pizza - logging non-chain restaurant products - frustration

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This is part venting frustration and part request for help.

I've searched the fora, and the consensus seems to be an agglomeration of 'don't worry so hard', 'it's all the same' and 'just find a chain and fake it'.

For me, that's not useful. I live in the NYC area, where there's a non-chain pizza parlor on just about every block, the better ones making their own bread for the crusts. Family run, where the adults talked Italian and cooked, the teenagers answered the phone for delivery orders and waited tables in English and yelled at the adults in Italian.

I never had chain pizza till I went to school in the Midwest, where they thought Pizza Hut was excellent and didn't understand why I refused to eat it. it tasted wrong, and was so greasy it made me sick...

Looking through the database, everything I checked seemed to be chain stores based out of... Texas, Alabama, Arizona...

'1 sluice - 241 calories' - how big a slice? How big a pizza? Someone was telling me about Little Caesar's... and didn't understand at first that the pizza I order to be delivered from the nearby place is 16 inch diameter (roughly), and 1/8 of a LC pizza is 3/4 the size of the slice I get. nor do I really want to get into the thickness of the crust...

New Yorkers... (and anyone in Hudson County, too) - is there really a chain that makes real pizza (tm) that's in the database? circle pie, thin crust, sliced radially in eighths? or am I stuck with logging ketchup on white bread with plastic-wrapped 'singles' processed cheese product? (so far removed from actual cheese that it does not need refrigeration...)

all I want is a plain pizza, like I eat 2-3 slices of once a month or two...

thank you.

ETA: in my agida I completely failed to mention that it's not the calories that I'm primarily worried about, it's the carbohydrates and other nutrients. Especially as I've been told by the doc that 'the sugar numbers' are getting up, and while I don't need to go on then special stuff my grandma used (she had the best tasting candy, that my mom yelled at me for eating) I do need to learn what I can eat how much of how often. Guessing the calories doesn't work for this. :-(

Zumaria1

I usually type in the database "New York style pizza" and get quite a few options, I go with what size I ate, and the calorie count seems reasonable.

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Lennonluv2

I live in Staten island and also use the "NY Style Pizza" when I need to from the database

Can't live without a good sloppy slice of pizza every once in a while.

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'New York pizza' got me Russo's, Adriatico, Joe's New York which may have been the one in Arizona... anyway, I was already frustrated when I found New York Style Cheesecake from Boston Pizza. That's what spawned the post.

The entries I saw didn't mention pie sizes, and the calories ranged from 210 to 450. Which doesn't help, as what I really need are the carbs. Another reason for the thin crust! I've edited my lead post to say that, I feel so dumb for leaving it out.

l grew up in Hudson County and now live further out in central Jersey. My sister-in-law moved up to Cape Cod, and whenever we go visit we bring real bagels and a real pizza. Fortunately she seems to have found a decent pizza place, so we won't need to do that anymore.

More suggestions welcome, please.

Lennonluv2

Did you type pizza first, then ny style?

If you do you should get the first choice as 270 cal's and 34 grams of carbs per slice.

I lived in Jersey for a short time and ironically the best pizza place I found was owned by two guys who were originally from Brooklyn.

prozac5489

Restaurants have the formula of how much food goes into something down to a science. Profit margins, baby! If you write an e-mail to the owner or manager explaining what you want to know and why you want to know it, they'll probably be able to tell you how much dough, sauce, cheese, etc. they use per pie. Then you can build a recipe or something with all those ingredients and have your New York Pie customized.

Also, it's getting to be a law in many states that food vendors need to provide you with nutritional information on what they sell you. The manager might have a calories per serving thing on hand already.

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@lennonluv2, I took screenshots so you can see what I got. it apparently is not the same as you. :-(

https://picasaweb.google.com/114697656672193458694/ScreenshotsToShare

one is of the results of the search, and the other three are of the first few entries that did not mention toppings. None of them matched what you said you got.

this is why I ask for help and frustrate people. search engines don't like me.

@MrM27 - thanks for the info. I'll make this one of my foods and we'll see how it goes.

at least I learned to upload things to picasa tonight. wasn't a total loss.

Lennonluv2

Okay, good luck!!