Outrageous Food with Tom Pizzica

Please Note: This is an older post taken during the filming of Outrageous Food. If you’re looking for more current information on Outrageous Food with Tom Pizzica, please see my interview with him here done on October 30th, 2010.

Shit, this interning stuff ain’t no joke! I’m glad I can ease back into this “work” stuff with a four day work week and barely a commute doing something that I’ve basically been doing for the last two years anyway.

To recap, I was selected to participate in the shoot for the show “Outrageous Food” with Tom Pizzica as part of the Fried Shit episode at the Park Slope Chip Shop. As an outrageous food lover myself, I am part of the Gastronauts; the group tapped to try the outrageous food in Brooklyn. I’ve never been to a Gastronauts outing, but they know who I am. Their final application question is “Tell us a secret,” and let’s just say that if the selection came down to two people, all things being equal, I would feel pretty good about my chances at being picked based on this secret. In fact, I’ve got a few minutes before work. Think I might go see how Lee’s doing …

This is Tony:

Tony was the cameraman for the shoot; he’s from Brooklyn and travels with the production company. The production team kept getting shots that looked good, and then when they got all those, they said “Make sure you shoot one for Page.” Page is the production company that would be editing the footage; I had assumed that this meant that the editor wanted cookie-cutter production shots and not the creative panning/scrolling/zooming shots until I talked to David Page. I gave him a call after he’d left me a comment inviting me to clarify things. He told me here were certain shots you need to make every show TV ready, and that’s what was being framed when the producer indicated that. Jumping to conclusions is easy to do when you’ve never been to or been in charge of a professional production. This might have been better phrased as “Make sure you shoot one for Scripps.” I really appreciated him reaching out to me. I’m looking forward to more conversations with Emmy winning producers of Food Network shows.

Tom is auctioning off the food! I have never worked at any restaurant where you wouldn’t get fired for this. He’s only doing it for the camera, though – he remembered all the seat numbers. So our table got Fried Cheetohs, Fried Sushi, Fried Blood Sausage, and a Fried Lox Bagel. The Cheetohs:

Disappointing. The cheetohs are better just cheetohs. Fried, they get chewy. I don’t know if this is a definitive answer on these guys, though. We had them after they’d sat for a little while, and if they held their crispness as they came from the fryer for a few minutes, we might be humming a different tune about them, but the overall feeling was not so great.

The Lox Bagel:

I took this next shot and remembered Bourdain’s rant on food bloggers where he famously exclaimed “It’s just a fucking hamburger, man!”

I didn’t really understand this statement. Either he doesn’t really feel this way and was doing it for this camera, or he’s oblivious to the guy following him around with one eye closed and some large, foriegn device on his shoulder pointing at everything he eats. Huh? Where’s the disconnect in his thinking? I’m going to the 92Y talk with him and Chang on the 13th and I’m definitely asking him about this if there’s any Q&A.

Here’s the cross-section:

This was damn good, aside from them missing the red onions and capers. Suzanne (owner of the Chip Shop) told me that it was going to be too hard, but I didn’t have that problem. The cream cheese didn’t melt too much (or it melted and then congealed – everything was cold when we got it) and the salmon cooked a bit. I think I preferred the salmon cooked in this version of the sandwich. Even though Tom said he wasn’t a fan of lox, he took a bite and I think he appreciated it.

All in all, a pretty fun Saturday. Got to know Sarah a little better, she’s got some big stuff in the works that sounds awesome. She also told me about her specialty: Orange Marmalade (Google luv – you’re welcome ;-)) Need to try that recipe. Got to talk with Tom for a sec:

Super nice guy. Planning a phone interview with him sometime in the next couple of weeks to shoot the shit about The Next Food Network Star and Outrageous Food. I still think “Outrageous Munchies,” might be a better name.

Park Slope Chip Shop
383 5th Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11215
(718) 832-7701