AMERICANWAY

spending most of his free time immersed in food blogs. Not coincidentally, Brooklyn was at the height of its transformation into one of the hottest foodie neighborhoods in the world. Soon enough, Shiroma decided to become a part of it. It wasn't long before Shiroma wrangled his way into a few food apprenticeships, in- cluding one at Barboncino, where the spe- cialty is wood-fi red Neapolitan-style pizza with a Brooklyn touch. "I remember being earnest in my interview," he says. "Just a guy who wanted to work with his hands and focus on a craft after spending a few years in an of- fi ce. I wasn't sure if I gave the best impression, but as luck would have it, somebody didn't show up to a shift the next day, and I found myself going from watercooler chat to slicing a leg of prosciutto and drinking out of quart cups within a 72-hour period." Meanwhile, a bright Brazilian Fulbright scholar from Rio de Janeiro named Daniela answered Shiroma's Craigslist ad for a new roommate. It didn't exactly work out. "She didn't become my roommate, and instead became my wife, partner and best friend," says Shiroma. "And also my de facto room- mate." After Daniela's yearlong linguistics studies at New York University came to an end, decisions loomed. Shiroma ultimately found himself on a plane w ith her to R io, armed with what would qualify as an insane idea — a pop-up, mobile pizza restaurant in a South A merica n cit y that had no prev i- ously discernible cultures of food tr ucks or great pizza . " W hen we fi rst went to the city hall seeking a license for a food truck, we were met w ith bla nk looks," Shiroma laughs. " We were ask ing for a license for a thing that no one had heard of." Shiroma carried on after city officials advised him to set up shop in "low-visibility areas" to avoid attracting too much atten- tion from police, advice that falls under the category of Brazilian culture called jeitinho, which basically means a clever (though not always legal) way around a problem, kind of like MacGy vering something, but not on TV. Now he needed a mobile pizza oven, but of course nobody had heard of that, either. So Shiroma designed one out of iron and T he m a n a ltering Rio de Ja- neiro's culinary landscape — at least at the street level — didn't hone his craft during his pur- suit of a degree in English literature. His fi rst job as an advertising copy writer in New York City wasn't a classic training ground for a career in food prep. And his Chinese- Japanese-American heritage probably didn't contribute much when he decided the best way to earn a living was to make pizza. But somehow, he made it all work. Meet Sei Shiroma, 28, the all-American son of fi rst-generation immigrant parents ( he has a Chinese mother and a Japanese father ). He was born in Queens and raised in Manhattan before eventually making his way to Brooklyn where, in 2012, he found himself wa llow ing away in a f inancia lly comfor t- able but mind-numbing gig as an advertising copy writer. Sure, the 9-to-5 life wasn't bad, but it wasn't exciting either, and he began CUISINE Iron and Flour The story of Rio de Janeiro's pop-up PIZZA PICASSO By K ev in R au b PHOTOGR A PH Y bY R au l A r agão 5 8 O C TO B E R 2 01 4 A A .CO M/A M E R I C A NWAY

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