Make Your Own Pizza Kit Archives - Trapper's Pizza Pub

Scrabble coaster craft kit made by Right Mind Syracuse with a Make Your Own Pizza Kit from Trapper's Pizza Pub and a To-go Cocktail Pouch. — The Trappers x Right Mind Pizza & Craft Kit and a To-go Cocktail Pouch available for pick-up and delivery at Trapper’s Pizza Pub in East Syracuse, New York.

This month, Trapper’s Pizza Pub is excited to be premiering our new collaboration with our friends over at Right Mind Syracuse. This new project incorporates our popular Make Your Own Pizza Kits, featuring our homemade pizza dough, sauce, fresh mozzarella, and a topping, with a Right Mind Syracuse craft. We’re calling it the Trappers x Right Mind Pizza & Craft Kit, and the craft in question will be a Scrabble Coaster, as pictured above. The kit retails for $28 and is perfect for anyone looking for a fun night at home with the family. Make a delicious pizza and craft with your kids while it’s in the oven!

This kit is also perfect for grandparents who still may not be able to spend long periods of time with grandkids. We suggest ordering the Pizza & Craft Kits for both homes and spending the evening bonding over pizza, crafts, and a Zoom call. There are so many creative ways to use these kits!

Don’t forget, you can add a bottle of wine for $10 or order one of our cocktails to go in a take-out pouch if you’d rather enjoy a boozy version of this night.

Right Mind Syracuse

On this week’s blog, we thought we’d introduce our readers to the woman behind Right Mind Syracuse, Claire McKenney. Trapper’s has been partnering with Claire and Right Mind Syracuse to host crafting nights for a while now, maybe you’ve even come to a few of them! We even have one scheduled for next month, on April 20th! Keep your eyes peeled for more information on that in the coming weeks.

This past year has been a tough one for many local businesses in Syracuse, so we wanted to hear from McKenney herself about how Right Mind Syracuse has been navigating the challenges of the pandemic, and what we can expect from them in the future.

The Early Days

McKenney grew up just South of Buffalo, but her husband is from right here in Syracuse. She tells us that after graduating from college, they moved to Hawaii together for a little bit, and when they came back to the mainland they ended up going on a cross-country adventure driving back to New York State. Not sure where exactly they’d plant their roots, both McKenney and her husband applied for jobs in Buffalo and Syracuse. In 2010, Syracuse won, and the two of them moved here.

Claire McKenney, the owner of Right Mind Syracuse, a local crafting company in Syracuse, New York. — Claire McKenney in her Right Mind Syracuse gear.

Before she became the mind behind Right Mind, McKenney worked for the non-profit Camp Good Days, a free camp for children and adults who have been touched by either cancer or sickle-cell anemia. McKenney had worked for a corporate paint and sip company before starting Right Mind Syracuse, and while she enjoyed connecting people to art and being in venues around the area, she soon realized that working for a corporation wasn’t allowing her to get as local as she wanted.

Opening Right Mind Syracuse

When McKenney opened up Right Mind Syracuse, she also opened the idea up to encompass not just painting, but all different areas of crafting as well. She explains that people would tell her they didn’t know what to do with their paintings after the Paint and Sip nights. “Some people joked about hanging the paintings in their closets,” McKenney says. Exploring outside of the traditional paint night also allowed her to connect with even more artists and the general community. It gave people the chance to find their own creative outlets.

Right Mind Syracuse began operating only six months before the beginning of the Coronavirus Pandemic. “We were just gaining momentum when it started,” McKenney says. She remembers thinking, “How are we going to stay relevant? How will people remember us when everything starts back up again? We didn’t have a big audience yet, it’s not like everyone knew about us.”

The team behind Right Mind Syracuse, a local crafting company in Syracuse, New York. — The creative team behind Right Mind Syracuse.

Navigating the Pandemic

McKenney’s fears were not unfounded. Yelp, the infamous restaurant review website, reported that 163,735 businesses in the U.S. had closed their doors by August 31st, 2020. Many small businesses struggled to pivot in the wake of the March and April shutdowns. Attempting to stay in business while also prioritizing the safety of staff and customers at the same time was a challenge some businesses were just fundamentally unable to overcome. Syracuse Stage closed its doors back in March after only one performance of Amadeus. Since then, the regional theater company has pivoted to online performances in lieu of in-person shows.

So what did Right Mind Syracuse do when their in-person events were all canceled? They started creating art kits to sell on their websites. These kits range from the At-Home Spa Day Kit, a collaboration with Camillus spa Based Wellness, to the recent Tipp Hill Traffic Light String Art Kit, inspired by St. Patrick’s Day. “If people are going to be home, we might as well give them something to do,” McKenney says. “I think people appreciate having something creative to do.” These art kits have helped Right Mind Syracuse to stay top-of-mind for their loyal customer base, while still managing to draw in new customers even during the darkest days of the pandemic.

A Post-Pandemic Right Mind Syracuse

As a return to normalcy looms just ahead, Right Mind Syracuse is already cautiously making plans for a post-pandemic world. “We’re getting back to in-person events, slowly but surely,” McKenney explains. She also has some exciting plans for the future of Right Mind Syracuse. “We’re in the early stages of renting a studio space in Syracuse,” McKenney says. Having a studio space will open up the possibilities for Right Mind Syracuse. They’ll have the flexibility to hold classes at any time, and a home base to not only store equipment, but to hold even the messiest of crafting nights. Even with a potential studio space, Right Mind Syracuse will continue to partner with local venues to hold events around the city.

Although the pandemic seems to be on its way out, we’re certainly not out of the woods quite yet. In the meantime, McKenney says that she’s excited to be able to collaborate with other small businesses. “We can help each other through the struggle,” she says.

Trappers x Right Mind Syracuse Pizza & Art Kits are available to order for pick-up or delivery.

Christie Donato

Christie Donato is the Marketing Manager for Trapper’s Pizza Pub and a freelance writer. She’s a co-founder of Rogue Dialogue Productions and a writer on the podcast Windfall. Originally from Syracuse, she now resides in Queens with her dog, Piper. You can find more of her work here.

www.christiedonato.com/

A thin crust cheese pizza topped with mozzarella cheese and sauce.

Mozzarella is a soft, stringy cheese from the pasta filata family, which includes other cheeses like Queso Oaxaca and Caciocavallo. Pasta filata translates to “spun paste”, referring to the method of kneading and pulling used to create the distinctive mozzarella balls we find at the grocery store. All cheeses are made in the same general way. They start out their life as milk from a cow, goat, sheep, or even a buffalo, and once all water is removed it leaves behind a cheese. From there, different processes are used to create all of the cheeses we have come to know and love. Mozzarella is a fresh cheese, meaning that it is meant to be eaten fairly soon after being formed, and usually has a mild, slightly sour taste.

Mozzarella and Pizza: A Perfect Pairing

Mozzarella is the most prevalent cheese used to make pizzas, and there’s a very good – and very scientific – reason for that. You see, when the mozzarella is heated in the oven, all of its water content comes to a boil, and then evaporates. This process creates a bubble within the cheese that grows until it pops, releasing the newly formed steam and allowing the cheese to brown. Other types of cheese have either too much oil or too little water content to form the bubbles needed to allow the cheese to brown properly. The chemistry of mozzarella makes it an essential base for any pizza.

History of Mozzarella

Mozzarella was first developed in Southern Italy as far back as the 1st Century A.D., although the earliest form of the cheese was most likely made using sheep’s milk. The story goes that it was first made on accident when a few cheese curds fell into a pail of hot water. There’s also a story from the 3rd Century A.D., in which the monks of San Lorenzo di Capua were recorded handing out bread to locals with a cheese they called “mozza”. We may never know how mozzarella cheese first got its start in Italy, but we do know that it didn’t leave that particular region until the 20th Century when refrigeration technology had advanced enough to allow the cheese to be transported around the world.

Types of Mozzarella Cheese

Did you know that mozzarella is one of the healthiest types of cheese out there? It’s low in both sodium and calories, and some variants even contain probiotics important to overall gut health. Traditional cow’s milk mozzarella – the type most of us are familiar with – is known as fior di latte, or “flower of the milk”. You may also have seen Mozzarella di Bufala listed on menus or at the grocery store. This type of mozzarella is made from buffalo’s milk and has a creamier texture. Both are equally excellent for pizza making. In the United States, there are also different mozzarella choices when it comes to moisture content. Mozzarella cheeses with low moisture content are specific to the U.S., and the kind usually distributed to pizza restaurants. They’re easier to transport and keep fresh. High-moisture mozzarella is available in grocery stores but has a much shorter shelf-life than its cousin.

The DOP Label

If you’re a particularly savvy grocery shopper, you may already be familiar with the DOP label. For those who don’t know what we’re referring to here, the DOP label stands for Protected Designation of Origin (Denoimazione d’Origine Protetta) and is meant to differentiate high-quality Italian products made in their region of origin from low-quality, imitation cheese, wines, olive oils, and other food products. When you see the DOP label on a mozzarella cheese this means that the cheese in question was made in Southern Italy and that the quality has been approved by a governing body. For most of us, this designation may not be very important at all, but it’s important to know what we’re buying when we shop.

Mozzarella at Trapper’s

At Trapper’s Pizza Pub, we do take our pizza making very seriously. We’ve even experimented with making our own homemade mozzarella cheese, just for fun, in the kitchen at Trapper’s. While it’s not something we plan on keeping up, it was a great experience, and gave us a real appreciation for the ingredients that go into making our signature pizzas so special. In addition to our pizzas, we also use mozzarella cheese on our Meatball Sub, Chicken Parmesan Sandwich, Baked Ziti, and in our Calzones and Strombolis. Fresh mozzarella also comes with our Make-Your-Own Pizza Kits, along with homemade pizza dough, sauce, and a topping of your choice.

To view more of our Food Menu, including all of our specialty pizzas, follow this link.