Pizza a platform to explore seasonal ingredients

Justin Reinhart’s commitment to finding meaning and beauty in the work he performs has led him to the fringes of society and into territory few would dare venture. It has also enabled him to find deeply fulfilling work involving food.

"I believe we can create a life that’s meaningful no matter what it is we do," said the general manager of Mission Social Hall & Cafe, a relaxing lunch and event space on the grounds of the Mission Houses Museum. "I believe there’s beauty to be found and beauty to be made in everything, whether we’re doing paperwork or digging a ditch or cooking a meal."

Reinhart’s favorite dish to prepare is pizza. It’s something he could eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner, he says, and he enjoys the process of making the dough from scratch and the freedom of mixing and changing toppings. His passion began a few years ago when his wife took a monthlong trip out of the country. He decided to pass the time alone by attempting to master pizza making.

"I knew I wouldn’t really master it, but I figured I’d learn something if I tried," he said.

"I like making pizza because it really becomes a canvas for the seasons. The crust is the one fundamental ingredient, and it’s a sandbox for learning about different ingredients and how they can go together. I learned about cheeses in learning to make pizza. I’d throw them on and think about their tastes and what would go well with them. I like to explore the different vegetables in season."

Reinhart’s current pizza of choice is a fresh shiitake and alii mushroom pie with buffalo cheese and fresh sage. He says the creamy, pungent buffalo cheese, along with the sage, augment the earthy flavor of the mushrooms.

Every pizza begins with dough that comprises super-fine flour, water, yeast and honey. After kneading and letting the dough rise for at least an hour, he shapes it into a thin, imperfect disc, then tops it with ingredients he’s sauteed beforehand. In this case he sauteed the mushrooms with onions in butter.

Standard to his pie is a thin coating of crushed tomatoes, a layer of mozzarella cheese and freshly grated Parmesan. Reinhart advises not to go overboard with toppings. A little goes a long way on flavor, he says, and too much sauce and cheese will turn the crust soggy.

After adding the buffalo cheese and veggies, he finely slices sage and sun-dried tomatoes and sprinkles them on top, then finishes with another sprinkling of Parmesan.

A tip: At every stage, Reinhart lightly salts the pizza. He says remembering to season makes all the difference in taste.

As to baking, Reinhart sets his oven to its highest setting, 545 degrees. Exact temperature isn’t important, he says, given that commercial pizza ovens hit 900 degrees. Still, his home-baked crust does just fine. After 10 minutes in the oven, his masterpiece is done.

Soon he’s munching on a slice with a huge grin on his face.

Reinhart, 28, learned about the beauty to be found in food while living in Columbus, Ohio, where he moved from San Luis Obispo, Calif., in 2009. By that time he had worked as an architecture draftsman, a construction field assistant, an apprentice botanist and a member of a demolition crew. He says an extreme curiosity led him to bounce from one job to the next, and it wasn’t until his time in Columbus that he began to consider long-term work.

Before the move, Reinhart was working 40-plus-hour weeks making a good living in construction. But when he arrived in Columbus, he realized he had to figure out what kind of work "fed" him.

"Working 40 hours when I wasn’t passionate about what I was doing just wouldn’t be sustainable, so I decided to hold out until I found out what that was," he said.

The waiting outlasted his money, so along with his roommates, he took drastic measures to feed himself — digging through trash bins.

"I ate out of dumpsters for six months. We made dumpster runs at midnight at markets. There were pounds and pounds of food, enough to fill up a car trunk and feed 12 people," he said. "Then we’d go home and wash and process everything. We ate off the trash of society and had more food than we could eat."

Then he visited a farmers market in downtown Columbus, where he found the Greener Grocer, the for-profit arm of a community organization that promoted local, healthful and sustainable food. He liked what he saw and became gainfully employed once more.

"It was the first time I ever worked in food, and I loved their values," he recalled.

One of Reinhart’s tasks was to manage the Greener Grocer’s community-supported agriculture program, which provided subscribers with weekly bags of products from farms in the area. The bag included a sheet of paper that listed all the items for the week, plus a recipe.

Reinhart decided to go paperless and designed an online newsletter that went far beyond a list and a recipe, providing links to farmers, bloggers, news items and recipes designed for utilizing every item in the bag. Through the work, he got to know farmers and foodies and built a following.

"I created a relationship with subscribers who asked for me by name. It’s neat to have the opportunity to have a singular voice and connect with people."

In 2013 Reinhart returned to California, and in San Francisco got a job at Bi-Rite, "a much larger Greener Grocer." The store vetted each item it sold and accommodated different budgets with products at every price point.

"This created a relationship of trust with customers, and the store was packed all the time," he said.

When he got home from work, Reinhart would spend hours cooking dinner, reveling in the process of creating his meal.

"I could almost care less about finishing; it’s about the process," he said.

Reinhart and his wife, a University of Hawaii student, made the move to Honolulu in January.

Through friends, Reinhart was introduced to Mark "Gooch" Noguchi, a chef well known for his values-based approach to cooking. After helping Noguchi’s crew at a culinary event, "I was captivated," Reinhart said. "I asked him what it would take for me to sweep the floors."

Noguchi’s Pili Group thought Reinhart would be a good fit as general manager for Mission, and they were right. He has an innate understanding of the values that drive the business.

"Pili Group is about community, family and trust, and having a sense of integrity," he said. "What it comes down to is the care and attention that’s put into the creation of something.

"When you eat food prepared with love, using ingredients planted with care, grown with compassion and harvested gratefully, you’re seeing a piece of art sitting on your plate," he said. "Chefs are there to remind us that what a person does every day can be beautiful."

Mushroom and sage pizza

3 tablespoons butter, divided
1/2 yellow onion, roughly chopped
2 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
3 medium fresh shiitake mushrooms, thinly sliced
3 medium alii mushrooms, thinly sliced

Pizza dough (see recipe below)

2 to 3 tablespoons crushed tomatoes
1 (8-ounce) container ciliegine-style (cherry-sized) fresh mozzarella
Fresh Parmigiano-Reggiano, grated
4 ounces Buffalo cheese, grated or in small pieces
2 sun-dried tomatoes, roughly chopped
2 leaves sage, finely chopped
Sea salt, to taste
Finishing salt (such as Maldon¹s), to taste

Pizza dough:

3-1/2 cups "00" flour (can substitute with all-purpose flour)
1 teaspoon salt
1-1/3 cups warm water
1 teaspoon honey
2-1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
2 tablespoons olive oil

To make dough: Toss together flour and salt. In small saucepan, heat water on low until comfortably warm to the touch. (If it is too hot to touch, it is too hot for the yeast.)

In small bowl, add honey and warm water, and stir lightly until mixed. Add yeast and let sit 10 minutes. Yeast should bubble. Whisk in olive oil, then pour into bowl with flour. Mix together with hands to form late mass.

Sprinkle flour on counter and place dough on it. Knead 10 minutes, then let sit 5 minutes. Knead another 10 minutes. Dough should become stretchier and more pliable. Let sit least 1 hour before baking. Or, for best results, spritz dough with water, place in large bowl, cover with towel, and refrigerate overnight. Makes 2 pizza crusts.

When ready to make pizza, bring half of dough to room temperature. Heat oven to 545 degrees.

In pan, sauté onions in 1 tablespoon butter until translucent. Add garlic, mushrooms and remaining butter. Saute until mushrooms are light golden brown. Turn off burner; let sit.

Next, work on pizza dough. Coat hands in flour, and begin gently stretching dough into thin circle about 12 inches in diameter. Place on lightly floured baking sheet.

Using spoon, add thin layer of crushed tomatoes, spreading evenly. Add mozzarella balls about 4 inches apart, and grate some Parmigiano-Reggiano over all. Add buffalo cheese and sprinkle pizza with sea salt. Spread sautéed veggies on top of cheese, then sprinkle with sun-dried tomatoes and sage. Finish off with more grated Parmigiano-Reggiano and sea salt.

Place baking sheet in the lower half of oven and bake pizza 8 to 10 minutes, until crust begins to turn light brown. Sprinkle lightly with finishing salt and let cool 1 to 2 minutes before digging in. Makes one 12-inch pizza.

Approximate nutritional information, per serving (based on 1 12-inch pizza, 3 servings not including Parmigiano-Reggiano, for grating or sea salt to taste): 820 calories, 42 g fat, 21 g saturated fat, 100 mg cholesterol, greater than 1300 mg sodium, 72 g carbohydrate, 6 g fiber, 5g sugar, 40 g protein