Italian wines: everyday eats, not special treats!
Why wine? Why the heck not?! You see, pizza is fun. That’s undeniable. It’s born by being tossed in the air and getting all dolled up. You get to eat it with your hands without getting in trouble. A hot piping pie is brought to your table and you think, or say, YAY! Wine in Italy is the same. It is not reserved for cocktail parties and stemmed glasses and anniversaries. It is food. It is just as much a part of the everyday eating experience as bread or veggies. We chose to have an Italian wine list because our food is Italian inspired and our ingredients are primarily Italian. In Italy wine and food are made to compliment and enhance each other, and Italian wines have a great acidity that stands up to, but doesn’t mask or overpower, the rich flavors in the tomato sauce, cheese, and meats in Italian cooking.
Our wine menu changes fairly often because we chose to work with semi-small producers that make wine with our same philosophy. Wineries with a passion for quality ingredients with the real end product being a catalyst for pleasure and enjoyment for life and the people you share it with.
Wine is not pretentious, it’s just juice, man. Really well made, warm in your tummy, fuzzy around the edges, sexy, fun-times juice. Juice nonetheless. And food and wine paired are like Dan Akroyd and John Belushi, great solo, but unstoppably awesome together. Like how Catherine Zeta-Jones looks even more beautiful on the arm of Michael Douglas. Just think of Catherine as a slice of sausage and garlic pizza and Michael is the Barbera D’Alba that propels her to Super Star status. Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin? They are actually a meatball sub and a glass of Nero D’Avola. Don’t tell their publicists. So the next time you think pizza, and then think beer, think again and ask your server about our wine!
The pairings above are tried and true awesome combos. Don’t be fooled but the pink color of Rosé, it’s a dry, tart glass of cold heaven. It totally compliments the meaty Italian assorted sub. Prosecco and a Caesar salad sounds a little understated, but it’s a ridiculously delicious combo. The earthiness of the Montepulciano is a great bosom buddy to the saltiness of the pepperoni and the acidity of the pizza sauce.
2009 Austin Chronicle Restaurant Poll results
Thank you to everyone who voted in this year’s Austin Chronicle Restaurant Poll. We’re stoked to be voted Best Pizza by all of you for the first time since we’ve opened. You guys rule and we’re grateful you like us. We were also voted #17 in the favorite restaurant poll. We’re so glad to have you all come down and make this such a great place to hang out and eat.
Rock out with your slice hot,
Home Slice
This is how we do it.
Lot’s of people ask us what makes our pizza so good. What sets it apart? Despite the mystique and legend (and compellingly strong opinions) surrounding what makes great pizza great, it’s not fairy dust or luck or anything that obscure. The answer is simple, but born out of much hard work, effort and vision: recipes, quality ingredients, love and no compromise. Many of the ingredients that we use weren’t available from the local purveyors when Home Slice was still in the womb. It took much persistence and diligence to make the cheeses, meats, and toppings that we use available to us.
Periodically, Jen Strickland, owner and visionary (the queen of pies, if you will) of Home Slice and its recipes, educates the staff on what we use and why. We taste our ingredients side by side with what is widely available and pervasively used. The differences can be shocking. Take for example, one the most integral ingredients for pizza, shredded mozzarella. We shred our cheeses daily. However, the food industry, in an effort to make pre-shredded mozzarella easier to store and handle, coats the cheese with cellulose powder to prevent caking and preservatives to increase shelf life. And while this makes it more convenient for turn and burn pizza production, it does not make for good food.
Pizza is often viewed as a cheap, quick commodity. That is the opposite from how we treat pizza making. Pizza is not merchandise. Pizza is the satellite of love in the middle of a table that brings people together.
Jen dropping knowledge on us all.
Our cheesecake vs. frozen
Compare and contrast, with wine.
Organizations we support
A youth development program that uses sustainable agriculture as means to affect lasting change for youth participants, and to nourish East Austin residents who currently have limited access to healthy foods. On a 2-5 acre urban organic farm, our project will provide employment, life and job skills, and service opportunities to under-served youth aged 14-18 in East Austin. 15 farm interns, ages 14-18, are hired to work from February to July, growing 15,000-20,000 lbs of produce every year—donating 40% of that to hunger relief and selling 60% at farmers’ markets and farm stands run by the farm interns.
Eat Local Week, the winter fundraiser event, is an invitation to Central Texans to explore and celebrate the abundance of local food and to raise money for Urban Roots, a youth development program that uses sustainable agriculture as a means to transform the lives of young people and to increase the access of healthy food in Austin.
The Austin Community Foundation is a non-profit organization that provides stewardship for over seven hundred individual charitable funds. The Austin Community Foundation’s grants, whether from specific charitable funds or from the general fund, support health, human services, arts and culture, the environment, community development and community service, education and training, recreation, and animal-related services.
From their founding in 1997 as the Capital Area Homeless Alliance, they have worked to create practical solutions for helping people find their way home. Through shelter and permanent-housing programs, skills development, employment resources and more, Front Steps supports low-income workers, disabled and homeless individuals and their families to find lasting and affordable housing.
St. Andrew’s seeks students of character and intelligence from diverse ethnic, racial, and socioeconomic backgrounds, and maintains a scholarship program to support that diversity. The school strives to help young people achieve their potential not only in intellectual understanding but also in esthetic sensitivity, physical well-being, athletic prowess and moral decisiveness so that they may lead productive, responsible lives, not only for themselves, but also for their community.
The Project is a statewide non-profit family law firm that is now in its 26th year of service! The staff is made up of top notch lawyers who employ cutting edge legal strategies to help victims who couldn’t ordinarily access the legal system. Their services are free, and they do not discriminate.
Workers Defense Project is a membership-based organization that empowers Latina/o immigrant workers to act collectively for racial and economic justice in the workplace through leadership development, education, organizing and collaborating with strategic allies.
Young Texans Against Cancer (YTAC) is a start-up, nonprofit organization comprised of young men and women affected directly or indirectly by cancer, who actively support the cancer community through the following efforts: Raising funds to help support research-based and small- to medium-sized organizations, increasing support for volunteer organizations, and educating our community about cancer research.
The art of pizza tossing, down to a weensy science.
Get this!
Researchers at Monash University in Australia have broken down the physics of the art of pizza tossing and used those mathematical principles to design teeny tiny motors called standing wave ultrasonic motors (SWUMs). Essentially itty bitty pizzas that never stop spinning.
The system’s dynamics explains why certain tossing motions are used by dough-toss performers for different tricks: a helical trajectory is used in single tosses because it maximizes energy efficiency and the dough’s airborne rotational speed, a semi-elliptical motion is used in multiple tosses because it is easier for maintaining dough rotation at the maximum rotational speed. The system’s bifurcation diagram and basins of attraction also informs SWUM designers about the optimal design for high speed and minimal sensitivity to perturbation.
If you want to get nerd mathy, check out the researchers abstract.
Something old, something new, something cheesy, something blue.
This newlywed couple came in to Home Slice for some very yummy wedding photographs! They were going to all their favorite places in Austin to remember their special day. Congratulations guys!
Whitney Lee specializes is creative wedding photography. Check her out!
Allyson eats pizza in the green room (which is actually rather orange)!
This is blogworthy because she hasn’t eaten dairy in two years. We are honored and we wish her the best, considering she performs with Tiana and the Allysons on Saturday
MXTS is Underway!
It’s a gorgeous spring day in Austin and if you haven’t been down yet, here are a few highlights you missed:
Mason Proper kicking off the event with their sunny and soulful pop harmonies.
Low Anthem hauntingly belting it out from their shins at least, big enough to drown out the rock n’ roll band across the street at Gueros.
The contagiously upbeat Marching Band all the way from Sweeden.
Shepard Fairey and the Obey Posse creating an AMAZING mural on the parking lot wall. (See photos… it’s still happening).
Lots of happy music fans eating Home Slice Pizza from our outdoor slice kitchen!
Oh and during the festival so far, these visiting celebs ate our pizza!
- Seth Rogan
- Justin Kirk, who plays Andy Botwin on Weeds
Uh Oh… I hear hip hop… gotta go!
All Songs Considered SXSW 2009 preview
NPR’s All Songs Considered, hosted by Bob Boilen, just broadcasted it’s 2009 SXSW preview show. Bob got together with NPR Monitor Mix blogger Carrie Brownstein, producer and Second Stage host Robin Hilton, and Song of the Day editor Stephen Thompson to chat about bands they hadn’t heard of that they were looking forward to seeing this year.
The show discussed a very diverse group of 16 artists. It makes me really excited about music. And what’s so cool is that two of the Music by the Slice artists made the list! Jason Lytle, former frontman of Granddaddy, and The Phenomenal Handclap Band.
Jason Lytle is coming out with his first solo album since Grandaddy broke up in 2006. The Phenomenal Handclap Band are from NYC and has 27 members. Both bands are playing on Saturday. The green room is going to be bumping! Can’t wait to see you there! The rest of out line up for MXTS can be found here.
