THE GOLD STANDARD IN MOZZARELLA

The gold standard is defined as the best available. With Vantaggio D’Oro Premium Italian-Style Mozzarella Cheese, you get the best. Vantaggio D’Oro is specifically crafted for the specialty Italian Pizzaiolo using time honored, cheese making techniques and the freshest ingredients. A cheese with exceptional consistency, Vantaggio delivers the same flavor, melt, color, and stretch – whatever the cooking conditions. For a cheese you can trust, look no further than the gold standard.

Vantaggio D’Oro is available in traditional whole milk, and part skim loaf and shreds.

Check out our new website VantaggioCheese.com for more information and to contact us.

smoky, as with the venison pizza,” Jones-Holt says. “I use loose venison sausage, which is an easier profile to play with, especially if you have a meat that tends to be more gamy. The sausage cooks with seasonings that develop a solid base. Then it’s a matter of where you go with the rest of the ingredients. I used a tomato sauce, because most people who are a bit afraid to try venison will give it a shot if the rest of the items on the pizza are ones they’re used to.

“Once [the fundraiser] took off and we developed a following, I got more complex in the combinations,” she adds. “I mean, who would have ever thought about combining juniper berries with venison? Don’t ask me how that came about—I was just playing around. Of course, every time I make one of those pies, I want a gin and tonic!”

From Kangaroo To Camel

Venison was just a warm-up for Jones-Holt. She went on to develop recipes using meats ranging from wild boar, elk and pheasant to more exotic varieties, such as kangaroo. “Kangaroo, like most wild-game meat, is low in fat, so that in itself is a challenge to work with, since most of us Americans are used to a fattier meat,” she says. “The key is to add some type of fat to counter it. Typically, a hearty cheese does the trick.

“They are all a challenge, which is why I love doing it,” she says. “Of course, what’s really fun is when I throw in something really weird, like camel, and it blows everyone’s mind. I love to travel, and most times I get ideas from places I have visited. One year, we went to Jordan, and the camel pizza was influenced by that trip. I used Middle Eastern spices and food combinations: cinnamon, cumin, paprika, cloves, honey, mint, feta, lemon. That was a huge hit.”

And every new wild-game pizza is a guaranteed media magnet. Jones-Holt has no problem with promoting her new specialty pizzas, writing her own press releases and shooting them off, along with photos, to newspapers and digital publications. She has been featured in New Jersey Monthly, Bucks County Herald, the Jersey Bites website and numerous other media outlets.

Media coverage ratchets up every January as Jones-Holt rolls out her latest wild-game pies for the HHH fundraisers. “Customers who have followed this event will drive over one hour just to buy the venison pizza,” she says. “They used to come and make an evening of it, but now (due to COVID-19), they order a bunch of vacuum-sealed pizzas to take home. And because [the promotion lasts for] a month, I have some of the same people come out numerous times. One guy has gotten this pizza three times in a weekend for four weeks in a row. It’s his all-time favorite pizza. This ‘addiction’ is what I call the Pizza Witch magic.”

Market Pizza offers Pizza Witch-themed merchandise emblazoned with a logo created by Jones-Holt’s niece.

The Pizza Witch Mystique

This year’s HHH fundraiser has been extended through February, a canny move considering that, as of press time, indoor dining in New Jersey is restricted to 25% capacity. Promoting unusual specialty pies creates fresh buzz and offsets the loss of dine-in business. For Mardi Gras season in early February, Jones-Holt offered a pizza featuring wild boar sausage with grits, red chili flakes, scallions, garlic, provolone and a bourbon/maple syrup drizzle, as well as an Alligator Andouille Jambalaya pie. “I’m also bringing back the Middle Eastern Camel pizza and an Elk Sausage With Pears pizza,” she says.

Interestingly, Jones-Holt helped Hunterdon County’s health department develop its protocols for farmers markets that continued operating after COVID-19 hit New Jersey. Since Stockton Market is a year-round facility, it was able to keep its doors open while many restaurants in the state had to temporarily close indoor dining. For Jones-Holt, that initially meant expanding from a Friday-to-Sunday schedule, to Tuesday through Sunday. “We tripled our advertising and marketing budget to get the word out that we were still open,” she says. “We had takeout-only and offered curbside delivery. After a month, I was toast, so we scaled back to Wednesday to Sunday.”

by Galbani®

Tigrato® Cut Shreds

Get your pizza business in the best shape ever with Galbani Premio Mozzarella featuring Tigrato Cut Shreds. This exclusive cut is shorter and wider than standard shreds, providing a uniform melt with better coverage—so you can top more pies with less cheese. Plus, it has exceptional yield and reheats beautifully for takeout and delivery. Put Tigrato Cut Shreds to the test and see why nobody tops Italy’s #1 cheese brand.

Being surrounded by regional growers means she has her pick of some of the finest and freshest local ingredients in the area. “Hunterdon County, New Jersey, and Bucks County, Pennsylvania, provide us with a wealth of local foods from the numerous farms and orchards within a 10- to 15-mile radius,” Jones-Holt says. “That includes anything from Jersey Fresh Tomatoes that we use to make our sauce or red gravy to eggs, potatoes, peppers, radishes, Brussels sprouts, ramps, mushrooms, cheese and my favorite ingredient, fruit. It’s fun seeing people’s reactions to fruit on a pizza. ‘Fruit? Really? No way!’ Then it’s, ‘OMG, I never would have thought of a pizza with pears, cranberries, blueberries or apples!’ Fruit like tomatoes, peppers and other veggies are colorful and pretty and photograph well, which means it sells.”

Jones-Holt loves getting to know her customers, even though dine-in traffic remains limited. Market Pizza is a small, cozy, BYOB getaway for locals, with a liquor store next door and a craft brewery down the street. “Our customers like to sit at the pizza bar and chat,” she says. “At times, I feel like the bartender, hearing people’s problems, love triangles, etc.”

Market Pizza is a family business through and through, run by Jones-Holt and her husband, with their son and daughter-in-law as partners. Customers become part of the family, and Jones-Holt gives them a little sass now and then to keep the mood light and fun.

“People come in for great food, lousy advice or a bit of attitude, especially from the Pizza Witch,” she says. “Once in a while, a new customer walks up when I have my hands full of dough and asks me if I can take orders. My standard line is, ‘No, I don’t take orders. I only give them.’ [There’s also] a sign that reads, ‘Free Beer Tomorrow.’ People think it’s real. I tell them they misunderstood the sign. If they bring beer tomorrow, it’s free for me.”

But there’s no misunderstanding the appeal of the Pizza Witch theme. Even kids are enchanted, Jones-Holt says. “They love the mystique behind the Pizza Witch, who made them a pizza that they tell their parents is the best they’ve ever had. Over the years, they’ve drawn us pictures, given us thank-you and Christmas cards, and even brought their report cards or summer-camp achievement certificates to share with us. We are a part of their lives and so enjoy watching them grow up around us.”