By Mark Adam
Seniors added another skill to their rounded Siena educations, or in this case, another topping to their pizzas when they attended a cooking class hosted by DeFazio’s Pizzeria owner and chef Rocco DeFazio ’75 and his daughter Elizabeth ’13 Saturday afternoon. The event was held in Massry Commons’ kitchen in New Hall with about 15 students in attendance.
The students learned how to make different varieties of pizza like traditional mozzarella, a pesto pizza and one that’s not even available at the restaurant, a dessert pizza with a honey and apple butter sauce and sliced bananas on top. They also learned how to make deep-dish pizza and Stromboli.
“It was really neat. (Rocco) had a lot of helpful hints, especially with Strombolis and how to prevent them from popping,” said Brittany Tayler ’14, a biology major and classics minor. Her favorite dish was the General Tso chicken pizza, she said.
Rocco and Elizabeth have been offering instructional pizza and pasta cooking classes since January. This was an opportunity for them to come back to Siena, which Rocco said, “is near and dear to my heart.”
“You can tell what you’re doing is getting to the students because their eyes open wide, they lean forward and you hear, ‘oh my God, that’s delicious,’” Rocco said. “We would love to do it again.”
