Dutch Van Oostendorp and Blaine Parker: “Little Miss Margherita,” Documentary

Welcome back to Pizza Quest!

Film producer and author, Blaine Parker, was recently on our podcast and teased us a bit about his upcoming documentary film, “Little Miss Margherita, A Misunderstood Pizza in a Misunderstood Place.”  Well, he’s back and, this time, accompanied by one of the featured cast members, Dutch Van Oostendorp, founder and proprietor of Tribecca Allie Cafe in Sardis, Mississippi.

Dutch is a former gold pro from New York, who moved to Mississippi a number of years ago for reasons you’ll hear about in this conversation. As with many of our Pizza Quest followers, what started out as a hobby with a home-built back yard wood-fired oven, soon turned into a full fledged restaurant and cafe featuring killer pizzas and lots of other things using regionally produced ingredients.

Blaine, whose book, “Free the Pizza”, is creating its own buzz, was so inspired by Dutch’s Margherita pizza at Tribecca Allie Cafe, as well as the pizzas he found at two other Mississippi pizzerias, that he and his wife, Honey Parker, conceived of the film, and they recently finished shooting it (by the way, in the interest of full disclosure, as well as personal self-interest, I am proud to say that I am also a featured cast member in the film, as is regular Pizza Quest guest, Scott Wiener — we’re the obligatory “talking heads,” if you will, that every documentary is now “required” to have, thanks to Ken Burns). Blaine is now finishing up the post production and the film will debut soon. You’ll find more details about it  here

Dutch and Blaine share their stories about how these two East Coasters found each other in the misunderstood pizza haven known as Mississippi, in this delightful conversation with me, in advance of the premiere of the film. Watch or listen to full discussion here in this new episode of Pizza Quest.