Latest / BBQ Therapy / #59 How the Pizza Cookoff Association Is Changing Competition Cooking | Jerry Belcastro

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#59 How the Pizza Cookoff Association Is Changing Competition Cooking | Jerry Belcastro · BBQ Therapy

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Oh, just there's been a couple people that have competed where
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they finished close to the bottom and then won a
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competition that that's really rewarding to see, helping them
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and encouraging them not to quit.
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It's just the reward is just in me teaching a lot, getting
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getting people to just cook. Just try this and if you don't
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succeed, keep at it and perfecting it doesn't happen
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overnight with anything if you want to be good at it.
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Listen, learn, get inspired. I'm Tavis Bryant and this is BBQ
0:41
Therapy. Like, subscribe and follow to
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help grow the BBQ therapy community.
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Also visit my website at www.barbecuetherapypodcast.com.
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BBQ. Your BBQ off get your.
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Barbecue off. Get your BBQ off Welcome to the
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BBQ therapy podcast. My name is Tavis Bryant.
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Welcome back to another episode, the show where we breakdown
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stories, passions, and journeys behind the people who make our
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world taste better, from pitmasters to grill warriors to
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people building entirely new lanes and competitive cooking.
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Today we're stepping away from the smoke just a little and into
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the oven. We're talking pizza, not just
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any pizza, we're talking competitive pizza.
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And joining me today is someone who has food running through
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their veins. Restaurant owner, caterer,
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international airline catering manager, certified barbecue and
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steak judge, food columnist and now founder of the Pizza Cookoff
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Association, Mr. Jerry Bell Castro.
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This is a story about passion, reinvention, competition and
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taking a leap when your guts tell you it's time.
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Jerry, welcome to the show. I got one rule.
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Make yourself at home and speak freely.
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Sir, thanks for having me. All right, no problem.
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And as I usually do, I usually start from the beginning.
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Could you tell us a little bit about where you're from and your
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childhood growing up as far as how was the food scene between
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you growing up as a young person as well as injure your teens?
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OK, so yeah, I was born in right outside of Pittsburgh, PA.
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My father's side of the family is Italian and big family.
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He had ten brothers and sisters. Seven of them lived close, close
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to us, as well as my grandmother and my grandmother was and she's
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the rock of the and my grandfather rock of the family.
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My my grandfather was actually born in Italy.
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My grandmother was born in the US.
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We had the fortunate situation to before we moved to Georgia.
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We live with my grandparents for six months.
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My dad came down and was trying to get some things established
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before we moved. And that really is where I got
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my passion for food and seeing my grandmother cook and what
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everything that she did. And it was right before
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Christmas time. And that was that's the big time
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of the year when she starts like a week ahead of time and starts
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all that prep stuff for getting ready for Christmas and then
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moving down here. Went to high school and college
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and coming out of college, really I was leaning towards an
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engineering degree in solar energy.
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And I was at West Georgia, which is about an hour, a little over
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an hour away. So I used to commute on the
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weekends. And we got to talking with the
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family. I have two sisters and about
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potentially open up a little pizza sub spot here in
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McDonough, GA is where I live and at that time you had to go
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20 miles one way or 20 miles the other to get a pizza.
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So we ended up my dad went and cosigned a loan for us and one
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of my my older sister, she got right on with the post office.
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So my younger sister was coming out of high school and we
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decided to open up a little pizza and sub shop and that's
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where it all started for me. Oh wow, what year did you get to
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Georgia? 1973 so that.
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Oh wow. Yeah, I.
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Just. I just recently moved from the
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Hampton Lovejoy area, and now when I got married, I moved to
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Stone Mountain, so I'm not that far.
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But wow, you must have seen the early ages of McDonough and
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stuff that was just congested all the time down there.
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Oh, Larry, all right. You wore so many hats in the
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culinary world. What was the moment when you
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realized that food wasn't just your career, but it was part of
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your identity? I would say when I finally made
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it to the catering department of Delta Airlines, I had a
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restaurant for I worked before I got on with Delta.
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I worked it for about 10 years and still continue to cater
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after that and just personally and still help my sister out.
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But then when I finally reached the catering department, there
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was just so many different jobs within catering.
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But once I got the job of regional manager international
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catering, that's when I really knew because I started traveling
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the world. Going to other catering
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facilities that Delta flew into would help establish new routes
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or new catering opportunities for us, and that's when I really
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knew that the foods that fruit runs through my mains.
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OK, OK. Wow.
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So how long did you do that? I was in that job capacity for
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almost 5 years. I was in the catering apartment
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for about 15 years. Oh wow, that's a long time.
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How did you run into the competition world as far as
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barbecue and steak competition? Yeah, After I took an early
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retirement from Delta, I fell into a position with Henry
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County. And a gentleman that worked for
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me with the county was talking about his son competing in a BBQ
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contest down in Barnesville. And I said, ah, I didn't know.
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I didn't know there was such a thing.
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And then we talked about it. And I knew at that point in in
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time, I couldn't really compete, but I was looking into it and I
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saw the judging aspect of it and I said that's something I can do
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right now. I actually looked online, saw
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when the next class was told my wife about it, she wasn't really
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thrilled, but she went down there with me.
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She didn't sign up for the class.
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And I went into the class and they actually took an early
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break and I came out to to get her to actually come inside and
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Greg Hoy to actually come out there with me and made her come
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inside. And really that's all she wrote
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for her. She absolutely loves it.
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As I know you probably talked to her.
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She loves the BBQ world. Yeah, yeah, the community,
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that's where it gets you. The community draws you in.
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So people talk about winning contest draw you in is it's the
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community also that draws you in.
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Once you meet the people and see how friendly you are, you
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shocked. Like I had these people so
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friendly. It is like family.
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And right now I what are you were training to do something
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else, a Rep or something you and your.
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Yes. Last year the GBA asked us to if
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we were interested in being reps for them and we agreed to that
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and we spent all 2025 being reps in training.
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So basically what you do is they you go through basically a whole
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year and attend what reps you can or what event you can.
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And then at the end of the year they had a board meeting and
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they proposed to vote us in as permanent reps and they did.
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So we are this year will be reps for the GBA and very excited
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about that. OK.
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And do you still judge for the Memphis of May in the state Cook
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off? Yes, so as the BBQ world stops
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in late May for a few months, a mid year where it's too hot to
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have anything, Memphis and Maine's actually in the middle
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of May when there's really nothing going on with the GBA.
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So we've attended that the last two, two or three years.
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But it's like the Super Bowl of BBQ.
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He got to meet some really celebrity pit masters if he
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could cut, so to speak, MO Caison Tuffy stone.
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We actually have already met Myron a few times, but continue
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to build that relationship with Myron and Michael, several
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others, Henry Woo and the list goes on.
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So they're the best of the best and and it's really, if you've
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never been and you got to put it on your bucket list, it's really
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worth going to. Yeah.
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I went to 2023 and then I went this year, which was last year.
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They are usually take my wife and we just go up there and just
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spend the weekend. Last year we went to Smoke Slam
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on Friday and Memphis and May on Saturday and just go meet people
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and hang around. Oh that's the best because
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they're friends. We've been in several people
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tent and just hung out. Yeah, that's How I Met so.
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Welcome him like you've known him for years.
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Feed you. Yeah, definitely.
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So I look forward to it every year and just meeting more folks
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and meeting the folks I've already met and just enjoy
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ourselves. So the steak cook off between
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those three association, what are the big differences as far
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as judging? Steak they judge.
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It's not comparative. Judging the You judge those
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steak as steaks as they come through the door 1 by 1 instead
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of putting everything on a table and judging against what's on
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that table. That's the biggest difference.
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The consistency of those cooks is amazing.
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There's, I would say of all the competitions that we've judged
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for steak, 98% of them are just off the hook, different, maybe
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different taste profiles, but they elevate those steaks beyond
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what you can get in any steakhouse because they, they're
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counting on that one bite to just like BBQ.
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They pack that punch in there. And what's cool about their
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event when they have the awards, they go up there and they tell
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what grill they cooked on and what all the ingredients they
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they used on their steak. And that's pretty cool just to
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hear all those different rubs and injections and such.
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OK, OK, that sounds good. All right, let's switch over to
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the your invention. So you're judging SCA GB A and
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walk us through the moment where you the idea that came for the
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pizza cook off association. How did you come over the idea?
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OK, so we started judging GBA probably maybe six months before
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COVID came in and we, I think we judged 4 events before COVID
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hit. And being the foodies that we
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are, we watch a lot of the food channels.
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And we just, and I mentioned it to my wife before that a little
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bit about what do you think about pizza?
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And she shrugged her shoulders. And one night we were watching
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the foods of Built America. And the episode was how Domino's
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and Pizza Hut got their starts. And it was actually two brothers
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from each company that they were going through all those trials
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and tribulations, getting those off the ground.
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And it really hit home with me because when my sister and I
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opened our spot here in McDonough, we had a monopoly for
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five years before Pizza and Domino's came along.
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And so that that episode really hit home with me.
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And after I watched that, I said, you know what, I'm going
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to do this. So I started my due diligence on
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looking up different competitions to see if there was
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anything on a weekly basis. The steak cook off.
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I give them a lot of credit and, and I've told Brett this before
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that they inspired me to do this as well because that
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competition's done in one day as opposed to a BBQ cook off.
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Those guys get there on a Thursday or Friday, set up shop,
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cook overnight and buy the awards time and time to go home
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and they're exhausted. So in a state competition, you
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show up at 8 O clock and you're done by 4.
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Not to say that you know, the the rules you have can be the
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size of a little on a table. So it's not near as exhausting.
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So that that sort of motivated me.
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And when I done my due diligence, the only competition
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that's actually done was they have a pizza Expo out in Vegas
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every year. And last I've gone the last
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three years. Last year they had 625 people
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competing over a three day over a three day period.
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I know the guy that heads up the judging.
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He actually reached out to me when he found out what I had
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going on because believe it or not, they never had any actual
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guidelines on judging. They purely went off all their
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and the judges out there are fantastic.
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They're very knowledgeable. They pick people that's been in
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the industry for a while, but they were, they were just going
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off their experience and everything.
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But now they have a formal guidelines and a sheet that they
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give them some guidance on how to judge.
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And Scott got that for me and then funnels funny story about
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that. When I talked to him and we were
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talking about how I got started and I told him the story that I
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just told you. He said I was in that episode of
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Domino's and Pizza Hut. So I was really surprised by
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that. I had to go back and watch that
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and sure enough was in that episode.
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And I'm talking about Scott Weiner.
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He's he lives in New York and he does Scott's pizza tours in New
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York City. So if you're ever up there, I
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haven't done his tours, but they're really phenomenal what
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he does. He takes a little bus and takes
15:17
people around the city to different pizza places, but he
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teaches you the history of how pizza originated in New York.
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And of course they stop off at two or three places and have a
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couple slices. Yeah, to bring it back real
15:32
quick, but that show the food that changed America.
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If y'all haven't seen it, y'all definitely need to watch it
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because it's amazing. And they show the origins of
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several different foods and I love that stuff because it shows
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the history of how things got started.
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Everything didn't just start easily and smooth and.
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Yeah, you're right. I mean, those are the people
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that built, those are the people that started, and other people
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just took that idea and made it their own.
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But yeah, how them big chains got them off the bat is really
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something to watch. We watched a lot of us.
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Yeah, I love it. The show had a candy bar
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companies with fighting and Colonel Sanders and yeah,
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Kellogg's and Post and I was like, this is awesome.
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And they fought so hard. Coca-Cola, everything is just
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it's a very good show. All right, listen, I wanted to
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ask you, how important has your wife been to this journey?
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Because every great food story seems to start with a supportive
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spouse standing behind your dream.
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So how? You got that exactly right.
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She's my left and right hand. I'm going to put it that way.
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I couldn't do any of this without her.
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When we have a competition, she actually, I get everything
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unloaded and where we're having that event and then she, she
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sets everything up as far as the judging.
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She, when everybody registers to judge and registers to cook,
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she'll, she takes the judges and assigns them their duties.
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And, and then when I have them all my different classes, I have
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a judge's class that I take. I do most of them here at home.
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I have taken that show on the road.
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I recently this past weekend, we went down to the Jimmy Jam right
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outside of Saint Augustine and they asked us to come down and
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do a competition and that was awesome.
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I had a judge's class down there and had 12 people in that class
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and it's a little challenging when I have that many because I
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usually have them here at my house.
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I have 6. I do them in multiples of 6 for
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a reason because we have 6 slices on our pizza and I'll get
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into how we judge here in a minute, but I couldn't do
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without her. She's so supportive of
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everything I do and then in turn, knowing she wants to go to
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Memphis in May or whatever she wants to go to, I try to
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everything I can do to make that happen for her.
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Well, definitely, definitely all right.
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For someone hearing about the Pizza Cookoff Association for
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the very first time, what is the Pizza Cook Off Association and
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what's the mission? The mission is to have fun.
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If you've ever made pizza, just for instance, like me, if you
18:18
owned a restaurant, you slung pizzas back in the day and
18:22
you're not a professional by any means, but this is designed.
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I designed it and took different facets from different
18:31
associations to make it what it is.
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But it's all it's I try to simplify it as much as I could
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because I don't want it to get complicated in the fact that you
18:44
lose to having fun about it. So the judging aspect of it, I
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try to make that as simple as I can.
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And my classes are designed very small groups of 6 because I
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spent time with everybody one-on-one just to make sure
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they really grasp the understanding of what I want to
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do and how I want to judge. So in a nutshell, I, I make the
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rule simple. If you know how to, if you got
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any kind of pizza skills, throw your hat in a ring.
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It's not professionals competing.
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That's the everyday guy, backyard guy.
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And that's what I'm after. Oh, yeah, I know.
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You let me see the last one. I I didn't get the leftovers,
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but at Griffin, I judged Griffin, but I came in too late.
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We didn't want to Griffin. All right.
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How are the how is the judging as far as the competition?
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So what we do? We tell the cooks that their
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pizza has to be 12 inches round or 12 inches square.
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We have one of them. I got some great sponsors.
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One of my sponsors is called Portion Paddle.
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He designs a paddle with grooves in it, so it gives us the honor
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dimensions of 12 inches as well as grooves to cut that pizza
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into 6 perfect slices. So we use that tool.
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We tell the cooks that we want it turned in uncut, so it'll
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come in. We'll assign it a random number.
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It goes straight to the judges table, just like steak.
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And we judge one at a time on the first round.
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So they get 45 minutes on that very the preliminary round to
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turn in a pizza. So the one difference I tell
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them, look, I said don't treat this like steak or don't treat
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this like barbecue and wait till the very last minute.
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You have 45 minutes to cook one perfect pizza.
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When you get a good one, turn it in because it goes, it doesn't
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sit around. It goes straight to the judges
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table, gets judged. So when they do turn it in,
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it'll go to the judges table. They'll record the number of
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that pizza, and then it'll get transferred to that paddle and
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we'll judge for appearance before it gets cut.
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And then once they have that score down, we, the table
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captain will cut the pizza. There's actually 5 judges and
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the table captain facilitates, but he does not judge.
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And I do that for two reasons. One being that when we slice
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that pizza and divvy it out, when it comes to that last
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judge, there's two slices left and he gets a choice between
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those last two. And then that last slice will
21:32
stay on that portion paddle while they judge that pizza.
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So they have it back to reference while they're judging.
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And so once that's completed and, and we we tally all the
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scores for that preliminary round, we do the top three or
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top five, we'll make the finals and we'll go out to everybody
21:55
and announce we made the finals. And from that point, I give them
22:00
30 minutes to go back out to get their ovens back up to temp, get
22:05
prepped and get ready. When that 30 minutes expires,
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they have a 10 minute window to turn in for the finals.
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So we'll get 5 pizzas turned in within 10 minutes.
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And then we do comparative judging.
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Like GBA. We'll put all those five pieces
22:21
on one table and then get judged against each other.
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For the first round, we do 44 criteria, appearance, a category
22:32
I call construction on how it's made, and we judge the crust on
22:37
its own and then of course the taste.
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In the finals, we do those same 4 criteria and then we add the
22:45
overall impression score that you're aware of that we do that
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in the same manner as GBA where we assign the decimal point
22:52
where it doesn't end in a tie. OK.
22:56
OK sounds good and what kind of ovens or cookers are allowed?
23:00
Can someone bring a pellet grill gas portable pizza oven?
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How they? Yeah, I allow anything, anything
23:06
to cook a pizza on is permissible.
23:09
The only thing we even if say you bring a pellet pizza oven
23:14
and something goes wrong, you're able to use someone else's pizza
23:19
oven to cook your pizza as long as they don't cook it for you.
23:23
I know GBA does not allow to use someone else's grill, but my
23:29
point or my goal I think is, and when I told you I was keeping it
23:35
simple, I also want to get as many people involved as I can.
23:38
So I stretched the rules. That's nothing that I don't
23:43
allow, that's not outside the playing field, but it just gives
23:48
everybody an opportunity. I don't have a pizza oven.
23:50
You could use your grill and put a pizza stone on there.
23:53
You can use anything. You could bring an electric
23:55
grill as long as you have a generator.
23:57
We don't provide a, we can't always guarantee electricity,
24:00
but there's so many different pizza ovens on the market now
24:04
and then. If you own a grill and just
24:07
adapt and they make it adaptations for different Green
24:12
Mountain, several of them have attachments for pizza or just
24:17
put a stone on there. So I leave that wide open.
24:21
When we go to cook that pizza, I give them a choice to cook
24:25
whatever they want. Hopefully one day we'll get big
24:28
enough to where we could specify a certain style of pizza
24:32
everybody has to cook or a certain ingredient.
24:36
And that's what's fun about this is it's not the same thing every
24:40
time. Nothing against steak, nothing
24:42
against BBQ, I love both of them, but it's the same meats
24:46
every time. We could change it up on pizza.
24:48
So as long as those judges are flexible on their taste and
24:54
there's probably going to be an ingredient somewhere along the
24:57
line they don't like, but we just tell them you can't take
25:01
off because you don't like an ingredient.
25:03
You just got to either take that ingredient off or eat around it
25:07
when you're judging so. OK, OK.
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And I like how you do it as far as they can use someone else's
25:14
grill because if they're not able to, it may discourage them
25:19
for trying it again. So by doing that it it, it gives
25:24
them a little leeway and still don't hurt their confidence that
25:27
they are disqualified. So I like how you do that.
25:31
It's like you said, as long as somebody doesn't cook them for
25:33
them, I think it's fine. It's not hurting anything.
25:36
We want them to turn something in, you know what, regardless of
25:40
the fact and complete the cook. And that's that's really
25:42
important to the cooks. I think that I allow that and
25:45
that's actually happened a couple times so.
25:49
Yeah, 'cause some stuff happened out of people control, so
25:52
there's nothing they could do about it.
25:54
As far as ancillaries, you have ancillaries in your competitions
25:58
also. OK.
25:59
So a lot of times we are the ancillary when I coordinate and
26:07
and in conjunction with GBA event Friday night, we're pretty
26:12
much doing a lot of those events on Friday.
26:14
We're the ancillary, but we've had a few contests where it's a
26:18
stand alone competition and the ancillaries are for us are all
26:25
Italian. So that's something I try to do
26:28
to make us different than other associations.
26:31
The promoter gets to choose the whatever category they want us
26:36
to cook or want them to cook and it's from.
26:39
We could do a pasta, we do a risotto, we could do a calzone
26:45
sub, we do a appetizer long as it's Italian, desserts as long
26:50
as an Italian, it's Italian. So it's pretty, it's different
26:54
and little challenging for for some folks, but it's been fun as
26:58
a judge that judges. We love the ancillary.
27:02
It's just something different to judge and to eat.
27:05
Oh. Yeah, yeah, I made it one year
27:07
for the dessert one at Griffin, but I was all right.
27:11
Since you're a professional, what separates a good
27:14
competition pizza from a winning one?
27:16
Without giving away secrets, what impresses the judges?
27:19
The move? I think appearance and we all
27:23
eat with our eyes. As I mentioned, those pizzas
27:28
have to be 12 inches around or 12 inches square.
27:32
In the steak and BBQ world, the appearance scores just of always
27:37
98% of the time a given 10. In the pizza world, appearance
27:43
isn't a given 10. The hardest part of cooking one
27:47
of our competitions is launching that pizza to keep it 12 inches
27:52
around or 12 inches square. So what our judges really look
27:57
for that appearance is a lot, not overdoing the ingredients,
28:02
keeping it relatively simple, but going outside the box and
28:07
not doing typical ingredients, it goes a long way.
28:12
Now in Griffin last year, one of our cooks turned in a Chicago
28:19
style pizza and that pizza was perfect.
28:23
She didn't get a perfect score, but she should have.
28:26
When you know, Chicago being a deep dish, when I went to cut
28:31
it, I was expecting it to booze out on both sides, but that
28:36
slice stood perfect. The judges all loved it and she
28:41
won that competition with that pizza.
28:42
So something that really is different, but relatively simple
28:49
and when you try not to overdo things.
28:52
Yeah, yeah. OK, that sounds good.
28:56
So if someone wants to join the pizza cook off association,
28:59
whether it's a cook, judge, promoter, what's the process?
29:03
It starts on my website and I get all these spam emails.
29:08
Hey, we're looking at your website.
29:10
It's not #1 when you Google it. It is #1 when you Google it.
29:14
Then I'm the only Pizza Cookoff association that exist that I
29:18
know of. So you go on my website and just
29:22
navigate at the top. If you want to join, there's a
29:25
membership where you could join either individually or as a
29:30
couple. Then as a judge, I have judges
29:33
classes throughout the year. I haven't planned my next one,
29:37
but I imagine it's going to be mid February, early March.
29:42
We have scheduled the dilly dally, we're going to be cooking
29:47
pizza for that in the last week in February, February 27th.
29:54
And then we're also going to be for the 4th annual event in at
29:58
the Fire Ant Festival and that's March 27th on a Friday.
30:03
So I'm going to have a probably going to have a judge's class
30:06
somewhere in that time frame. I also have classes on teaching
30:13
people how to cook pizza. So if they wanted to compete and
30:17
had some skills that class, I give them.
30:20
I give everybody everything that I know.
30:23
Similar to what Robbie Royal does when he teaches his BBQ
30:26
class. He teaches everybody everything
30:29
from A to ZI do the same thing in my class.
30:32
I want people to succeed. I give them, I'll give them my
30:35
dough recipe, I'll give them my sauce recipe and all the little
30:39
tricks to the trade on competing to cook in the pizza
30:42
competitions. OK.
30:44
And that's on the website too. Yeah, when I so it all starts
30:49
with the website. Like I mentioned the a
30:52
newsletter will pop up on there. Sign up for that newsletter.
30:56
I encourage everybody to do that because in my newsletter is
31:00
where I announced all my classes.
31:02
I just happened to post a newsletter today recapping the
31:06
this past weekend for our judges and our winners down there at
31:11
the Jimmy Jam. I also announced the Dilly Dally
31:14
event and Fire Ant Festival. And we also have been asked to
31:19
do an event at the Hob Drop this coming year down at for Michael
31:24
Mixon and Myron down there in Unadilla.
31:28
It's their 10th annual event and they're going to get a lot of
31:31
sanctioning bodies down there for their ten year and we're
31:34
going to do pizza down there. So excited about that one.
31:38
OK, cool. Yeah, I'm going to sign up for
31:40
your newsletter because I definitely want to learn how to
31:43
make pizzas because we have enough frozen pizzas in this
31:46
house, so I got to start making our own.
31:51
I'll teach you everything. OK, I definitely look forward to
31:54
that. I didn't know that, but now I
31:56
do. All right, So what's your vision
32:00
for the Pizza Cookoff Association in the next two to
32:03
five years? Being retired, it's a passion of
32:07
mine. I really am not concerned about
32:11
how much it grows. I just take each year and just
32:15
do the best I can. I love to talk to people at
32:18
different events and if we can make it work at a festival or an
32:24
event, we'll give it a shot. I'm willing to work with
32:27
promoters and give them as much of a discount as I can the first
32:30
time just to get our foot in the door and show, you know what
32:35
this is all about and getting get people interested.
32:38
So I'm not really too worried about growth.
32:41
I'm just worried about not worried about.
32:44
But I'm just, I'm eager to teach people and just make them aware
32:49
of how fun it is to be a part of this.
32:51
And my plans this year, the three events that I mentioned,
32:56
but I plan to pair up with a couple beer festivals to
33:00
Peachtree City has a beer festival in April and I'm pretty
33:05
sure we're going to be a part of that.
33:07
Get into what's what goes better with pizza than beer.
33:10
I'm working on with some different promoters on having a
33:14
couple events and some beer festivals.
33:16
I hope to go back to New York. I went up there, not this past
33:20
year, but then 24 and had an event in Worcester County.
33:27
Worcester County. We actually had to turn away
33:30
cooks up there, which is pretty much the opposite.
33:35
The South is BBQ country, the north is pizza.
33:39
There's pizza and you rarely can find a Domino's or Pizza Hut up
33:43
there. It's all mom and pop places on
33:46
on every other street corners, different pizza places.
33:50
We couldn't make it happen last year due to some unfortunate
33:54
things that happened with the guy that I know up there.
33:57
And we look to get back up in in New York.
34:00
I have some ties that I'm working with in Chicago with
34:04
Weber Grills reached out to me. They want me to conduct a class
34:09
for their team. So I'm hopefully going to try to
34:13
get something started in Chicago to have one or two events there
34:16
per year. That's my main goals for the
34:19
next couple years, to go to the pizza cities and have even if
34:25
it's just one or two events there per year.
34:27
And then of course continue to grow in Georgia and do partner
34:32
with the BBQ, the GBA and do some events with them.
34:37
OK, OK, so out of your as you look back, what's been the most
34:42
rewarding part so far? The moment where you said, yeah,
34:44
this was worth it. Oh, just there's been a couple
34:49
people that have competed where they finished close to the
34:52
bottom and then won a competition that that's really
34:57
rewarding to see, helping them and encouraging them not to
35:02
quit. It's just the reward is just in
35:05
me teaching a lot, getting getting people to just cook.
35:11
Just try this. And if you don't succeed, keep
35:15
at it and perfecting it doesn't happen overnight with anything.
35:19
If you want to be good at it. And, and I pride myself on, I
35:26
answer all my emails that come in, anybody that wants to learn,
35:31
anybody that has questions. I'm always, if I don't get back
35:35
to you that same day, I'll definitely get back to you when
35:37
I the next time I have a chance. Sometimes we travel for events.
35:41
But yeah, that's the most rewarding thing is just teaching
35:44
other people. Yeah, and that's what it's all
35:47
about. So let me ask one more question
35:50
and then I'll play a quick game with you and get you out of
35:52
here. So you, I'm pretty sure you
35:54
tasted a lot of pizza. So what has been the best slice
35:58
you've tasted? Where was it from or who cooked
36:02
it? That's pretty much an easy one.
36:06
I grew up where I grew up, there's a pizza place called
36:10
Police Station Pizza. They're actually located right
36:14
next to police stations. They adapted the name and they
36:18
make a Sicilian style pizza there.
36:21
It's not like the Sicilian style pizzas you get in New York.
36:25
Where they're about in New York, they're about an inch and a half
36:29
to two inches thick. This pizza is about an inch
36:32
thick and it's crispy on the bottom and light in the middle.
36:38
You take that bite and then you get that crunch and the toppings
36:44
and the cheese. It's simple.
36:45
It's usually just pepperoni, pepperoni, mushroom, but the
36:49
sauce is so you get that great taste of the sauce, the cheese
36:54
and then that dough is what makes everything your every
36:57
pizza starts with a dough. And I always tell people when
37:01
they're cooking competition, elevate your ingredients, you
37:05
know that's what's going to set you apart.
37:06
But that pizza right there still, when I go home, that's
37:11
the first place I go and I don't even make it out out of the
37:15
parking lot before I'm I'm eating that pizza.
37:20
Sounds good. All right, I got one quick game
37:22
I'm gonna play with you before I get you out of here.
37:24
I usually do BBQ meats, but by college basketball, they have a
37:28
tournament bracket where they play a tournament.
37:31
So I did the top 16 pizza toppings and I did them in a
37:36
tournament bracket and I'm a read off each match up and tell
37:39
me which one you prefer to have on a pizza.
37:42
So right now you're starting with a cheese, meat and sauce,
37:46
sauce and the dough and the cheese.
37:48
So first matchup is ham versus green bell Peppers.
37:53
Which one you prefer? Ham all.
37:56
Right, next one is pepperoni versus anchovies.
38:02
Pepperoni OK, Next matchup is chicken versus sun dried tomato.
38:08
I'm. Gonna have to go with the
38:10
chicken. OK.
38:14
Black olives versus sausage. Sausage.
38:20
OK. Next match up is bacon versus
38:23
spinach. Bacon.
38:26
OK. Next one is jalapeno versus
38:29
pineapple. There's a lot of Italians that
38:36
just detest pineapple even thought of going on a pizza.
38:41
I have a great combination with pineapple, but by itself I'm
38:44
going to have to go with the jalapeno.
38:47
OK. Next matchup is Meatball versus
38:50
Salami. Oh boy, another hard one like
38:55
them both. I make a mean meatball, so I'm
38:58
going to have to go with meatball.
39:00
OK. All right.
39:03
Next one is mushroom versus onions.
39:06
Mushroom. OK.
39:10
All right. Next round is ham versus
39:12
pepperoni. Pepperoni.
39:15
All right, next matchup is chicken versus sausage.
39:20
Sausage. All right, next matchup is Bacon
39:24
versus Jalapenos. Bacon.
39:29
OK. Next matchup is the meatball
39:31
versus the mushrooms. Meatball all.
39:36
Right, final four. All right, you got pepperoni
39:40
versus sausage and. When you get a nice cup, spicy
39:44
pepperoni and I'm going to go with pepperoni and.
39:48
Next match up is bacon versus meatball.
39:51
There again, I'm going to stick with my meatball all.
39:54
Right in the final you got pepperoni versus meatball.
39:58
Even though my meatball is pretty special, I have to go
40:03
with the pepperoni all. Right, that's classic
40:06
ingredient. I love pepperoni.
40:10
All right. And Jerry, your therapy session
40:13
is over and you want to promote anything or shout out, you can
40:16
definitely do that at this time. Oh, just got some wonderful
40:20
sponsors. Alpha ovens and Urban Slicer
40:23
baking steel, a Mike's Hot Honey, Carolina cookwood, Caputo
40:30
flour and a portion paddle. They've all been very gracious
40:36
to me and I very appreciate of them.
40:39
And I always, I'll always try to give my judges a little bit of
40:42
kudos and thank them anytime I can because and we can't have
40:47
any, any competitions without the judges.
40:49
So appreciate them. OK, definitely.
40:54
And your website is www.pizzacookoffassociation.com,
40:58
correct? Correct.
41:01
All right, y'all definitely check it out.
41:03
It's very exciting and new and you'll be home in one day.
41:10
All right, we thank everybody and thank you for coming on the
41:13
show and giving your story and sharing your time.
41:15
I definitely appreciate. It thanks Thomas.
41:18
I appreciate you having me man. All right, no problem.
41:21
And on that note, we'll see everybody next episode.
41:24
I built something onto my podcast that every BBQ brand
41:27
should be a part of. It's called the BBQ Therapy
41:30
Smoke Showdown bracket 16 meats you cook on the grill go head to
41:35
head and every guest picks their winner.
41:38
It's one of the most engaging parts of the show.
41:41
Every guest plays and every listener loves it Because No2
41:44
brackets are the same. Now I'm opening it up for a
41:47
presenting sponsor, meaning your brand becomes part of the
41:51
segment. Every single show.
41:53
This isn't just an ad. This becomes part of the show.
41:57
And if you're interested, reach out to Tavis Bryant at
42:00
barbecuetherapypodcast@gmail.com. Thank you.
42:05
Thank you for joining us for another therapy session.
42:08
And remember, like, follow and subscribe to help the BBQ
42:12
Therapy community and also visit our website at
42:15
www.barbecuetherapypodcast.com.