History of Pizza
Posted by Waleed | Filed under Uncategorized
While certainly ancient, the earliest origins of pizza are not at all clear. One interesting legend recounts that the Roman soldiers returning from Palestina, where they had been compelled to eat matzoh among the Palestinian Jews, developed a dish called picea upon gratefully returning to the Italian peninsula.
Most sources, however, agree that an early form of pizza resembling what today is called focaccia was eaten by many peoples around the Mediterranean rim, e.g., by Greeks, Egyptians etc.
These dishes of round pita-like, cooked bread with oil and spices on top are the ancestors of pizza, but are not properly speaking pizza. The tomato was unknown and the Indian water buffalo had not yet been imported to Campania, the area around Naples.
With the discovery of the New World, the tomato made its way to Italy through Spain. It was considered a poisonous ornamental and so in the first centuries of its import was not eaten.
The Neapolitan people seem to be the first to wholeheartedly adopt the tomato into their cuisine, so that in our day the (plum) tomato is the most characteristic element of Neapolitan cuisine.
Over the centuries, a veritable tradition of pizza was developed among the Neapolitan poor. It is not surprising, then, that a modern pizza, that is, with mozzarella di bufala and tomato was made in 1871 in Naples for Princess Margherita of Savoia by Raffaele Esposito.
This patriotic pizza, of basil, tomato and mozzarella, in honor of the new tricolor Italian flag’s red, green and white, became the pizza alla Margherita. This form of pizza was then made known, popularized and adapted in all the world through waves of emigration from Naples in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The History of the American style pizza pie
The United States is among the most pizza enthusiastic countries one can find today. How did this come about?
Italian immigrants to New York City began making a version of pizza when they arrived in their new American home at the turn of the 20th century. The first pizzeria in the U.S. was opened by an Italian immigrant in 1905.
In addition, American GI’s returning from Italy gained a familiarity with the dish and it is in the post-WWII period that pizza really takes off in the United States.
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Waleed Zarou, Finalist in Fastest Pizza Maker Competition
Posted by Waleed | Filed under News
Waleed Zarou, owner of Don Corleones Brick Oven Pizzeria places 3rd in national pizza event at the Orlando Pizza Show.
Here are the official results (see original article):
Fastest Pizza Maker
1st Place: John Howe, Domino’s Pizza, Orlando FL
2nd Place: Roger McColly, Domino’s Pizza, Upper Sandusky OH
3rd Place: Waleed Zarou, Don Corleones Brick Oven Pizzeria, Sterling, VA
Pizza competition runs in the family, Waleed’s daughter Juliana participated in the the Throw Dough competition.
Also see original article
Dough Girl Defends Her Title
Posted by Waleed | Filed under News
By Kim Centazzo, Ashburn Connection
Original Article – September 05, 2007
Juliana Zarou will return to Orlando, Fla., Saturday, Sept. 8, to defend her title as “Dough Girl.”
In July 2006, Zarou was the first girl to compete in the Throw Dough National Finals Junior Division for the under 18 division. She placed third for tricks, like the “whip,” when she tosses throw dough in the air, catches it, brings the dough down to her bellybutton and makes a figure eight, rolling the dough over the palms of her hands and back to her fingertip. “I was the only girl in the place,” she said.
On Friday, Aug. 31, Juliana Zarou tossed a piece of practice dough made of rubber and sprinkled with flour, called throw dough, outside of her father Waleed Zarou’s restaurant, Don Corleone’s at The Cascades Marketplace in Sterling.
Juliana Zarou practices for the Throw Dough National Finals Junior Division for the under 18 division.
Her sisters, Nina, 8, and Sophia, 5, watched her toss throw dough high above her head, under her leg and back above her head again. “That one’s called the ‘under-whip,’” she said. “I made it up.” Although the 9-year-old has been practicing for a couple of weeks now, she said she has a long way to go. “I haven’t practiced as hard as I could,” she said, “but I’m going to work hard over the next few days.” This year, Juliana Zarou is sponsored by Antico Mulino Caputo pizza flour, from Naples, Italy.
The Best Delivery Pizza
Posted by Waleed | Filed under News
By Cynthia Hacinli, Washingtonian
Original Article – December 01, 2006
College students probably eat more pizza than anyone else, so we asked five college seniors to taste delivery pies from 16 pizzerias.
Pizza 101—College Students Give Grades
Included were national chains as well as neighborhood places that deliver within designated areas. Pizzas were plain cheese—and to even the playing field, we reheated all of them, as many people do at home.
Our tasters were Andy Duffy, Sasha Irving, Matan Shamir, and Erin Zimmer of Georgetown University and Emily Axford of George Washington University. Here’s how they rated the pies:
The winners (a tie): Armand’s Chicago Pizzeria (various locations; armandspizza.com; $11.95 for a 14-inch) and Don Corleone’s Brick Oven Pizza (21018 S. Bank St., Sterling; 703-444-4959; doncorleonespizza.com; $15.95 for an 18-inch). One taster summed up Armand’s strength as “perfectly balanced cheese and sauce.” Don Corleone’s had “the deepest flavor” plus sprigs of basil and an “amazing” crust.
Pizza Competition for Children
Posted by Waleed | Filed under News
Times Community Newspapers
Original Article – October 12, 2006
Children age 12 and under can enter the contest and create a “kid-sized pie” with their favorite ingredients at the pizzeria, where the pie will be baked and judged. Participants will be given one batch of uncooked pizza dough and a selection of sauces and toppings. The winning pie will be named by its creator and added to the pizzeria’s menu.
One pizzeria in the country will be randomly selected to win a visit by a member of the World Pizza Champion Team, who will teach acrobatic pizza-tossing tricks.
Lindsay Olives and The World Pizza Champions Inc. are hosting the contest. Space is limited and registration is required. Interested children should sign up as soon as possible at Don Corleone’s Pizzeria, 21018 S. Bank St. in Sterling.
An online competition among pizza recipes is also under way during October. Anyone 16 and older can enter the contest by submitting pizza recipes by Oct. 31 to www.lindsayolives.com .
For details, visit www.worldpizzachampions.com/lindsayolives.php , www.lindsayolives.com or www.doncorleonespizza.com
Lost Wallet, Honest Employees
Posted by Waleed | Filed under News
On Monday night, July 30th my family and I had a couple of pizzas at your restaurant. Both pizzas were excellent and more than enough of a reason to go back again if I ever get back to Sterling, VA.
However, the reason for this message is to personally thank your three employees who closed the building that night. After eating your pizza, we went next door to Ben & Jerry’s for ice cream. As there were 7 of us, there wasn’t enough seating at Ben & Jerry’s so we sat on your tables outside eating our ice cream. As it was around 9:30 by now, your pizzeria was closed and your employees were busy cleaning up inside.
After eating our ice cream, we drove back to our hotel, the Fairfield Inn near Dulles Airport. It was only after getting back to out hotel that I noticed my wallet was missing. I drove back to the shopping plaza but most everything was closed. We searched around looking in trash bins and dumpsters hoping against hope that we might find my wallet. Tired and depressed, I drove back to my hotel. Convinced the wallet was lost, I spent the next hour canceling credit cards and bank cards. However, in the back of my mind, I was hoping your employees may have found it.
On Tuesday, I called in around 10:45, inquired about my wallet and learned that they indeed had found it and it was being kept for me. I retrieved it later in the day, and discovered the wallet was intact. Nothing was missing. In my gratitude I left a $60 reward for your three employees.
I just want to thank them again and to tell you what outstanding employees you have. There are far too many uncaring people in this world and we sometimes get a little jaded by all of it. Your employees with their honesty reminded me that there are still good people out there.
Thank You,
Ron Young
Providence, RI
Dough Girl Takes Third
Posted by Waleed | Filed under News
By Kim Centazzo, Ashburn Connection
Original Article – August 23, 2006
Juliana Zarou, 9, practices throwing dough in front of Don Corleone’s Brick Oven Pizzeria in Sterling, in preparation for the Throw Dough National Finals Junior Division for the under 18 division, in Orlando, Fla.
For once, Juliana Zarou was awarded for playing with her food. For nine years, Juliana watched her father, Waleed Zarou, owner of Don Corleone’s Brick Oven Pizza, toss dough in the air, catch it with his fingertips and toss it behind his back and side to side. In March, she decided to pick up some dough and try it herself. “Turns out, she’s pretty good at it,” Waleed Zarou said.
In July, Juliana was the first girl to compete in the Throw Dough National Finals Junior Division for the under 18 division, in Orlando, Fla., where she placed third. “She needs to work on some harder tricks for next year,” he said, “but she did great. She’s a performer.”
The day of competition, Juliana stepped up to a basket and drew the No. 1. Even though she had to go first, the 9-year-old said she wasn’t nervous to toss dough in front of an audience. “The stage was huge,” she said, “but I just wanted to get up there and do my thing.”
Under the stage lights, she performed her routine to the song, “Never Give Up.” She tossed Throw Dough, practice dough made of rubber and sprinkled with flour, from the tips of her right hand to the back of her left palm, she knelt down on the ground, shimmied her shoulders and tossed it again. “She has great stage presence,” Waleed Zarou said. While on stage, she said she could hear her sisters cheering for her. “They’re her biggest fans,” their mother, Amy Zarou said.
At the Sterling restaurant on Wednesday, Juliana and her sisters, Sophia Zarou, 7, and Nina Zarou, 4, went over her routine in between the glass counter and hungry customers. “We screamed ‘Go Juliana,’” Sophia recalled. “I could hear them the whole time I was on stage,” Juliana said. Waleed Zarou said his plan is to get all of the girls involved someday.
The Sterling family has made its mark on the dough-tossing community. In September, Waleed Zarou and Juliana will return to Florida, to participate in the Orlando Pizza Show. Representatives from PMQ Magazine, a food industry publication, asked Juliana to perform on the main stage of the pizza show. She will toss Throw Dough with other competitors, while her father competes in the fastest pizza-making competition. Other competitions include the Largest Dough Stretch and Freestyle Pizza Tossing competitions.
When her father asked her about her performance, she said she was going to stick to her same routine and try new tricks next year. While Juliana talked about her next trip to Florida, 4-year-old Nina mimicked her sister by tossing a PMQ magazine from right hand to left.
Miracle Worker
Posted by Waleed | Filed under News
Juliana Zarou works with pizza dough
Written By 9NEWS NOW
At Don Corleones brick oven pizza, owner Waleed Zarou is passing on the family secrets. His daughter, eight year old Juliana, is a budding dough-twirling superstar. “How good is she? She’s pretty good,” says her father. Obviously an understatement if you saw this little girl spin the dough.
The dough they toss is actually a rubber disc, or as they call it, a throw disk. But anyone who?s tried it for the first time will tell you it’s a lot harder than it looks. “I just kept practicing and practicing and got better at it,” says Juliana.
Juliana has only been practicing since she was about four months ago. That was when her dad heard about the national pizza dough spinning competition and found there was a junior division, but;
“There’s never been a female contestant in the history of the event,” says Waleed. “That got my attention knowing that I got three little girl.”
Juliana has worked up a routine for the competition. Right now, she practices doing it for her friends. She’ll do it for the judges later this week in Orlando and though this is her first national competition; she’s insists she is not afraid.
“I have a lot people rooting for me and I know my family is going to be there. So I’m not going to be scared.” Of course Waleed Zarou says he’ll be very proud of his little girl regardless of how she does at the contest. Above all, he wants her to have fun.
Sterling Girl, 8, in National Pizza Dough Contest
Posted by Waleed | Filed under News
By Katie Murphy, Observer
Original Article – August 4, 2006
Next Thursday, Juliana Zarou is doing something no other female in the United States has done before and she’s only 8-years-old. Zarou is competing in a national pizza dough-spinning competition.
Pizza dough spinning is an international sport that has been gaining interest in the United States. In 2000, the first U.S. pizza team consisted of three members. Now, the team has 15 members and a team trainer. The 2005 U.S. team has been featured on television, and so far has won four gold medals, one silver and one bronze.
Caroline Felker, team coordinator, is one of the organizers for the national championship this year in Orlando, Fl. She said Juliana is the first female ever to enter as a pizza spinner. “She’s the first in every category, from the junior competition to the upper division and even on the U.S. Pizza Team,” Felker said.
Juliana said she’s practicing half an hour a day. Her family owns Don Corleone’s Brick Oven Pizzeria in the Cascades Market Place and passersby often see her practicing out front. “She practices a lot out front of the shop so she gets used to people watching her,” said Waleed Zarou, her father and owner of Don Corleone’s.
Juliana learned about the competition from her dad and started training for the event four months ago. Waleed Zarou said his daughter has been around him and his employees while they were spinning pizza dough and she wanted to learn. “She really got taken to it and we’ve had a lot of fun,” he said.
Juliana said her technique for spinning the dough is by holding it on her fingertips and twisting it at the same time she tosses it. She can already throw it pretty high. “I’ve hit the ceiling in my house,” she said.
Juliana can spin blindfolded and is working on perfecting a 360-degree spin while she throws the dough into the air.
Her father said he can’t believe that already she is getting better than he is. “If she stays with it and likes it she could be on the official pizza team, but you have to be 16 for that, so right now she’s being groomed to be the first girl on that,” said Waleed Zarou.
But if Juliana wins in Orlando, she’ll get a paid trip to defend the title next year and a paid trip to the world competition in Italy as the national junior champ.
Felker said the national competition is Aug. 10 to 12. It is divided into two age groups: 11 years old and under and 16 years old and under. The performance is scored on a 10-point scale on three categories: originality, presentation and difficulty of routine.
Originality is judged on the creativity in routine, music, new approaches to tossing, and new tricks. Presentation is determined by the entertainment value, choreographed, smoothness, and the connection with the audience. Difficulty is based on the variety of tricks and the difficulty of tricks. Drops are point deductions for the older age group. Contestants will have up to five minutes to perform their routine. Medals will be awarded to the top three winners.
Last year, Felker said, the junior competition had five competitors. This year there are 10. The pizza spinning competition collaborated with the World’s Yo-Yo Contest this year for both events to gain more recognition.
The competition is open to the first 10 people to register in each division. The registration fee is $55.
Juliana’s sisters, 7-year-old Nina and 4-year-old Sophia, will be in Orlando, too, cheering their sister on. “I have a lot of people rooting for me and my friends talk about it every day,” Juliana said.
Let’s Hear it for the Girls
Posted by Waleed | Filed under News
Juliana Zarou, 8, practices throwing dough in front of Don Corleone's Brick Oven Pizzeria is Sterling.
By Kim Centazzo, Connection Newspapers
July 26, 2006
Juliana Zarou uses her hands to do many things. She plays the piano, turns the pages of her favorite books and tosses pizza dough in front of her father’s restaurant, Don Corleone’s Brick Oven Pizzeria in Sterling. At 3:30 p.m. Thursday, July 20, Amy Zarou pulled up to the family restaurant. Three small girls spilled out of the green van, dressed in black shirts, white aprons and red caputos, Don Corleone’s signature bakers hats. Waleed Zarou met his wife and daughters at the door. He handed his oldest daughter, Juliana, a piece of practice dough made of rubber and sprinkled with flour, called Throw Dough. Juliana tossed the dough toward the sky, twirling the rubber on her fingertips and bouncing it off of the back of her palms.
“The longest I’ve gone is 30 seconds,” Juliana said. She never took her eyes off the dough.
TWO MONTHS AGO, Juliana began practicing her skills in front of the pizzeria, in preparation for the Throw Dough National Finals Junior Division for the under 18 division in Orlando, Fla.
“She has a natural knack,” her mother, Amy Zarou, said.
“My dad taught me,” Juliana said.
Waleed Zarou began throwing dough when he was 13 years old.
“I grew up around this my whole life,” he said.
Juliana Zarou, 8, plays catch with her father, Don Corleone's owner, Waleed Zarou.
Waleed Zarou grew up in his father’s restaurant in Rockville, Md., and one year ago, opened the Mafia-themed pizzeria. The restaurant’s walls are decorated with “Godfather” memorabilia. Marlon Brando and Al Pacino’s faces are plastered above a bar. A black mobster car sits outside of the restaurant. Their slogan: “We make pizza you can’t refuse.”
Waleed Zarou found out about the competition through an industry magazine and from watching the U.S. Pizza Team throw dough on ESPN.
In three weeks, Waleed Zarou is taking the whole family to Orlando, Fla., to watch Juliana compete against other children from across the country. She will be judged on the difficulty of her tosses, control of the Throw Dough and creativity. Right now she is working on tossing dough from one hand to another while spinning it, blindfolded. “The blindfold should get her big points,” Waleed Zarou said.
Don Corleone's Brick Oven Pizzeria owner Waleed Zarou helps his daughter, Juliana Zarou, prepare dinner Thursday.
If she wins the national competition, she will advance as the first female U.S. Throw Dough champion to compete against other throw dough champions from around the world. She is also working on “the whip,” when she tosses it in the air, catches it, brings the dough down to her bellybutton and makes a figure eight, rolling the dough over the palms of her hands and back to her fingertips.
“It’s part of my routine,” Juliana said.
She will perform her tricks to the song “Never Give Up,” and will sport a black T-shirt with her name and the Don Corleone’s logo and Web site on it.
“In case she gets on television,” her father joked.
“The hardest part is controlling it,” she said. “But my arms never get tired.”
Juliana spends her afternoons outside of her father’s pizza restaurant, tossing dough back and forth, up toward the trees and back to her fingertips. Sometimes, her father practices with her.
“People love it,” Waleed Zarou said. “They stop and watch. It’s great for business. She’s a little performer.”
The performer doesn’t mind practicing in front of an audience. “Sometimes, I don’t even notice the people at Starbuck’s watching me from across the street,” she said. “I like it.”
Juliana’s main goal is to have fun. If she wins, she will receive a free trip to next year’s competition and a trip to Italy.
Her father is excited about the possibility of Juliana being the first female U.S. Throw Dough champion.
“We want to let them know girls are here to stay,” he said. “I’ve got three of them lined up.”