ALTAMONT — Slices of crispy, delicious — and free — pizza were just what a group of 25 or so gathered at the Blue Ribbon Culinary Center needed Tuesday evening at the fair. But perhaps most importantly, former culinary arts instructor and restaurateur Jim Haas also dished out some tips on how to make better pizza at home.

First of all, if people had come to learn to make good pizza dough, they were in the wrong place, he said. He buys his at the supermarket, because he can get good dough there, cheap.

“We’re all working hard, and we want to make dinner fast,” he said. “Even if we don’t work outside the home, we’re still busy, because we’ve got little ones like this at home,” he said, gesturing toward his 10-month-old grandson, Harrison Haas, who was looking on with calm interest, wearing a chef’s hat like his grandfather.

“The recipe on the bag tells you to just roll it out, put the stuff on, and pop it in the oven,” Haas told the crowd.

“But no!” he said emphatically. It’s important to knead it, stretch it out a bit, and then let it rest.

He greased a round pan lightly with olive oil and dusted it with a little cornmeal. Then, after rolling out the dough, he said that the next stage was key: parbaking. This comes before adding any toppings.

The oven should be “as hot as you can get it,” he said. “Four-twenty-five is minimum, he said. “Four-fifty, 500. You want it really hot.”

Times are personal, he said, and a guideline. He usually puts his crust in a 450-degree oven for “close to 10 minutes.”

After parbaking, he removes the crust from the oven and flavors around the edge, by first brushing the edge with a little olive oil, then sprinkling around it a pinch of finely chopped fresh oregano, a hint of Himalayan pink salt, and a bit of Parmesan cheese.

Then he adds the toppings, but it’s important here to be restrained, he said. “Don’t overload the pizzas, or they don’t stand up.”

For this demonstration, Haas said, he raided his wife’s garden, taking two kinds of thyme, two kinds of kale, basil, rosemary, chives, parsley, red onion, and tomatoes. He used these and other ingredients to make buffalo chicken, garden veggie, pepperoni, mozzarella, and white broccoli pizzas.

He bakes the assembled pizza in the same 450-degree oven for another seven or eight minutes.

The parbaking step is crucial, he emphasizes.

“We like the crispiness of it,” he said, referring to himself and his wife of 33 years, Melissa, who assisted him at the demonstration. They buy a couple of 99-cent bags of dough each week, he said.

The Haases previously owned a restaurant together in Delmar — Mancuso’s Luncheonette — though he has spent the last 15 years as a teacher, he said, initially as a culinary-arts instructor, and now as the work-based learning coordinator, at the Capital Region Board of Cooperative Educational Services, arranging for students from 23 schools to do internships and externships.

“We like cold pizza,” he said. “We like pizza in the morning, and it’s still crispy.”

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Upcoming events at the Blue Ribbon Center include a chicken-salad competition sponsored by Cheesecake Factory on Thursday at 6:45 p.m. A cornbread competition, sponsored by King Arthur, will be held on Friday at 6:45 p.m. Saturday there will be a gluten-free bread competition sponsored by Brett’s Fried at 2 p.m. A contest on Sunday, at 4 p.m. and sponsored by Chuck Wagon Diner and Short & Stout Tea Company, will judge the best barbecue pulled pork and iced tea. In each contest, after the judging is over, entries will be distributed to those on hand.

For a pie-eating contest on Saturday, at 6:45 p.m., sponsored by Altamont’s Home Front Café, only the contestants will be eating.