Pandemic Pizza Hobby Wins Toms River Man $25,000 In National Contest

TOMS RIVER, NJ — Sean Duffield says homemade pizza was his pandemic hobby.

“While everyone else was making bread, I was making pizza,” Duffield said recently. He even went so far as to build a pizza oven in the backyard of his Toms River home.

“I had always wanted a pizza oven,” he said, so he ordered a kit from Australia and built it over the course of a couple of months. He’s used it to make all kinds of pizzas, including his favorite, a traditional margherita pizza.

Little did he know his pandemic project was going to pay off in a big way.

Duffield, 45, won the Perfect Your Pizza Competition sponsored by the Francis Ford Coppola Winery and its $25,000 top prize in late January. His pizza beat out three other finalists — two of whom are seasoned cooking contest competitors — after a nationwide search for the ultimate pizza recipe to complement the Coppola winery’s Diamond Collection wines.

Duffield was still taking in the victory when he talked about the experience.

“I saw an ad for the competition on Instagram. It was a recipe contest to start,” he said. The competition divided the country into four regions and a finalist was chosen from each region to travel to California for the finals, which were held at the winery in Sonoma County.

“The competition was kind of focused around creativity with pizza,” Duffield said. “It was looking for something inventive, something easily reproducible by home cooks.”

Duffield said he chose a recipe he created for a party for his niece, Payton, who was leaving to attend college in another part of the country.

“She wanted fall flavors, something reminiscent of home,” he said, and she wanted a fruit-based pizza. The pizza, which he titled “The Chance Seedling,” is inspired by caramel apples, and combined sliced apples, fennel and walnuts, along with mozzarella, parmesan and toma cheeses. Toma is known as “the farmer’s cheese.” He paired it with the Diamond Collection Prosecco.

“The prosecco is nice for cutting through that heavy cheese and has an apple profile,” Duffield said.

He acknowledged it wasn’t the typical recipe that comes to mind when people think of pizza, especially in New Jersey where fruit on pizza can be seen as heresy in some quarters.

“I’m not such a purist that I can’t accept that people like other things,” he said.

“I agree that many people scoff at the idea of fruit on pizza, but let's not forget that tomatoes are a FRUIT!” said Dan Richer, who was one of the four experts who judged the contest.

Richer is the author of “The Joy Of Pizza”, a New York Times bestseller, and “has devoted his entire professional life to discovering the holy grail of pizza — the keys to making a truly transcendent pie.” Richer’s pizza, at his restaurant Razza in Jersey City, has been named one of the top 50 in the world, and he uses “a 56-point rubric” to evaluate every aspect of his pizza.

“Who's to say which fruits do or do not belong on a pizza?" Richer said. "This is clearly reminiscent of the pineapple on pizza debate and while I don't personally love it, who am I to say what another human should or should not enjoy?”

“Sean's pizza used the apple to tell a story about where he comes from and the pride he has in New Jersey, where apple orchards are synonymous with autumn,” Richer said. “Sean used a crisp green variety which provided a fantastic texture and a pop of acidity. This pizza was very well thought-out and executed with care and precision.”

Duffield, who works full-time for Verizon, said his wife, Courtney, attended the final with him. They were flown out to California, and the finalists made their pizzas on site at the winery.

“I was a little nervous because I’m a home chef, because this is like a hobby,” he said. “The amount of support (from family and friends) was such an honor. Everyone was so excited for me.”

Just being part of the competition made him feel like a winner, Duffield said. “Hearing the feedback from the judges as opposed to just hearing from family and friends” was an aspect that he really appreciated.

The $25,000 is a nice bonus, too.

“We’re staring down driving and college,” he said, noting that the couple has two children, ages 11 and 15. “We’re going to try and be smart with it.”

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