A neighbor on my block in Brooklyn challenged me to a pizza bake-off. I recently catered pizza for my daughters school and word got around the neighborhood my pizza was pretty darn good. My first thought was, "this guy is a Brooklyn native, my pizza will be s**te compared to his!" But there was something about him bragging that I couldn't resist the challenge. He talked up how pizza was in his blood, how his dad ran the pizza place around the corner years ago. I remained silent and let my skills answer for themselves. I got a buddy to let us use one of Baker's Pride ovens at his restaurant. We even had total strangers try our pizzas. Every last person chose my pizza over his. I never mentioned to him that I've worked in pizza places almost every day for the last thirty years. I never mentioned that when I'm not working at a pizza place I'm making pizzas at home at least once every two days. I never mentioned that at nine years old I knew that I wanted to be a pizza man. Here I am 45 and getting ready to start my own pizza business.