Check, Please!

Q: There was a recent column that mentioned pizza bread. Where can it be purchased and, more important, do they sell it retail? We moved here 28 years ago from New Jersey, and in the Berkeley Heights area we could buy pizza bread and make Italian hot dogs, which are chunks of potatoes, onions and green peppers that are deep-fried in olive oil, added to hot dogs, then it’s all served on a pizza roll or a quarter of a pizza bread. No other bread will do. It’s not gourmet and it’s not healthy — but so good!

A: It was pizza rolls, not pizza bread, that I referenced in my recent Second Helping on Cucina Leone ("Slow Food," March 2). And while those rolls, which you can grab to go (Cucina Leone’s at 763 South University Boulevard; 303-722-5466), are delicious little buggers, they’re way too small to be what you’re looking for. According to Pam Steiner at the Berkeley Heights Chamber of Commerce back in New Jersey, the locals use regular pizza dough, form it into a big ball shape, and then bake it like bread. Each roll is then cut in half, some of the dough is scooped out, and the hot dog is placed on the bottom, then covered with the vegetables. "Some people just call it an Italian sandwich," Steiner says. "The bread actually looks more like a thick pita, with the straight edge on top and rounded on the bottom." You could also just buy the pre-made frozen pizza-dough rolls in the grocery store and make the pizza bread at home, she points out. That sounds like the most reasonable suggestion to me, since I don’t know of anyone around here who makes them for retail sales.