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All Of It with Alison Stewart
One Man's Mission to Slang Pies and Save Lives
00:18:38
A new cookbook, "We the Pizza: Slangin' Pies and Savin' Lives" shares recipes and stories from Down North Pizza, which is staffed solely by formerly incarcerated people.
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- [00:04]
Mohammad Abdul Hadi
Listener support WNYC Studios.
- [00:18]
Alison Stewart
This is all of it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. It's time for another installment of Food for Thought North Philly restaurant Down North Pizza received praise from Bon Appetit, CBS Mornings and the New York Times for their pies. But aside from the food, the establishment also has a mission to help formerly incarcerated individuals get back on their feet. You can read all about it in the cookbook memoir titled we the Pizza, Slangin Pies and Saving Lives. It includes more than 65 recipes for pizza, both vegan and non vegan. Some of the recipes have clever names such as Rock the Mike Pepperoni Pie, a babara basket called Tale of the Hustler, and say yes, pizza with Jerk Turkey Sausage and roasted Butternut squash. That sounds good. Then there are these beautiful cinematic photographs of stories and the foods and the hands that made it. We the Pizza Slingin Pies and Savin Lies is out now. Mohammad Abdul Hadi is the founder and owner of Down North Pizza and a recipient of the 2024 James Beard Foundation Leadership Award. He joins us to discuss ahead of him, stopping at Aunt A and Uncle's in Flatbush next Wednesday at 6pm as part of their book tour. It is so n. Nice to meet you, Muhammad.
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Mohammad Abdul Hadi
It's a pleasure. It's a pleasure. Pleasure to be on the show, listeners.
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Alison Stewart
Have you been to Down North? What'd you get? Maybe you're someone who has worked there. We want to hear from you. Or maybe you're someone who's been incarcerated. What kind of support did you find most helpful? Give us a call, 2124-3396-9221-2433 WNYC.
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Unknown
Or you can reach out on social medialoveit, WNYC.
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Alison Stewart
So since founding Down North Pisa, you've always had the same mission in mind, a place for formerly incarcerated people to work. This issue hit home for you a little bit. Could you tell us why?
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Mohammad Abdul Hadi
Yes. Because growing up in Philly, you're always exposed to the carceral system in some way, shape or form, indirectly or directly. Understanding that individuals may have family members that may have been affected by the carceral system or, you know, growing up, the juvenile system and things like that. So unfortunately, it's a big part of the culture here in Philadelphia. So it definitely hits home on many different levels for myself and especially in the neighborhood which we reside in, which is Strawberry Mansion, which has the highest recidivism rate in Philadelphia. So, you know, between all of those, there's definitely a lot of exposure. And it just makes the reasoning for opening up a pizza shop in Strawberry Mansion, you know, all the more necessary.
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Unknown
So why do you decide to open a restaurant? Of all the things you could do?
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Mohammad Abdul Hadi
It was one of those things that I wanted to check off my list to actually accomplish was opening up a restaurant. And I didn't see that blacks had a lot of equity in the space of pizza. So it was like, why not just try to, you know, get my hands in that and also do some good for the community? And I thought it was a perfect marriage.
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Unknown
Now, prior to opening this pizza restaurant, you'd had no culinary experience. But tell us some things you learned about opening a restaurant along the way.
- [03:36]
Mohammad Abdul Hadi
All the stories of how chaotic restaurants are, all of that stuff came to the forefront because it's one thing to hear from somebody and tell y'all, yeah, man, what are you thinking? Open up a restaurant. Like, good luck from, you know, former chefs and people that's not in the kitchen anymore. But I got a first hand experience of, like, learning how to operate, learning kitchen culture. All of that for myself was like a firsthand experience, which I enjoyed it though. I think that was the fun part, Learning from the guys how to operate within a commercial kitchen. Because prior to Down North, I'd never operated or even stepped foot inside of a commercial grade kitchen. So all of this is fun. Learning to me is fun. So I enjoyed it a lot. And it also gave us the opportunity to build our relationship. Because one thing about the kitchen on the plus side is that it's where a lot of relationships are built. A lot of camaraderie is built because you think about how much actual time you're spending with these individuals and being in the kitchen for 12, 15 hours a day, you definitely are spending a lot more time with, you know, your colleagues than your immediate family. So for me, it was definitely a lot of that going on.
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Alison Stewart
Got this text love Down North. They come to my neighborhood in Brooklyn for pop up sometimes, and I visited their Philly location as well. Amazing pizza, amazing mission. So let's talk about the mission. What do you hear from formerly incarcerated people as their biggest challenge when they come home and they face life outside of prison?
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Mohammad Abdul Hadi
It's homelessness and employment. Those are the two driving forces behind recidivism. And, you know, when, when I looked at that stat, it's like, okay, how can we assist in that? How can we combat that? And if we're not, you know, discriminating on individuals based on their past and giving them opportunities, a fair Opportunity to succeed and actually more importantly, building that environment conducive for them to grow within it's very, very important because as we know, environment is everything. So when, if they have that environment that they can thrive in, it's only, you know, good that's going to come out of that. And we've seen it here because all of our guys, none of them have been back to prison. And individuals are actually getting off road early and they're seeing the benefits of being in this environment.
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Alison Stewart
When you say the benefits of being in this environment, what do you mean?
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Mohammad Abdul Hadi
The environment, the kitchen environment that we've cultivated at down north beaches. Like that environment where individuals are around other individuals who have similar lived experience and understand the things that they're going through, understand what they've been through. And for me, that environment is very, very important as they're, you know, getting through the hurdles and trying to get their life back on track.
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Alison Stewart
A new cookbook features recipes from a.
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Unknown
North Philly pizzeria dedicated to helping formerly.
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Alison Stewart
Incarcerated people rebuild their lives.
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Unknown
It's called we the Pizza Slangin Pies and Saving Lives. It's out now. I'm speaking with author and Down North Pizza founder Mohammed Abdul Hadi. All so in the cookbooks, it's really cool. There are these little stories on the pages at the top, and then on the bottom is a timeline of blacks in America. Tell us a little bit about why you decided to create the pages that way.
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Mohammad Abdul Hadi
Because I feel like this business is layered and I guess the struggle was trying to figure out how do we put all of this information, all of these stories in this book, which was, you know, supposed to be a cookbook and not overwhelm the reader. So I think what we, you know, after some time just going back and forth with the individuals who were involved in the book, it's like we were able to figure out how do we put the recipes, you know, easily navigable to individuals who just want to go to the recipes and individuals who just want to read the stories. How do we do these things? So I think we did a good job of like separating the book to where everything is easy to get to. And I feel like the readers have to read the book maybe like four or five times to get like the gist of it, because every time you read it, it's a different focus or focal point. So for me, this, the timeline is very important because I think a lot of people don't really know how we got to even needing a business model like this, needing a business to focus on combating the carceral system. So to paint the picture of how the carceral system evolved, I think is very important for the readers to more so understand why we. At this point right now, your executive.
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Unknown
Chef is Michael Carter. How did you two meet?
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Mohammad Abdul Hadi
We met Michael the first hire at downloads pizza. When I was putting together the team, like I said, I had no culinary experience, so I had to work alongside individuals who had kitchen experience. So Mike was the first hire. As soon as he came in and he saw what we were about, saw the mission, he was, you know, all the way down for what we were trying to do in this movement that we were building.
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Unknown
All right, down north pizza, some people have called it Detroit style pizza. You write it's really Philly style pizza. So set the record for us. What is the difference about the style of pizza you make it down north versus classic Detroit style pizza?
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Mohammad Abdul Hadi
So not to Detroit, because we actually will be there at the end of March doing us to stop on the book tour. So I want to, you know, say that.
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Unknown
Show them some love. Show him some love. That's okay.
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Mohammad Abdul Hadi
Show some love. Yeah, we will see you on the 22nd. But we got an inspiration from the Detroit style and it also came. The Philly style was birthed with the inspiration from the Detroit style and also the nostalgia from growing up and eating square pizza. It was kind of like that marriage is how the Philly style was birthed. Because Detroit style, they have a very specific Wisconsin Britis that they use to line the pans with to give it that exterior, like crust that you see on a Detroit out Detroit style pizza. The dough is a little bit more denser. Ours is a little bit, you know, we use a higher water content, so the hydration is higher on our dough. So it's, you know, lighter, it's airier, a little fluffier. We don't use the cheeses like I stated before. We have our own four cheese blend that we used on the pizza. The other similarities to the choice style that we both basted the pizza with cheese first and put the sauce on top. So that's, you know, where it's a lot of inspiration from the Detroit style. But we actually played around with a lot of different methods to kind of get this Philly style pizza.
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Alison Stewart
It has been settled. It's interesting. You use a lot of really creative toppings and flavors. So how do you balance what people want from pizza, which is pizza, versus all of your extraordinary toppings?
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Mohammad Abdul Hadi
We have some, we say we got something for everybody. So we have the traditional cheese pizza. We have a traditional pepperoni pizza, veggie pizza, but we also get creative and create a lot of different flavor profiles that individuals may not be used to seeing on a pizza, but once they taste it, like, fall in love. We have a lamb sausage pizza, which we decided to play around with some ingredients about two years ago. And the guys in the kitchen were, you know, kind of testing out a recipe, and then it was like, it was one of those eureka moments where they put it together with the jerk lamb sausage and it was like an instant hit. It's like maybe our second or third highest selling pie in the store. And it's literally a Philly style pizza. And what we do is we baste it with a lemon ricotta cheese, then we put our three cheese blend on top of that, and then we put the jerk lamb sausage on top of that, fire it off in the oven, pull it out the oven, and we finish it off with a garlic honey, and then we dust it with a za'atar seasoning. So this flavor profile is like, you know, sweet, salty. You know, it checks the box for the savory and the sweet side. So it's one of those things that people just love, you know, once they bite into it, even if they couldn't fathom it prior to eating it.
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Unknown
Something that Afro Tech reported about your food is that, quote, all the food is prepared in compliance with Islamic laws making it entirely halal. Why was this something that was important to you?
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Mohammad Abdul Hadi
We. Because, for one, like, Philly is not a big pork eating town. And, you know, it's a lot. We have a large Muslim population and community. So for us, we wanted to, you know, also introduce individuals who never had beef products like the beef pepperoni, because that's, you know, not really a thing that a lot of pizza stores have. So we wanted to kind of introduce that. And, you know, just for us, you know, with the different proteins that we use, we definitely want to make that, make sure that we use the highest quality of different ingredients that we use on our pizzas. You know, for us, because we put a lot into, like these pies. A lot of labor and love that goes into making these pizzas.
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Alison Stewart
It's interesting. When you walk into Down North Pizza, one of the things you'll notice is that is the music. And there's even a QR code in the. In the cookbook to make a playlist. Okay. What should people expect to hear all in it?
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Mohammad Abdul Hadi
Because all of our pizzas are actually named after influential, famous Philadelphia songs from Artists that are from Philadelphia. So the playlist is compiled. Is compiled of all of the songs that are all of the pieces that are in the actual cookbook. So you'll get. Because a lot of songs, you know, if you're not affiliate native, you might not have heard of or might not even knew this person was from Philly. So with the. With the QR code, you can kind of tap into that and see and listen to all the songs and all of the ones that are named after the pizzas.
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Alison Stewart
And in the actual cookbook, what's an example?
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Mohammad Abdul Hadi
So we have no better love, which is the cheese pizza that we make. It's like. And the names have meanings behind the pizza, because what's better, you know, than cheese pizza? It's no better love than actual just a plain cheese pizza. So that's a famous song by the Young guns from Philadelphia in the 2000s. It was one of their biggest hits. So to kind of give you a feel, when we name these pieces, we're also intentional. Rock the Mic is a famous Philadelphia Beanie Siegel and freeway hip hop song. And that's one of another bigger songs that came out of Philadelphia. And that pizza is one of our highest selling pizzas. So it kind of like the reasoning behind we name these pies. You know, we're very intentional when we do it.
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Alison Stewart
A new cookbook features recipes from Down North Pizza dedicated to helping formerly incarcerated people rebuild their lives. It's called we the Pizza, Slanging Pies and saving lives. Down North Pizza founder is joining me, Mohamed Abdul Hadi. Let's talk about uptown vibes for a second. This recipe calls for Norf sauce. N O R F sauce. What is norf sauce? For people who don't know.
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Mohammad Abdul Hadi
So being from Philadelphia, we have a particular vernacular that we talk and when you are in what people would say North Philly with a th. We typically say North Philly with an S. So that's why the inspiration for the north sauce is a very silly thing. So the north sauce is our signature marinara sauce. It's a combination of sweet, smoky, savory, you know, tomato sauce that we, you know, proprietary thing of ours that we put on all of the pods that contain a red sauce. So the north sauce is like our sauce is our thing.
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Alison Stewart
North with an S. Okay.
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Unknown
When you think back on your experience with this restaurant, would you share someone who you really would say is a success story? You can change names if you need to, but somebody, you know, you made a difference in their lives.
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Mohammad Abdul Hadi
I mean, I feel like all of the guys in some way, shape or form. I'll use. I'll use example one is Derek Cobb. He's. He literally came from us from the federal. Federal halfway house. He was just released from the federal system. And he came to us about four years ago when we first opening and he had about five years of federal parole and then six years of state parole. So he was able to consolidate that parole on both the federal and the state and also get off of federal pro two years early and also the state for all year early because he was doing everything that he had to do. And when he talks about it and he talks about, you know, working and being around, you know, the team, he attributes a lot of that to being grounded and having that support system to be able to navigate, you know, some of the things that maybe, you know, life will throw at you along the way. That's Derek. And his story is also in the cookbook. And I think another time was Michael Carter, the executive chef. You know, he. Prior to coming down, he didn't have a license, he didn't have passport. And, you know, one thing I like to do is like, challenge my guys to like, outside of just working, to, you know, live life as well. So Mike, you know, he buckled down, he got his license, he got his passport. And I made, like I told Mike, if he got his passport that we would take. I would take him to get his first stamp. And I think this was about two years ago. Me and Mike went to Kenya and we went on a safari in 2023. And it was one of the best experiences that I've had. And as well as him and, you know, we got to see the animals up close and personal. And it was. It was great. It was great. When I look back, you know, on things like this is honestly why. What drives me to do, you know, things like this and why, you know, just making money is not impressive to me. It has to come with something else. Right?
- [18:33]
Unknown
Yeah. The name of the album is we the Pizza, Slaying Pies and Saving Lives. It's out now. Mohammed Abdul Hadi, thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate you and we appreciate what you do.
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Mohammad Abdul Hadi
Thank you.