Neapolitan-style Pizza in the Pee Dee
On Saturday, February 11, 2012, we attended a pizza party hosted by Alan Cooke. You may be familiar with Alan as he provides articles known as Tuesday Tips here on PeeDeeFoodie.com™ and is a regular Pee Dee Food Show podcast contributor. Alan is opening a new restaurant in Timmonsville called Rebel Pie. It’s tagline is “Defy ‘Ordinary’ Pizza.”
Alan invited us and several other friends to try his new Neapolitan-style, authentic brick oven-baked pizza. Now that’s a mouthful — in many ways. It was so delicious! He tested several recipes including the classic Margherita with basic, mozzarella, and tomato sauce. Others included a white pizza with clams and a béchamel sauce, a simple pepperoni, and a quatto formaggi that bubbled with cheesiness when pulled from the hearth.
His dough is made from scratch with no sugar added. It is hand-tossed and the ingredients are fresh, and wherever possible, local. The special brick oven was built in Arizona, using an Italian imported core. It reaches internal cooking temperatures of about 800°F, so pizzas fully bake in just under 90 seconds in most cases. That makes the edges crisp with a distinctive charred and smokey flavor. It’s very different than most American-style pizza, you’ll find. Of course, we still love both types and just about any other type of pizza out there, including Chicago-style deep dish, but that will have to wait for another blog post. As Rebel Pie, the name of Alan’s new restaurant near Timmonsville, SC, will be brand new to the region we knew that you’d want to know about it.
At the moment, Rebel Pie is set to open in March 2012. As we were able to pull a few strings with the owner, Alan has offered to host an Eats! Club™ preview event at that time. If you’d like to be on the invitation list, simply join our Faceb0ok-based group. It’s free and friendly.
For more information about Rebel Pie, visit its Facebook Page. A website is on the way, as well. The physical location will be 4725 Fraley Drive and the phone number is (843) 346-2060.
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Category: Meet-Ups
About the Author
Since January 2010, PeeDeeFoodie.com™ has been the online home for Kevin's exploration and promotion of the food, foodies and food culture of the South Carolina. With a background in business and a degree in accounting, he may be an unlikely foodie until you hear that he earned that degree in New Orleans. Kevin is a husband, father, self-described geek, and host of the blog's new companion podcast, the Pee Dee Food Show, now available on iTunes, Blackberry, Zune, and direct RSS. Learn more about Kevin on his Contributor page under the About tab.Thanks for reading PeeDeeFoodie.com™
