Posts Tagged ‘pizza dough’
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.
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
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.