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TCNJ Magazine - Winter 2020

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33 WINTER 2020 w HAT DOES IT TAKE to make a great pizza? According to Stalin Bedon '97, co-owner of the mini-empire Nomad Pizza, all you really need is flour, water, yeast, and salt. Some good tomatoes, a bit of fresh mozzarella, and there you go. To a certain extent, this is true; virtually anyone can make pizza. But it's also completely self-deprecating of Bedon, who can't seem to fathom why anyone — considering all the accomplished alumni TCNJ has — would be interested in him. "You have doctors and other people who are probably a lot more worthy. I'm just a pizza guy," he says, as if a single person in the universe would rather go to the doctor than go get really good pizza. And besides, this "pizza guy" happens to synthesize those humble ingredients into ethereal Neapolitan pies, written up in both The New York Times (which highlighted one of the specials, the Tartufo, made with Italian Toma cheese from nearby Cherry Grove Farm in Lawrenceville) and The Philadelphia Inquirer, whose critic Craig LaBan proclaimed Nomad's "most elemental pizzas, the Margherita and Marinara … as close to perfection as I've tasted this side of Napoli." And never mind the flat-out demand that necessitated opening a new restaurant every two years since starting out. Today, Nomad has the original Hopewell store, a pizzeria in Princeton, and one in Philadelphia, along with two extremely busy trucks. BEDON JUST HAPPENS TO BE a happy guy, who laughs easily, feels lucky, and is incredibly laid back about how he got where he is today. He arrived in Princeton in 1987, by way of Ecuador. (Since you're wondering, his first name "is as common as George or Washington here," he says.) He had just graduated high school in Beckley, West Virginia, where he moved at age 13 to live with relatives after his father died. His mother passed away when he was a baby, and a network of family members (his grandmother, Aunt Piedad, Aunt Blanca) took charge of raising him, several years at a time, like a progressive supper. Whenever college came up, Bedon had always leaned toward becoming an engineer. But after earning an associate Bedon makes pizza at a party on his tricked-out truck.

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