As the 5.8-magnitute earthquake centered in Mineral, Virginia, rippled up and down the eastern seaboard, startling many an unsuspecting Mid-Atlantic resident, Carole King’s famous lyrics played through my head as I did what true New Jerseyans do in times of distress—I ate another slice of pizza.

At a carnival, pizza on the go from an old-fashioned dome-shaped oven...

In these wooden palettes, Al Santillo proofs the dough that rises to become the basis for his terrific pizza...

Some will recognize the title of today's post, borrowed from the title of a great early collection of John McPhee's shorter pieces, including one in which he harvests onions and digs one out of the ground, wipes off the dirt and bites into it like an apple. And it tastes good. Anyway, no onions or apples in today's Plain Sight, just a beautiful, old-fashioned set of scales, dusted with a great pizzamaker's flour.

Stopped in at Santillo's Brick Oven Pizza in Elizabeth recently for the killer pie Al Santillo calls the Grandpa, which is a big crunchy square pie loaded with the works...

At Anthony's Pizza and Pasta, if you get the right table, you have the best of both worlds...

Last month, while my colleagues scoured the state for the perfect pizza, my tasting panel and I conducted some research of our own, sampling wines to pair with delicious, homemade pies. We came up with some unusual picks. First up, the Austrian varietal wine, Zweigelt.

The Hudson and the East. Traversing both and continuing into the Midwood section of Brooklyn (a largely Orthodox Jewish neighborhood, ironically) brings you to one of the most famous pizzerias in New York, Di Fara. A definite schlep, but worth it...

Or, behold the bread! For pizza this good is indeed the staff of life...

The oven at Anthony's Pizza and Pasta on the Green in Morristown can handle eight large pies at once. In other words, it's a biggie. It runs at 550 degrees, and requires some serious ductwork to vent the excess heat...

Your faithful pizza explorer made it to Neptune City, where restaurants instead of a fork should give you a trident. Neptune, of course, is the home of the estimable Pete & Elda's...

Doing my due diligence for our upcoming pizza issue, I'm scouting the best pizza joints in the state. Just went to Bayonne on a reader's recommendation to experience the thin crust pie at Venice Restaurant. It was excellent, but so was this little corridor between the bar and the outdoor seating area...

Having finished his dough, master pizza chef Antonino Esposito, visiting restaurant A Mano in Ridgewood from Naples, Italy, demonstrated the correct way to turn a bowl full of whole peeled Italian tomatoes (pomodoro) into sauce for his classic Neapolitan-style pizza...

Antonino Esposito, a star of the Food Network in Italy and a renowned pizza chef of the style practiced in Naples, gave a demonstration at A Mano in Ridgewood yesterday...

..if you violate these rules.