Pizza - Chris Bianco

[bunniefuu]

[upbeat music playing]

[man ] When I was a kid
growing up in New York,

my job after school
was folding mountains of pizza boxes.

They said, "You've tried the rest,
now try the best,"

which everyone's boxes said.

Looking at that box, I just thought,
"This might not be true."

"This might be somewhat biased."

Oh really? You use that same
bromated, bleached flour?

That same block of cheese?

What magic could these hands do
to these same ingredients?

I would hear people say, "It's the water."

I love wood ovens.

Is that the secret?

It's not.

Here's the secret.

sh*t in, sh*t out. You know?

You put crap in there, crap's comin' out.

Put good things in an oven,

then we have an opportunity
to make something good happen.

[Vivaldi's "Winter" concerto playing]

[faint birdsong]

[man ] I did this book
where I went around the country,

and went to Italy.

I ate a thousand slices of pizza
in one year.

And I said in my book,

"The best pizza in the world

is made in Phoenix, Arizona."

[upbeat music playing]

[Ed] People thought it was the most
blasphemous thing you could say.

"Oh, it's not made in New York?"
Or, "It's not made in Italy?"

The food critic at Vogue said,
"You know, you're insane."

I was like,
"Okay, go to Phoenix, eat the pizza."

"Talk to me."

He calls me from the airport.

He says, "You were right."

[man ] When I went to meet
Chris Bianco for the first time,

he was this sort of Yoda
of the pizza oven.

He was talking about pizza,
the desert, and how he fit in it all.

The last one to go outside. Here.

[man ] It was dizzying,

but you're gonna look at pizza differently
after hanging out with Chris Bianco.

Drop it, baby, drop the ball.

Chris has this really abrasive exterior,

and he says "f*ck" a lot
and all of those things,

but he's so, so sweet.

[Mia] He wants to make people feel good,
and that'll keep him up at night.

There's something of an old-school
New York cab driver about him.

[Brett] But Chris
is the Coltrane of pizza.

This guy remade the game.

[Ed] Before Chris, people were using
canned pizza sauce,

generic flour.

Chris elevated every ingredient.

He said, "It's worth doing right."

And now, if you look across the country,
in all states,

you can find pizza

that has been inspired
by something that Chris did.

He basically started
the pizza revolution in this country.

[patrons chattering indistinctly]

Marg, Wiseguy.

There's something else for 'em.
Wanna take that to the table outside?

[Chris] Now, we've got a Wiseguy coming…

All right, friends,
we got pizza rolling up.

Wiseguy, smoked mozzarella,
fennel sausage, roasted onion.

[Chris] Being a kid from New York,
we think we know everything.

The Yankees are the best.
Your mom's meatballs are the best.

But what makes it the best anyway?

[gentle guitar music playing]

[Chris] I'll never forget
my first trip to Italy.

We went to a little trattoria.
A really simple meal.

I remember thinking about
what dessert was gonna be.

It'd be a big rum cake?

Cannoli?

And then dessert came.

There was a guy pushin' on

a shaky little cart with this pewter bowl,

beaded with sweat from the ice in it.

And in that bowl was just peaches,
bobbing like apples in this ice bath.

And I thought, "What am I gonna do
with this peach?"

Took a spoon and fished it out.

Cut this peach with a Kn*fe.

[emotional string music swelling]

[Chris] I remember taking it, biting it…

And it was like I'd never had food before.

It was like a lightning bolt
of perfection through simplicity.

Probably the greatest revelation
that I've ever had.

[man] We grew out a couple varieties
of Italian grain.

We grew out some, um, barley
from Magdalena in Mexico.

-[Chris] Oh, sweet.
-[man] It just loves it out here.

[Chris] So this is a little petri dish
about what the future's gonna look like.

-[man] Yeah.
-Snippets of all the possibilities.

[Chris] So these are mostly…
These are all like a flint corn.

We planted this in sort of the same
sort of traditional spacing…

Mm-hmm?

…that you would have seen
in Native American times.

-But isn't this a beautiful plant?
-It's beautiful, man.

You know?

Beautiful.

Let's give some of this grain a run.

Let's do it.

[flour mill whirring]

[Chris] Everything starts
with a tactile approach.

You have to be local

to get close to that,
to get your hands in it.

To get something at source,
or as close to it, is pretty magical.

[upbeat music playing]

People not from the desert,

they do not think of it
as being bountiful.

[Brett] But, in fact,
Chris is in a part of the world

that has deep traditions of wheat growing.

Oh yeah, that feels amazing.

This is warm,
and all that good moisture in there.

[Brett] Something that Chris discovered

is that Arizona grew wheat
that was going to Italy.

People were using this ideal wheat
for pastas and for pizza making,

and it wasn't staying in Arizona.

That was kind of a happy accident.

Wheat is one of the reasons
he became a great pizza maker.

He has figured out
the exact combination of flour,

of dough work,

and time in the oven

that gets to an idyllic place.

There's a sturdiness to the crust that
goes all the way to the tip of the slice,

and it somehow is able to do that
while still being thin.

And before Chris Bianco,

you kinda thought
it might've been impossible to achieve.

-Watch out for rattlesnakes. [laughs]
-Yeah, man. Always a buzzkill. You know?

They always ruin the party.

I know. I know.

[drawer opens]

Chris, this is my favorite picture
of Daddy and I.

-We were just married. It was our first--
-Just married. Ain't that cute?

Look at that. That's Daddy and I.
This was New Year's Day, .

[Chris's mom] Look at your father.
He looks just like you. Just like you.

-Poor guy, poor guy.
-Yeah.

-That's in New York. Yeah.
-That's a great one.

-There's you as a little boy.
-[Chris] Before I did anything bad.

-I have a little--
-I remember this pin.

[Chris's mom] It's about…
about years old.

And my father gave it to me.
I had just been married. He said--

-"In case he's any trouble…" Boom.
-In case he's any trouble…

Anyway… And I cannot tell you

how many pies and breads and tortes
that I've made with this.

[Chris] That's awesome. What else you got?

Oh, I got other things.
Let me get them real quick.

[Chris] I was born in the Bronx.

When I was, like, five years old,

I started getting these episodes
where I wasn't able to breathe.

[indistinct conversation]

[Chris] It was the worst thing ever.

I thought, "Maybe I won't make it."

"Maybe I'll just stop breathing one day."

Ended up that I had asthma.

[gentle guitar music playing]

[Chris] There was no inhalers then.

You had these pills.

If you couldn't breathe,
you'd just chew on one.

If you got bad enough, you'd just go get
a sh*t of adrenaline at the hospital,

which… not fun, to say the least.

Kept me home.

I loved to play sports,
but I missed a lot of games.

But it allowed me to do something else.

Helped my mom
and my grandmother cook dinner.

My mom was the greatest cook.

Just natural, has a great palate.

She just gets it.

There was lots of love, lots of meatballs.

Chicken cacciatore, which was my favorite.

I got to be around these women
that impacted my life so greatly.

So, from that, you know,

asthma became not something
that was detrimental.

It ended up being an incredible blessing.

My first job in a pizzeria
was a place called Aldo's Pizza

on Croton Avenue in Ossining, New York.

[twangy guitar music playing]

[Chris] My job was carrying flour
up from the basement

and dump it off to the pizza guy.

And then I graduated
to shredding mozzarella.

You know, I'd get to tug on a few pizzas.

What was amazing about it,

you got to wear an apron,
you got to wear a cool white T-shirt.

You'd get one soda per shift,
which was awesome.

If your friends came in to get a slice,

you felt important

because you had something
that people wanted.

It just really kick-started
to being a part of something.

Pizza made me feel I had a place.
That sense of purpose.

It made me feel like a superhero.

And that was pretty awesome.

[Chris] So when I was a kid,
I was a very easy child.

-[Chris's mom] Oh yeah, right.
-[laughs]

Oh my God. Chris had decided that…

-[Chris] What did I decide?
-That he didn't love school. [laughs]

I made you drive me to Little League.

We were sitting in the car, and you said,
"I saw your report card."

"What are you gonna do with yourself?"
And I said,

"I'm gonna be a baseball player."

You said, "Nah, I've seen you,
you're not that good."

-That was a good brush with reality.
-[Chris's mom] Chris is still…

[Chris's dad]
So many chapters in our lives.

-It was like that. Boom. [snaps fingers]
-[Chris's dad] Didn't see that one.

So many years, huh?
I guess we're in for the long haul.

-I think you guys are gonna make it.
-In for the long haul.

[Chris] You never had
one argument, all these years.

Well, divorce never--
m*rder maybe, but not divorce, no.

[laughing]

[Chris] Asthma was mostly
a nocturnal condition.

I couldn't sleep.

In school, I just felt
if I could stay awake,

I could stay ahead of it.

[twangy guitar music playing]

[Chris] But I was f*cking exhausted.

I didn't do well in high school.

I didn't see college as my place.

I didn't know what to do,

where I fit in,
how I felt… about anything.

My junior year, I dropped out of school.

It's something that
I'm not proud of at all.

My parents challenged me early on
to never fear them,

but fear disappointing them.

I remember the horror going back
to my dad and tellin' him…

Yeah, I can't imagine what my parents
went through, you know.

[Mia] After Chris
dropped out of high school,

his dad didn't speak to him for a year.

He was upset,
which I think is a normal response.

[Chris] I decided I don't want to be
someone that let them down.

I knew that I could do two things.

I could be kind…

and I could work as hard
as any other human being that I met.

I could choose to not disappoint anybody.

Oh, hey.

-Oh! You made it after years!
-Just like that.

My mother said, "Go to church."

-Oh, wait a minute!
-So, here I come, here I come.

Not for nothin'.

-Dude…
-How you doing, kid?

You haven't changed.
Just a little gray hair.

You know what's good? The worse eyesight
you get, the better I look.

-My eyes are pretty rough.
-I know, I know.

-[Chris] There's a lot of memories here.
-Oh yeah.

I remember, I was in college,

your mom came over
and she wanted to put you to work.

My father said,
"You think he can handle it?"

I can't work like you guys!

-[man] Let's go make some mozzarella.
-[Chris] Let's go, let's go.

[man] Something you can't do in Arizona.

-[Chris] Yeah?
-Bronx tap water.

[Chris] I can feel
the Bronx right there, baby.

[man] That's right.

[Chris] After dropping out of school,
I didn't have a skill set.

I was just looking
for a place to learn something.

[man] Gentile, gentile.

[Chris] There was a place
that was always like a Mecca to me.

Mike's Deli in the Bronx.

Whenever I went there,

Mike Greco would hand you
slices of prosciutto.

Salute, okay.

[Chris] While you're waiting to taste it,
he would sing opera.

["Spirito gentil"
from La Favorita playing]

[Chris] He would cut mozzarella
in animal shapes,

and all this kinda crazy stuff.

[Mike] Look at that shine.

[Chris] Back then, my mozzarella skills
were less than good.

Dave Greco said, "Yeah, man.
Come on by, come on by."

"We'll fix your mozzarella game
up a little bit."

[operatic singing continues]

[Chris] I remember my elbows deep
in boiling hot water,

watching the fat rise.

I was stretching the curds,

and watching them transform.

And I was like,
"How do we know when it's done?"

He was like,

"When it smiles."

And that was it.

[operatic singing continues]

[Chris] I knew what he meant.

There's just presence.

Feels this way.

It's the moment in time
where things come together.

And sometimes there's not a word
for it other than,

"It's when it smiles."

[car horn honks]

[man] This is a family recipe
that Grandma used to make.

-[Chris] God bless her.
-That's why we're here today.

'Cause Grandma's recipes
got this store to be what it is today.

[Chris] That's so beautiful.
I've felt a lot of pasta

through my fingers,
but it's just a beautiful thing, man.

[Chris] In my early twenties,
I didn't have any money,

and I had no real education.

And I could see no future in New York.

There was nothing for me.

[gentle guitar music playing]

[Chris] New York's
the smallest little world.

You go to the grocery store,
you go to the deli…

Hey.

…you keep looking at the same faces.

Keep looking out the same window
and not seeing anything new.

I just wanted a place, or a purpose.

I guess I needed
just to go somewhere where…

if I landed,
and you didn't know anything else,

would you choose me?

Would I be welcome?

I love my family.
They're everything to me.

But I decided to leave.

[bird of prey screeching]

[Brett] Chris moved
from New York to Phoenix,

not based on, like,
"I've always wanted to move to Phoenix,"

or, "I've always wanted
to go to the desert."

It sounded to me much more like a lark,

and that he didn't have a grand plan
for what he was gonna do.

It was kinda this accident.

[Chris] When I moved to Arizona,

I couldn't articulate what I needed.

I didn't even know what I needed.
It was survival.

[twangy guitar music playing]

[Chris] I found an apartment.

I didn't know how to do much, but I could
make mozzarella in my apartment.

I was selling that like contraband.

[Ed] Chris goes door-to-door
with the mozzarella

that he learned to make at Mike's Deli,

trying to sell it to Italian restaurants.

That's totally insane.

But that's just the way Chris was.

[Chris] I'd show up with mozzarella,

they'd pay cash.

And then I got this opportunity

making pizza in the back
of a grocery store.

The hustle of it kept my mind
and my body busy enough

that I could not think
about anything else.

It helped me get on a good path.

I felt like I could take that hustle
and maybe apply it more,

broaden that horizon a little bit.

[distant rooster crowing]

[man] So, these are our lemon cucumbers.

[Chris] You know they're my favorite.

You know what's cool about these
is, like, it's kinda like life itself.

You keep looking from the top,
you don't see much.

-You gotta get down into it.
-[man] Right.

These little babies here.

-Look at that. There it is.
-That's the money right there.

Yeah.

[Chris] All that needs is, uh,
nothing, really.

-[man chuckles]
-Can't b*at that.

Again, you guys grow it,
I'll try not to screw it up.

[Ed] After a few years
at the grocery store,

Chris ended up moving to Santa Fe

and working in a classic
Northern Italian restaurant.

In the old days
of white tablecloth restaurants,

the ingredients came from far away.

It was like, "Oh, let's get
our asparagus from France."

But across the street,
David Tanis had this restaurant,

and they were like, "Why?"

"We're just gonna make food
from the bounty around us."

For Chris it was like,
"Wow, this is so cool."

[light instrumental music playing]

[Chris] It was late summer.

In Santa Fe, we were coming up
with a market salad.

It was an amazing farm community there.

But this particular time, there were
some cucumbers but not much else.

One of the cooks, name was Rocky,
he was from Sinaloa, Mexico,

and he had bright red hair
and he was a sweetheart.

I remember Rocky saying to me,
"You're such an idiot."

"Look at all that verdolaga
right by that dumpster."

"All the gringos are just walking by."

I'm like, "Well, dude, man,
what do we do with it?"

Rocky told me to get some
cebollas, pepinos, the cucumber.

I tasted it. It tasted almost like okra.

And it was pretty magical.

It was this revelation.

What are we trampling in our gardens?

[Ed] Chris learned it's not about
manipulating the ingredients.

It's about finding
the best ingredients around us.

That's where the Chris Bianco
philosophy of pizza was formed.

-[Chris] There's nothing like that smell.
-[male vendor] No, not at all.

[Chris] Unleash the hounds, baby.
Unleash the hounds.

-[female vendor] How are you?
-What's happening?

-So, I need a whole one.
-[female vendors] A whole one?

[Chris] Zion's gonna come by later

if you can get maybe like
two flats of tomatoes.

-[vendor ] I'll put 'em away.
-Is that cool? You're the best.

-[vendor ] Anything for you.
-Oh my God!

[vendors laughing]

-[vendor ] We love you.
-We love you too. I appreciate it.

[Ed] When Chris comes back to Phoenix,

he sees what a Pizzeria Bianco could be.

And Chris was like,

"We're gonna start
with a blank piece of paper."

"I'm gonna raise the stakes

for the ingredients
that I put on my pizza."

[Chris] Arizona Department of Agriculture
used to have a statewide farm list

with local ingredients.

Where it'd be like dairy,
fruits, vegetables.

And then, lo and behold,
there was a nut section.

And Lord knows, that was my section.

Um… [chuckles] And I felt at home.

[gentle guitar music playing]

[Chris] In the southern part of the state,
there's pistachio farms.

And I scored some.

I gave them a little bash
with a mortar and pestle.

Rosemary in Phoenix,
it's growing everywhere.

I got some rosemary.

Awesome onions.

I baked this pizza,

and… alchemy.

[Brett] The Rosa Pizza.

It's sort of fragrant, singed.

It tastes and smells like the desert.

I had never had a pizza like that.

[Ed] He took those things
that he learned working with David,

and he applied it to pizza.

Nobody else had ever done that before.

The Rosa was an innovation.

It came out of Chris's mind,

and it came out of Arizona.

[patrons chattering]

-Here you go, Bianco, one more coming up.
-Yeah.

On the way.

[Chris] Bar, please.

[patrons chattering]

[Ed] When Chris opened Pizzeria Bianco,

the menu was six pizzas.

-Yo.
-[plates clattering]

[Ed] The ingredients were combined
in ingenious ways.

They were all perfect.

And when people
started to taste his pizza,

to see what he was doing,

Chris Bianco's pizza
attained mythical status.

[upbeat music playing]

[Ed] People started
lining up at : a.m.

And it didn't open until :  p.m.

They're waiting seven hours!

And it's hot! It's Phoenix!

It was totally insane.

[Brett] Part of the legend of Chris

was this is the product
of one man's genius.

He basically cooked every pizza.
And that's exciting.

I mean, how can this possibly be?

[Ed] Every critic in this country
felt they had to make a pilgrimage

to Pizzeria Bianco,

or else your life wasn't complete.

Chris Bianco was the next big thing.

[Brett] I never found anyone
who called bullshit on his reputation.

That is rare.

He had become, as far as I could tell,

the greatest pizza maker in America.

[man] This is the wheat berry,

then this right here is the endosperm
of the flour and the germ.

And this is the bran.
Looks good. It smells good too.

It'd be nice to do some
test batches with this,

and then we can see
how the flavor profile is.

The opportunity for us is being
a kind of good gateway drug

to better flour.

[Chris] Even though we try to deny it,
Arizona's an agricultural state.

-You wanna mill some up?
-Yeah, let's mill some up.

[Ed] Chris had seemingly
reached the top of the pizza mountain.

Everyone wanted
to experience Chris's magic.

And so, he felt enormous
pressure to deliver.

[somber ambient music playing]

[Chris] First thing in the morning,
people start to line up.

They would camp out like it was a concert.

I had chefs
that were coming from all over.

Some people are super cool.
Some people are there to check you out.

We had people going through our trash
to see what our secret was.

It was like the stakes had raised.

It's game on.

[twangy guitar music playing]

[Chris] The more success I had,

the more that I feared
disappointing people.

Anything that was good said about me,
it just made me keep my head down lower,

work harder,

and never leave the kitchen.

I was stood in front
of the oven every day.

I could've been here
and a half hours a day,

and someone'd come in,

"I came in the th hour, man.
What's going on with you, Mr. Big sh*t?"

A thousand people tell me
something positive

and I only hear the one negative.

You know? I only hear that one thing.

I felt if I could only stand in front
of that oven, everything would be okay.

I became more maniacal
about not wanting to let you down.

[braying]

[man] Come on, girls. All the way down.

All the way down. All the way down.

-[man] We milk 'em twice a day.
-[Chris] Yeah.

[man] They give about a gallon a day.

But that one gallon can make close to
two pounds of cheese in the winter.

-[Chris] That yield's amazing, huh?
-[man] It does.

You want a drink?

-Yeah, yeah. Come on, man.
-I think she's got some.

-Let's see. Oh yeah.
-[laughs]

All right! [laughs]

Fresh. Fresh drink as you can get.

[Chris] After working seven days a week
for about six years,

my health,
it started to take a toll on it.

Being around flour my whole life,
inhaling it.

My doctor told me
that I needed to calm down.

They made it like I was dying, which,

you know, maybe there's a part of me
that was in a way.

[emotional string music playing]

[Brett] Chris ends up in the hospital.

He's a lifelong asthmatic.

He has something called Baker's Lung,

due to exposure
of airborne flour and smoke.

Two elements that are absolutely essential
to his life's work.

The doctor tells him,
"If you don't wanna die,

you gotta stop making pizza."

[Ed] When you tell Chris Bianco,

"Oh yeah, you can't make pizza anymore,"

it's like telling Leonardo da Vinci,
"You can't paint anymore."

I was worried about him.

[Chris] I was really burnt out.

I couldn't sleep.

I couldn't think.

For me to stop making pizza
meant I would disappoint people.

Those days were very difficult.

But I had no place else to go.

When I stood in front of ovens
all those years,

it made me feel…

Like part of that whole thing
of not belonging,

it felt maybe that I belonged.

[voice breaking] I'm sorry.

[sighs]

[emotional string music swells]

[Mia] You wanna help with the eggies?

-[girl] Yeah!
-Okay, come on.

Eva, do you like potatoes? I forgot.

-Daddy.
-[laughs]

[Chris] You do like potatoes. I know that.

-Nina Rome, what's up, baby?
-[Nina] Hi.

[Mia] Wanna go on this side?
I'll help you guys with the eggs.

[Eva] It looks like a dinosaur egg.

[Mia] It looks like a dinosaur egg.
It does. Exactly like a dinosaur egg.

[Chris] I don't think
I was as truthful with myself

as I could have been.

When I was , I felt I could dig a ditch
to the center of the Earth.

When you're ,

the game changes, and our role
in that game needs to change.

-[Eva] Dad.
-Yo, baby.

-[Eva] It looks like smoke.
-It looks like smoke, doesn't it?

[Eva] Yeah.

[Ed] The health problems
caused Chris to reappraise.

Maybe there's a different way.

The fundamental question,

can Chris's pizzas still be Chris's pizzas

with Chris having a less hands-on role?

[twangy guitar music playing]

[Mia] He realized this isn't sustainable.

He had to learn to let people help.

[Chris] I started to delegate.

Learned to trust people.

I started seeing things with new eyes.

I was able to come back
and be re-inspired.

To empower other people,
and to see their strength.

[Brett] He was exploring
new ways of being.

Trying to see himself
as more of a restaurateur.

He was getting used to this idea

that his pizzas can be fabulous
if he doesn't make 'em.

[Ed] There were some tough years there.

But over time,
he got his asthma under control.

[Chris] It was the inspiration I needed.

You start to think about, "What now?"

"What could I do differently?"

I wanted to open a restaurant
without the name "Bianco" in it,

where from the get-go
I didn't have to be the guy.

I could start from being
a ghost in the machine.

Okay, let's try. Let's see what we did.

[soft ambient music playing]

[Brett] Tratto becomes
Chris's first attempt

to create something that's not a pizzeria.

From its conception,

the business model
did not require him to be at the stove.

[Chris] You say,
"Okay, well, how can I affect the game?"

I know the game.

I understand the game.
I played at its highest level.

So, how can I serve it
so it does the most good?

[Brett] Tratto is the place
where he taught himself

that being a leader is something
he had to embrace.

He wanted to show himself
that that was going to be okay.

[Chris] It allowed me
to focus on other people.

Adjusting my role,
that I have a role in mentoring them.

Putting people in a place to succeed

and give the opportunity
for the next generation.

My role was just not to f*ck it up.

[twangy guitar music playing]

[Brett] People still do think of Chris
as this great pizza chef,

but Tratto, in its own right,
is a great success.

Whatever it is
he was trying to prove, he proved.

[Chris] I realized if anything
I ever did was special,

it was f*cking never standing
in front of the oven.

It was also the farmer, the miller,
the dough we made the night before.

It took an absolute universe.

[Chris] It's like the same greens
in their salad.

-It's awesome.
-[man] They love 'em. They love 'em.

This is my father's way
of making mozzarella.

God bless him.

[Mike] Gentile, gentile.

This is the score, man,
they got field-growns. Yeah.

-Wiseguy on five.
-Let's see what's up.

Who's the best? You're the best? You are.

Eat some raspberries?

[Chris's mom] Okay! I comin'. I comin'.

See, that's Grandma's old cake.
I got to teach you how to make that,

because my grandma taught me
how to make that,

and I'm gonna teach you.

-What's goin' on? What's goin' on?
-Eva's…

[Mia] Chris's focus has shifted.

Now he has a family and children.

He's handed off
the day-to-day operations successfully.

And now he can figure out how to
work smarter, not necessarily harder.

[Chris] One, two.

[all] ♪ Happy birthday to you ♪

♪ Happy birthday to you… ♪

[Ed] Some people get a kidney transplant.

He got a normalcy transplant.

Yay!

And his body hasn't rejected it.

[gentle guitar music playing]

[Ed] But Chris is still a searcher.

Chris is gonna be a searcher
until he takes his last breath.

He's always gonna be
thinking about how I can go deeper.

He just wants to go as deep into food
as he possibly can.

[Chris] Any leader in history

started out leaving the comforts of home.

Leaving New York forced me
to find a place.

A purpose.

For the first time in my life,
I was able to discover things.

I owe it to the desert.

I've been fortunate enough
for it to change my life, in the best way.

This place under my feet
knows my gratitude, I hope.

[woman, in Italian]
Roman pizza was considered junk food.

He added all kinds of stuff to it.

[man, in Italian]
Pizza is everywhere in Rome,

and I liked that perverse idea
of adding a revolution to the mix.

Pow!

[gentle guitar music playing]

[twangy guitar music playing]