SETTEBELLO... undoubtably the best pizza in Utah

A year ago my sister told me about a new pizzeria that was supposed to make an authentic pizza. After living in Italy one is never the same when it comes to authenticity and I was skeptical as usual. (I once had someone tell me they had an authentic pizza at Fazolis) I found a pizzeria that came close to the real thing about 5 years ago but not quite. So last fall when we went I was incredibly excited about what had been created right here in Salt Lake City. I ordered the "Capriciosa" which means "spoiled" like a brat that is. My wife ordered the same because that is what she had ordered when we were in Milan a couple of years ago and she has not quit talking about it. It was so authentic I began to wonder how they did it. Since that night I have taken or referred many friends to Settebello so they could taste what I have been trying to explain to them for so long. It is impossible to explain because frankly the ingredients to make these pizzas don't really exist here in Utah, almost all of them have to be shipped directly from Naples, Italy the birth place of the pizza. I explained to someone recently that the pizza in Naples is like a religion but honestly I don't know if religion holds a candle to the pizza. I would rather tell a Naples native that their child is ugly than tell them their pizza is aweful. Anyway, Ron Adair and I thought this would be a great place to shoot because we are huge food lovers and especially appreciate someone who is trying to do something the right way and is as passionate about what they are doing as we are about what we are doing. Michael Brooks, owner of Settebello was open to the idea of letting us spend an entire day with the crew and clients at Settebello. Honestly, we were more excited about this idea after we talked to Michael because we could see that he was totally passionate about what he is doing and is completely dedicated to authenticity. We captured the ins and outs of this dynamic business and came to love the crew both in the front an back end of this restaurant. If you ask anybody on the crew if they are sick of eating pizza the answer was always "not even close". They all shared the same passion about what is happening at Settebello and loved being a part of something unique. I spent a lot of time brushing up on my Italian with Matteo who you will see making pizzas sometimes with Alex, Beau and Mario. He has 25 years of experience making pizzas in Italy and truly is an artist. All the people were fantastic but truthfully the highlight of the day for me was the two pizzas I ate. I had "La Diavola" and "Quattro Stagioni" both of which I highly recommend. Settebello is located across the street from P.F Changs to the north west at 260 South 200 West. I have included a permanent link to their site on my blog under "great sites to visit". You will find the full menu on that link.

Never wear sandles in the Desert!!

Featured here are some images from a photo shoot in Scottsdale, AZ. What a beautiful weekend it was. My wife came down with me and we left the kids home. We got home last night and woke up to snow on the ground this morning. The first thing I noticed when we got there was that the desert area in Scottsdale is a gold mine for photographs. So I thought it would be a good idea to end our photo shoot among the cacti of Arizona. So we got out there and I had the family where I want them and I began to shoot. I began to back up and stepped my mesh shoes right into a "jumping cactus" called such because of it's ability to detach from the mother cactus. So I had a ball of cactus stuck in my foot and my friend Kelly came to help me get it out. Meanwhile I back up into another and get one stuck in my leg. Mind you these are like porcupine quills with barbs on the end. They are meant to stick and pulling them out means pulling out your flesh with it. Kelly yanks the cactus out when I wasn't expecting it and it hurt like a mother. I then began working on getting the cactus out of my foot when all of the sudden I look up and Kelly has got the previous ball stuck in his hand. So I began to help him get that out and then Kelly saw that I was about to step on the last one that came off the my leg and he picked it up and threw it without thinking and it went right into his sons foot. His feet were exposed because he was wearing sandles. He began to scream and kick and it got really stuck so we had to pick him up and hold him still. We had no idea how to get all of those barbs out of his foot because he had so many stuck deep (later I counted 15 holes in his foot). While I was thinking Kelly grabs the sandle and yanks as hard as he can and pulls the hole cactus out in one swoop. It was the equivalent of getting a tooth pulled when it is not even loose. I have never heard of a plant more appropriately named than the "jumping cactus". The image where Kelly is holding his son is right after this whole incident. In that moment Jackson said to Kelly, "Dad, why did you throw that at my foot?" We managed to get a few shots off anyway.