A ball of fresh pizza dough can be tricky to find. Yes, you can always substitute Pillsbury pizza crust (available in tubes in the dairy section of the supermarket), but the ball of sticky dough will always taste more homemade.

Some stores keep it with the cheese, some with the dairy, some with the produce, and still others with the pizza-making supplies. Some supermarkets don’t stock it at all. If you come up empty-handed, try a specialty shop, like Trader Joe’s (www.traderjoes.com for store locations), where you can buy a 1-pound bag of the house brand for less than a dollar. Or ask your local pizza parlor if it will sell you some. Not all will oblige, but some will view the occasional dough sale as a public service that, if not enormously profitable, pays for itself in goodwill dividends.