of you who have met up with me over pizza, for coffee, for a film, at a record store, at a brewery, at a winery, to wander through a town, to see a baseball game, or to welcome me into your home… I so thankful. For me, the biggest challenge of being a digital nomad is the lack of consistent connections with people, and it means a ton that you have made time to be with me.

You all know who you are. I love you. Thank you.

Yoshi and Kiku

I spent the first quarter of the year outside of Boston with Yoshi and Kiku. Yoshi’s a dominant tuxedo cat with iris melanosis in one eye. The boss of the house.

Yoshi’s companion is Kiku, the shy and skittish one of the family who seemed scared of everything.

Kiku would prefer not be seen. I’d come downstairs, and she’d hide. But she loved chasing a laser around and tackling treats. Overall, Yoshi and Kiku were good companions to have where I was staying: a comfortable home in a bedroom community with good connections to bike trails, transit, trains, and highways.

Pizzas For Your To-Do List

The Boston area has a lot of good pizza, but with the time I had I decided to dive deeper and explore more of the state and surrounding locales. Looking back, these are my top nine.

Volturno Pizza Napoletana, Worcester, MA: Top-tier Neapolitan style place in a large, converted warehouse space. Was surprised the pizzas were two-for-one on the Monday I was there, so I got a second pizza for free to take home.

Avenue Kitchen + Bar, Somerville, MA: I would bet it’s the best Detroit-style in Massachusetts. Less greasy than Detroit’s standard-bearer Buddy’s with a crispy and thick edge, and overall proportioned well.

Bar, New Haven, CT: I’m generally not a big fan of New Haven style. I’ve done Frank Pepe, Sally’s, and Modern on another New Haven trip. I think the style is an outcome of Italian immigrants having to reinvent the wheel in the New World with sub-par ingredients. This said, Bar has been on my Connecticut to-do list, and I took the train down to meet up with friends to give it a shot. Bar does take New Haven style a notch up, and retains the droopy yet cracker-like ultra thin crust (as well as the presentation on a sheet of paper on a huge pan). It’s a mess, but one with actually good ingredients. Out of the five of us, the second youngest, age six, after downing a bunch of rectangles, declared it the best pizza she ever had. I respect her opinion a lot. Bar is now where I recommend if you’re going to New Haven.

Cape Cod Cafe, Brockton, MA: South Shore Bar Pizza has a lot of variants in the region, and many point back to Cape Cod Cafe being the first with style. Made in a pan, it gives the edge of the crust a caramelized bite. It’s a bit buttery, and very satisfying.

Si Cara, Cambridge, MA: Canotto style is a Neapolitan derivative that has a puffier and more airy crust. It’s the Italian word for “dinghy,” and the edges resemble something that would float at sea. More filling than a Neapolitan pie, I regretfully had to leave a quarter of it behind.

Flying Saucer Pizza Company, Salem, MA: In a town full of witch kitsch, it was oddly refreshing to stumble into a place that instead had science fiction geekery cranked up to 11. After ordering, I spent some time admiring the signed photos from Star Trek cast members and a full-sized replica of Locutus of Borg that silently greeted visitors at the door. The pizza was dialed in with the same level of nerdom: unusual complexity but calculated balance. The “Poison Ivy” I had contained basil pesto, spinach, broccoli, green bell pepper, goat cheese, and balsamic fig glaze. Somehow it was not heavy, and it was even refreshing, in a way.

Venice Pizza, Dorchester, MA: This neighborhood take-out joint is punching far above its weight. The pie I had was crispy, chewy, and a little sour, covered in biting pesto and sweet tomatoes, all well proportioned.

Jinny’s Pizzeria, Newton, MA: Fantastic 72-hour fermented crust that is a bit salty without being too noticeably so. Might be the best crust I’ve tasted in the state. This one had a nice mix of cheeses with a sharp blue, balanced out with saba. Top of my list to go back to when I’m in Massachusetts.

Ops, Brooklyn, NY: On my to-do list for a while, I arranged a day trip to meet friends in New York to have this pizza. Absolutely phenomenal crust that’s chewy with a solid crisp and hard, thick edge, with mostly sourdough notes. A little sour, a tiny bit sweet, and a little salty. The mix of cheeses were sharp and pronounced, and offset by the surprisingly juicy olives. The kind of pizza where we periodically paused, looked at each other, and contemplated the art we were consuming.

What’s Next?

I recently had a wonderful time in Scottsville, Virginia (population ~550), which I’ll recap in my next missive.

Will you be near where I’m headed? Know of a pizzeria I should check out somewhere? Need a long-term cat sitter at the end of the year or in 2024? Just want to chat about cats or pizza? Reach out! Email is great, and I use Signal and Discord constantly too.

Keep in touch!

-Aaron

Schedule

• 28 Sep–Nov 14: Lévis, QC – Freddy and Bubbles

• Nov 20–Dec 7: Halifax, NS – Gidget

• Dec 11–Jan 06: Isanti, MN – Butterscotch and Mabel

• Jan 10–Apr 05: Belmont, MA (near Boston) – Yoshi and Kiku

• Apr 12–May 15: Scottsville, VA (near Charlottesville) – Sarah (and feral cats)

• May 29–Jul 06: College Park, MD (near D.C.) – Lucy and Oscar

• Jul 08–Aug 02: Brown Deer, WI (near Milwaukee) – Karim

Québec

Montréal is one of my favourite cities, and I’ve been lucky to go there a few times both for fun and for work. This gave me a taste to explore more of Québec. I got to stay in a neighbourhood of Lévis, about a half hour drive from Québec City or a three hour drive north of Montréal.

I stayed with Bubbles and Freddy. Bubbles is a picky eater who begs for meaty treats, and shortly after my arrival broke into my sealed bag of chips and smashed a glass that was on the counter. This, lets say, gave me a bit of anxiety at first, but once we got used to each other we made things work. Bubbles really is a tiny companion who would sometimes rest on my shoulder, sleep at my feet while I slept, and enjoyed being a little hunter with toys around the home.

Bubbles’ cohabitant Freddy, is a big pal who would sleep on his back with his legs spread during the day, and wander the neighbourhood all night. Yes, indoor during the day, outdoor at night. And unlike Bubbles, Freddy would eat anything put in front of him, and was one of the most chill, yet playful cats I’ve met. Chill, as long as you let him outside each night, or he gets ornery.

Québec is an absolutely beautiful province, and close to every other weekend I’d take a road trip to a different town. Of particular interest to me is the prevalence of hydroelectric dams. Québec generates almost all of their electricity from water, their electric utility is aptly named Hydro-Québec, and they’re an energy exporter to other parts of Canada and the U.S. Many of the power plants are now surrounded with parks, such as Parc des Chutes-de-la-Chaudière and the Chute-Montmorency.

Driving an electric vehicle in Québec is a breeze. The abundance of cheap electricity, mixed with provincial targets set many years ago for electrification, charging stations are everywhere. Close to half of Canada’s public chargers are in Québec. Not having to worry about where the next charger is felt a bit like living in the future.

For a place where you can reliably find wonderful cheeses and bread, unfortunately, great pizza is sparse. I can recommend a few: for to-the-book Neapolitan, Nº. 900 is quite reliable, just got VPN certified, and is found all over the Montréal region with a few locations in Québec and Sherbrooke. My favourite pizza in Montréal is Moleskine. They had a creative old space, but recently closed and reemerged in a food hall. In Québec, Pizzazorg is my top pick (get a stool at the back bar). High on my to-do list is Bleuetière Marland, a family farm with a Neapolitan pizza counter. I arrived after they closed for the season in 2022, but they reopen in May 2023. It is reviewed very highly by locals and they seem better than anything I’ve had in the province.

Perhaps instead of pizza, find some great poutines. Frite Alors is a higher tier chain and a good baseline. If you’re in Montréal, check out this English-language blog that has a Poutine story almost weekly, highlighting top picks. A surprise favourite of mine is 130 km north of Québec City, just north of Saint-Jean-Port-Joli, at Restaurant Le Fromageur. Similarly to pizza, sometimes what feels best may not be a critic favourite but something that hits you personally in a way that feels perfect. Le Fromageur is that for me: crispy fries, super squeaky curds, and a measured and not overbearing amount of gravy. On paper, nothing that special or creative, just the basics done top-notch. I was alone at a picnic table in the parking lot in the dark, under the stars, while my car was charing. I kept thinking, “how is this is so perfect way out here?!” Mark it to your to-do list, especially if you’re trekking across Canada as it’s a nice gas station, high speed EV charging station, convenience store, cheese shop, and poutinerie all in one building on an otherwise sparse section of la route Transcanadienne.

Also of note: the best way to get to the most northern point of the eastern U.S. in Maine: through Québec to Lac Pohénégamook. There’s an obscure little park where you can walk around in the U.S., but it is only accessible from Québec. Down the road is the border patrol to the rest of the U.S., but it’s only open during business hours on weekdays, and on the U.S. side it’s just a very, very, long gravel road for logging, presumably.

If you are thinking of going to Québec, especially if you’re stepping outside the tourist areas of Montréal and Québec City, please, let’s get in touch! I was there through the last political cycle and I have a lot of stories navigating the culture and language. I find it fascinating, complicated, and very nuanced, and there are a lot of strong opinions you’ll read. I’ll happily hop on a call for a half hour. Seriously, let’s chat!

Nova Scotia

I had a gap between my stay in Lévis and Halifax, and I stayed in one of the most remote and quietest places I’ve been. It’s in the northeastern corner the Nova Scotia peninsula. The nearest town, Antigonish, is about a half hour away. You could stay there too, if you want a remote getaway (with surprisingly great internet). The location is a good starting point for a day trip to Cape Brenton Island and, well, Antigonish, and that’s about it. It is wonderfully desolate, has virtually no light pollution, and is overall quite peaceful.

When I got to Halifax, I stayed with Gidget. She’d sit next to me while I worked, move around the living room throughout the day depending where the sunlight would get in, and she had a funny wobble to her walk. Cats like rubbing against wall corners, but with Gidget’s wobble, it was more like checking in ice hockey. A cute companion.

Halifax is a beautiful maritime city and home to about half of Nova Scotia’s population. In downtown, there’s a designated Pizza Corner named for the prevalence of pizzerias at the intersection. I was naturally drawn here on my first trip to Halifax, but I’d describe pizzas around there as “utility slices after drinking.” (Hint: if you’re at that intersection and need something in your stomach, go to Willy’s for poutine.) If you stick to pizza, walk a couple blocks away for great fast casual at Score Pizza. A few blocks further is Yeah Yeah’s with nice puffy slices, and for a longer walk, Piatto Pizzeria has wonderful Neapolitan-style pies. (Sidebar: if you’re going to Newfoundland, the locations of Piatto Pizzeria in St. John’s are just as great there too, and might be the best pizza in Newfoundland and Labrador.)

Anyway, to find the best pizza in Halifax, get to the Hydrostone neighbourhood for Salvatore’s Pizzaiolo Trattoria. The mix of cheese and sauce is almost fused with the crust, and the garlic-charged olive oil has a delightfully loud presence. The local alt-weekly, in their 2016 “Best-of” issue, inducted Sal’s into their hall of fame, so it gets listed as such each following year. This is presumably so other pizzerias would have a chance to win by putting Sal’s in a special tier. After flipping through the more recent “Best-of” lists and trying every pizza in them, I’d agree that Sal’s is a notch above the rest.

Keep in touch, and please reach out if you’ll be near where I’m staying!

-Aaron

Schedule

I’m leaving Canada soon, and in early 2023 I’m headed to the Boston area.

• Jul 26 – Sep 28: Rosemont, NJ – Buster

• 28 Sep – Nov 14: Lévis, QC – Freddy and Bubbles

• Nov 20 – Dec 7: Halifax, NS – Gidget

• Jan 11 – Apr 5: Belmont, MA – Yoshi and Kiku

I’ll also be in Minnesota over the holidays. Let’s catch up! I also do not have anything booked after April 5. What are your summer plans?

Buster

Buster hissed at me when I first approached him. At 19 years old, which is a gazillion in cat years, Buster was set in his ways and coexists with his normal cohabitants and nobody else. While Buster’s humans were off to England and I was moving in to Buster’s home, I learned that their two adult daughters would no longer take care of Buster even though one was within a short walk. Buster had urinated in protest with one, and the other swatted at the other so swiftly it caused a shoulder dislocation. Nobody seems to want to get anywhere near this cat! My start with Buster wasn’t easy either, and had to deal with a little protest marking as well (the bathroom rug spent the rest of the summer outside). But making friends with cats is my superpower.

As the weeks went by, I kept somewhat of a consistent schedule, and worked my way closer to Buster throughout the days without being imposing. Buster got used to me, and he eventually let me pet him, and eventually he’d sleep next to where I happened to be. While he never became the most friendly cat, we certainly got along and became great housemates. Eventually, he even let me put on a leash for a walk outside!

One of Buster’s humans’ daughters stopped by with her husband. Upon the sight of Buster and I walking in the back yard, they looked at me as if I’ve pulled off an impressive illusion or trick. Neither of them dare go near Buster, and the husband quipped that in the more than a decade he’s known the cat, he’s never seen him enjoy a leash, let alone not try to attack people near him. He asked – in that joking but not really joking way – if I was a real cat whisperer.

I also gave Buster a catnip banana, which I attest works with almost any cat. Buster hadn’t found interest in most toys in recent years, but the banana certainly turned him around.

Buster would wake me up each morning, and he would great me with meowing at the back door every time I came back home. I loved getting to know Buster, and I’d be happy to stay with him again.

Pizza in New Jersey and Pennsylvania

Buster lives in New Jersey close to the Delaware River, with Pennsylvania on the other side of it. Along the river are a bunch of cute towns and bridges and a lengthy trail system on both sides. I was about a half hour from Trenton and an hour from Philadelphia, and got to visit a number of friends and a couple relatives as they came through the region.

Of course, many of my meetups were over pizza. I had about thirty different pizzas in the area, and below are my favourites.

• Porta, Asbury Park, NJ: A couple friends were giving me a quick primer on the beaches of New Jersey, and Asbury Park was at the top of the list. Tied to the recommendation was to check out Porta. They said it was really good, but I was surprised to find that this is easily one of the best pizzas I’ve had in the state. Deriving from a Neapolitan style, I found their crust slightly crispier and firmer than traditional Neapolitan, which is dialled into my preferences. Very fresh mozzarella cheese, and the whole pie felt balanced. I enjoyed walking it off a bit along the boardwalk just a block away.

• Luca, Lancaster, PA: Lancaster is the main city in the heart of Pennsylvania Dutch Country and in the centre of the country’s largest concentration of Amish and Mennonite communities. It’s a city rich with history, and a friend and I stumbled upon a massive outdoor beer garden and a popup indie art shop in the shell of old corner grocery. We bought art! The city felt like it had a lot more to explore, but we walked to James Beard-nominated Luca. It has a modern-rustic interior, and the pizzas themselves are distinctively beautiful. However, our party of five quibbled in agreement over the general heaviness, inconsistent crust, and imbalances that make these pizzas imperfect, but we were comparing this to the best pizzas we’ve ever had. Luca also felt like the place to be, and where I’ll go back to when I’m in Lancaster next.

• Stroud Pizza, Stroudsburg, PA: I was tasked with a last minute-challenge: my aunt and uncle were traveling by car from Wisconsin to New England, a route within a couple hours from where I was staying. The President of the United States scheduled a last-minute campaign stop, closing some of the highways around Wilkes-Barre, directly impacting their route. I had to find a place to meet up on a revised route as well as find a place to eat. Stroud Pizza doesn’t have a website, but I caught a glimpse of some of the photos posted on Google Maps, and it seemed like I’d have better luck than anything else I found. Ends up this is certainly some of the best pizza in the area with fantastic New York-style slices and pies. The owner had been slinging pies in New York and New Jersey before middle-of-nowhere Pennsylvania, and the town may not know how lucky they are. Compared to some of the best slices in New York, this would rank formidably.

• Papa’s Tomato Pies, Robbinsville, NJ: The Trenton Tomato Pie is a regional style with a thin and crunchy crust with mozzarella immediately next, then any additional ingredients before the tomato sauce on top. It originated in its namesake, Trenton, but no longer has much of a presence there properly: the first establishment in 1910, Joe’s, closed down before the year 2000, and the more prominent proprietors of the Trenton Tomato Pie have moved to the suburbs. Papa’s is the “oldest continuously family-owned pizza restaurant in United States,” having first opened in 1912, and was also my favourite example of the Trenton Tomato Pie I tried. Just don’t call it a “pizza”!

  

• Pizzeria Beddia, Philadelphia, PA: In 2015, Pizzeria Beddia was named the best pizza in America by Bon Appétit. I was able to visit in 2017 when Joe Beddia would only make 40 pizzas a day. To get one, you needed to queue before they opened to find out what time to come back to get your pizza to take out or eat over the single table in the room without chairs. The crust explores the whole palette: it’s a little sour, a little sweet, and a little salty. It’s crispy but soft. Chewy but not dense. I cannot think of how a pizza crust could be any better. Ingredients are high end and locally-sourced, and they are all topped with a Pennsylvania gouda called “Old Gold” from a small farm. Beddia has since reopened a few blocks away in a much larger space and has scaled to handle demand beyond 40 pizzas. The dough is apparently difficult to work with, but those making the pies are pulling it off. I can attest that it’s still one of the top five pizzas I’ve ever had. If you haven’t been, highlight it on your to-do list in Philly.

  

Sidebar: Cats in the Washington Post

Penny and Liddy, two cats I cared for a few times in 2017 and 2018, have moved to their new home in Japan! Their cat mom documented their complicated journey in “How to import a cat into Japan in 28 easy steps.”

Postscript

After I got to Québec, I received an email with the below photo attached. “Buster is not quite sure how to deal with your absence. He has spent a lot of time at the back door looking for you.” 😿

My next email will be about Québec and Nova Scotia! Keep in touch!

-Aaron

Greetings from New Jersey, in a quiet area near the Delaware River. I’m hanging out with Buster, a 19-year-old cat who is very choosy who he gets along with. It took a week, but we’re now best buds. Today we are monitoring a groundhog that has turned up in the back yard.

Schedule

This is where I’ve been and where I’m headed, with the cats I’m caring for:

• May 8 – May 28: Burlington, VT – Willow

• May 28 – Jun 5: Manchester, NH

• Jun 5 – Jun 22: Cambridge, MA – Bella

• Jun 25 – Jul 26: Washington, D.C. – Freddie, Tuxie, Fiona, and Luna

• Jul 26 – Sep 28: Rosemont, NJ – Buster

• 29 Sep – Nov 13: Lévis, QC – Freddy and Bubbles

• Nov 21 – Dec 7: Halifax, NS – Gidget

I do not have plans locked in yet beyond December 7, so if you’re looking for someone to watch your home and cat, let me know!

Also, if you’re going to be around New Jersey or Eastern Pennsylvania in the next few weeks, let’s hang out!

Frequently Asked Questions

Indeed, I do get a couple actual questions asked frequently:

• Where’s all your stuff? Did you really sell it? I have about four pieces of luggage with me and a few other things in my car, and about the same amount of bins stored at my sister’s place in Minnesota. My bike, keyboard, and guitar are also there. That’s it. I’m finding there are even more things I have with me I can do away with, and stuff I’m storing I don’t need. I do miss having my own bike and keyboard with me.

• What does being a digital nomad like? I call wherever I’m staying “home” without thinking about it. It’s like the good parts of moving to a new place, but it’s every couple months and thankfully without most of the hassle of moving. A downside is having to put serious effort into meeting people, but thus far it has been rewarding in the end. Reconnecting with old friends in the places I go has been a real joy, and done so at a comfortable pace opposed to the rush of being on a vacation. Walking from wherever I’m staying and quickly being somewhere I’ve never been before is pleasing. I don’t like the perpetual uncertainty of where I’ll be in six months, but I am becoming used to it.

• How are you getting around? I had a 2005 Subaru Outback. I now have a 2022 Hyundai Ioniq 5. I’ve driven a ton of different electric vehicles over the last ten years, including many of the newer ones on the market today, and after a quick test drive of the Ioniq 5 in April I knew it was the one. That week I ordered one for pick up in New Jersey. I got it a couple weeks ago. Great car. Read the New York Times take on it.

Vermont and Cats

Willow, in Burlington, Vermont, was a little standoffish at first, but quickly warmed up. Eventually Willow would sit on my chest while I was waking up, and by the end of my stay, she would give me big hugs with her paws gently gripping my back. On the morning I moved out, she knew something was off. Willow came in for a hug, wouldn’t let go, and in my attempt to pull her away she errantly tore my favorite shirt. 😿 Really happy I got to spend the time with her and to wander around the state.

During my stay in Burlington, I noticed an older woman a few doors down walking around with her gray cat in a regular basis, just holding it in her arms. Days later, I saw a young woman a couple doors down walking her cat on a leash. I approached her cat and she introduced herself, and she pointed to her friend who was also walking her cat as well! The young women then invited me to a cat walk that weekend to visit other neighborhood cats! 😻

The catamount, or “cat of the mountain,” is an extinct cougar that lives on as the mascot for the University of Vermont with a huge sculpture in the middle of campus. I saw the catamount frequently posed with for selfies and professional graduation shots. There’s a CATS bus system, and the athletic teams are the Catamounts. The a cappella ensemble calls themselves the Top Cats. There’s a Blue Cat Wine Bar, and I had a drink at El Gato Cantina. Unfortunately, the cat walk was rained out, but in my walks I saw a lot of cats, and Vermont felt comfortable calling home for a month.

Pizza in Vermont

For the second-least populated state, Vermont has a plethora of high quality pizzerias that truly take seriously sourcing local ingredients and making top quality dough. It’s not just Burlington either. Many small towns in Vermont have pizzas that far surpass some of the best pizza joints in mid-sized cities in the U.S. Even some rural cafes have clay dome ovens serving pies that can go toe to toe with some of the best in New England.

One of my top favorites is Stone’s Throw Pizza in Richmond (population 4,167). I had the “Homesteader” with Kalamata olives, baby spinach, herbed feta, and lemon. Great pizza is about balance, and this one goes to extremes before leveling out: the sweetness of the olives cut through the sourness of lemon, the feta hits the salt notes clearly without going too far, and the spinach is sharp, bitter, and acidic but in a way that tastes pleasantly fresh as if it was just plucked from the garden out back. Even with the zing of the aforementioned lemon, none of the flavors overpowered me to put me at pause, but instead excited me to take the next bite. All of this going on atop a crispy yet densely chewy crust that seemed to embody some of the same flavor dynamics but at a more muted profile: a little sweet, a little salty, and a bit sour.

Put Stone’s Throw at the top of your Vermont pizza to-do list, and also consider some of these others I’ve tried:

• Piecasso in Stowe is nestled in the center of this ski resort town. In addition to the wide selection of local brews, their pizzas are some of the best in the state. The “Vienna” I got has a pesto base instead of red sauce, and is topped with sun-dried tomatoes, Kalamata olives, mozzarella, and balsamic. So good that I took the trek back to Stowe a second time to get the same pizza again, and I came back winning some local brewery swag on trivia night.

• American Flatbread in Waitsfield is deserving of an entire story on its own. Founder George Schenk is to local pizza as Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield are to ice cream: unabashedly progressive and dedicated to moral business choices. Schenk is inspirational and influential enough to be invited to give a school commencement address, but wildly outspoken and abrasive enough to have the school later apologize for it. Nonetheless, the pizza is fantastic. Flatbread expanded to a number of locations across the country and Canada in part through franchising, and you can find frozen versions in speciality grocery stores. If you go to any of their locations, get the Punctuated Equilibrium.

• Pizzeria Ida in Burlington has the best New York-style slices you cannot get by the slice but only by the entire pie. The menu changes daily and usually only has four or five choices. No website or phone, and was initially described to me as a “secret place,” so knowing what you’re getting into (or seeing if they’ll even be open) requires hopping to their Instagram account. The account oscillates between menus, food being prepared, and selfie videos by the arrogant and vulgar chef-owner Dan Pizzutillo. The faux secrecy and crass attitude is part of the brand, and if that’s not your thing, trust that the quality is high enough to squelch those vibes.

• Positive Pie in Montpelier (and a couple other locations) say they’re “harvesting Italian flavors and infusing them with a Vermont Sensibility,” which could be said by a number of pizzerias in the state but truly pulled off here. I enjoyed the Bruschetta pizza with white garlic sauce, red onion, basil, pesto, Kalamata olives, and balsamic.

• Pizzeria Verità in Burlington is not at the top of my list, but in terms of having the best looking pizzas in having one of the nicest spaces, it’s tops. The interior mirrors that same farm-to-table with craft cocktail restaurant vibe in your town: ceilings with HVAC exposed, wood pillars, the chalkboard menu with tall skinny letters, vintage-looking light bulbs with exposed filaments, and a stack of quarter-cut logs ready to heat your food (except they’re oddly stored at the front of the house instead of at the oven). The pizzas themselves are friendly for social media but didn’t have the depth of flavor or consistency I grew accustomed to elsewhere in the state. All said, Verità is still quite good.

If you’re looking for bar slices around Burlington, there are higher tier finds at Mr. Mike’s and Three Needs Taproom & Pizza Cube, as well as at Monkey House in nearby Winooski. And in case you’re wondering, there were close to a dozen other places I tried that didn’t make the cut.

More Cat Updates

Bella in Cambridge liked her own space, a regular schedule, and appreciates having someone around. We became incrementally closer every few days and eventually I felt like her human with regular brushing, play time, scratches behind the ears, and hanging out on the living room floor. When I picked up her normal human at the airport and we walked together into Bella’s condo, Bella welcomed me back normally but when she spotted her normal human, she darted away and hid! 😿 It took until the next morning for Bella to snap back into her old relationship. Funny how cats are.

Freddie is a distinguished gentleman of a cat who regularly crosses his paws when he sits. I know Freddie well, and brought him a catnip toy, but he got bored with that quickly. I went food shopping and brought back a half-sized paper grocery bag which Freddie fell in love with instead. He’d go inside it, step on top of it, sleep on it, and it became his new favorite thing most of the day, every day. After his humans returned the bag got torn and they had to replace it. Freddie’s renewed love of bags is apparently still going on strong.

Tuxie is a sweetheart. Cute, personable, and would listen to me play the piano. No adjustment period at all, and I was treated as her normal human right away. Look at those cute socks!

Fiona and Luna are joyful floofs. Each day, Fiona would lounge in a window hammock, Luna would perch in her cat tree, and they both try to sneak into the bathroom to steal elastic hair ties. They’re cuddly, great company, and you can follow them on Instagram!

I appreciate you reading this. Please keep in touch! What are you up to?

-Aaron

The short update: I’ve left D.C. and am traveling full-time. I am in Minnesota today, in Vermont the rest of May, then Massachusetts in June.

The long update: I phased out my client work at the end of last year, got a full-remote job, found an old Subaru Outback for cheap (paid for it on Venmo!), sold my condo in D.C., and got rid of most of the stuff I owned.

Prior to this, I was exploring tiptoeing into the van life and traveling the continent. I quickly found out that I wasn’t the only one doing this during the first year of the pandemic. Getting a nice Class B RV includes navigating exorbitant prices, year-long waits for nice models, a cutthroat secondhand market, and for me, so many browser tabs open you can’t tell what any of them are anymore. But I figured it out!

I was all organized to buy one in Madison, Wisconsin and a couple days prior got cold feet. It took a bit to sink in, but I finally realized I wasn’t really looking for the van life, but seeking the travel life.

Thus, I pivoted to penciling out how I could live in different places for a month or three, navigating the rental market that exists between 12-month leases and weekly stays. So still traveling full-time, but not in a van.

The Cat Filter

I have a running joke (or free idea) that peer to peer rental platforms should have a “cat filter.” As in, if you’re allergic and don’t want a cat in the house you’re staying in, you can filter cats out. On the contrary, if you love staying with cats, turn it on! One of my favorite Airbnb experiences was in Chicago when cats kept breaking into my room. I completely understand this is not what most people want in a short-term rental, but for those who do, why not be able to self-select this?

A friend, now hearing this joke from me a third or fourth time asked if I knew Trusted Housesitters. New to me, it’s a service that connects people looking to have someone take care of their home and pets (and sometimes their yard and plants) while they travel. It costs a couple hundred bucks and a background check to get in, and the rest is about building your reputation and relationships to get matched. And they have the coveted 🐈 “cat filter.” As I have a lot of experience caring for cats, and I’m traveling full-time anyway, why not lean into it? I started lining up gigs!

So here I am now: working remotely and living with different cats. (and I’m still eating a lot of pizza.)

Next: a couple pizzas I’ve had, my upcoming schedule, and a request!

The Brick Oven Bus, Minnesota

The Brick Oven Bus upon first glance can look a tad rickety. An old yellow bus with a blackened chimney protruding through the roof doesn’t exactly invoke ideas of great food. However, after having a couple drinks at Brooklyn Park’s newest brewery, Heavy Rotation, I decided to walk to the parking lot and give it a closer inspection.

Just four pizzas on the menu: “Meat” and “Margherita” are what you think; “Angry Hawaiian” includes pineapple, smoked bacon, and banana peppers; and the “Lionheart” has artichokes, Kalamata olives, and balsamic. Most of the pizzas have mozzarella, asiago, and parmesan as well.

The oven is actually an impressive feat. This isn’t some old makeshift oven they’ve jerry-rigged through the back door, it is a restaurant-quality wood-fired oven built out by hand inside the bus. Their dough is planned out to allow a couple days to rise. The yeast is apparently from Minnesotan grapes. They’re not screwing around.

The results come fast. Within a few minutes after ordering I had a pizza Margherita with steam coming off of it. The crust had a crispy edge with a slight leopard char encasing a chewy, light center. The tomatoes were juicy and sweet, and the mozzarella pulled and was thick and chewy. Basil was almost peppery as if it was just taken from a nearby garden. It was overall more salty than your average pie, almost as if a bit of sea salt was sprinkled on the edges, but that caters to my preferences. Overall, stellar.

Your chances of finding the Brick Oven Bus are high if you’re in around the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro because they’ve recently expanded to three buses, announce their locations regularly on social media, and update a calendar. If you spot a bus with a chimney out of it, check it out.

The Brick Oven Bus, locations in and near Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota

Menomale NoMa, Washington, D.C.

I’ve been a big fan of Menomale in the Brookland neighborhood of Washington, D.C. for years, and for a while I was certain they held the crown as the best Neapolitan pizza in the state. Genuinely comparable to pizza in Naples, Italy, their only regional peer was Pupatella in Arlington, Virginia. Menomale was the pizzeria to take people to for authentic Italian pizza, and it even where a couple friends of mine first met – and now they are married! (Isn’t pizza great? 💖)

I’ll skip the exercise of describing a Neapolitan pizza, but I’ll attest that Menomale nails it to spec. Pizzas are served traditionally uncut, but you’re provided with the convenience of enormous kitchen scissors to chop up your pie as you deem fit. That is, if you don’t want to use a knife and fork.

However, over the years consistency started to dwindle, and new Neapolitan and Neo-Neapolitan style places sprung up in D.C. like Mozzeria and Stellina with superior pies (example). To me, Menomale became more of a neighborhood gem in Brookland instead of a destination pizzeria.

On a visit back to D.C. in April, I decided to check out Menomale’s new outpost in NoMa. It was like visiting Menomale anew all over again. Every detail that made the pizzas perfect was back. And in a region that has a number of excellent pizzerias, upon this one visit to Menomale NoMa, they’re back in the top of the list.

…and Alex and Graham, go make a date night!

Menomale NoMa, 33 N St NE, Washington, D.C.

My Schedule

• Now – May 6: Brooklyn Park, MN

• May 8 – May 28: Burlington, VT

• Jun 5 – Jun 22: Cambridge, MA

• Jul 26 – Sep 28: Lambertville, NJ (why I picked here is for another story soon)

Do you need a cat sitter later this year? Someone to watch your home for a few weeks or months? Have a spare room you’d like to rent out a room for a month or two? Places like Maine, Québec, Nova Scotia, Idaho, Montana, and Colorado are around the top of my list, but I am ready to explore anywhere pleasant. Please, let’s chat!

Thanks for reading, and keep in touch!

Aaron

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