00 pizza flour is great for Neapolitan pizza baked at very high temps. At lower temps it doesn’t brown or char very well because it’s unmalted. It’s not a good choice for most American pizza styles.
I’m a New Yorker as well. For NY style I strongly recommend getting a wooden peel and a metal peel. Wood to launch and metal to turn and retrieve. You also need to top and launch fast to keep the dough from sticking.
I actually talked with Jim Ellison who is a historian of Columbus style pizza. He also confirmed the style started in taverns on the south side of Chicago and spread from there, including to Columbus where it took on its own regional differences (particularly swapping sausage for a ton of pepperoni, and using a different style of pan).
We had to cut some bits from the article for length.
This thin crust recipe is time consuming but actually solves a lot of those problems. Rolling witb a pin and letting it dry out overnight actually makes it really easy to slide off the peel.
It’s ironic because those $1 slice places that popped up in the mid 2000s are what actually destroyed decent NY slices which couldn’t compete because transplants and students would rather pay $1 for garbage than $1.50-$2.50 for a true classic NY slice. Very few of them remain now.
Instead there’s this divide with crappy $1 joints (that are now a little more expensive) and good $4-5 slice joints that had to differentiate themselves. The workingman’s NY slice might not have long to live.
All that said, it sounds like maybe you’ve not had good NY pizza the way you’re describing it. The sauce and cheese should not be messy, it should be minimal. The fold is so you can walk down the street while eating it in one hand.
I don’t really encounter many people period because I’ve only lived here during pandemic. My daughter’s preschool teacher is non-binary though, and we have a neighbor whose teenager is also non-binary so maybe you’re right. I donut to be inclusive, not for any other reason.
I personally find this super frustrating because I used to be able to tell when I wrote something by visiting serious eats. Now I have to search through my old archive hard drives which is way harder. Unfortunately I have no role at serious eats currently so can’t really push back on that.