The problem with the pizza @D&D is not the cold – it was always sold cold, and still is, at both bakery sites (downtown has changed owner and name, but the original Jim hires are still working there) – it’s a matter of freshness not heat. If they bake it at 4AMt or so, and deliver @ 7-8AM, there’s no way it stays really SSB fresh. Jim’s bread dough (and the pizza dough is essentially his bread dough) is slow-rise (15-18 hrs) with NO fresheners, and prolonged exposure to air (after baking) is tough on it IF it’s thin (the pizza), but not so tough on the bigger breads (except for the exposed end you leave after the first slice – if I go back to the pugliese loaf after a few hours, I always cut off a thin slice and use it for breadcrumbs, which are needed for baking the next loaf). As a result, at the bakeries the pizza is baked every few hours during the day in small batches.

Jim is still teaching the courses uptown, and they are well worth the $$$ to take if you are interested in baking your own bread, simply, without appliance buys – his is 4 ingredients, all readily available, and mixed either by hand or with a spoon – that’s it. You need a few cotton towels (thin) and a La Crueset-type covered pot to bake it in – no steam oven or oven tricks. The Times took the class a few months ago and wrote up the recipe if you want to get it without hearing it from Jim.