Food and sex are two of my favorite things, because they are universal sacraments. They are practiced by all faiths, agnostics, and non-believers. Like other sacraments, food lends itself to transcendental moments.
It's hard to imagine that Papa John's, Sbarro's, Domino's, and all the independent pizzerias were not always ubiquitous in America. Sure, there was pizza, but once upon the 1950s, when I was little, pizza could still be a new and wondrous thing.
I still remember when I was about five, and one day Dad slipped off in the car just before dinner time. I asked Mom what was up, and she said Dad was going to bring dinner home from some thing called a pizza shop.
First, how was Dad bringing home dinner, when in a five year old's orderly world, Mommy made dinner? And, what was this "pizza"?
Soon Dad showed up with his usual quiet grin, and a big, flat, fragrant box, with the name "Pixie Pizza" on top (I was an early reader). I was growing up in a pretty whitebread suburban world, near Baltimore, and this "pizza" looked right strange to me.
The big pie had a crust that was not quite crisp, except at the rim, where an amalgam of crust and cheese swelled into big crunchy bubbles. The rest of the crust was thin, just soft enough to fold, giving the slice the structural integrity to be lifted to the death star that was a hungry five year old. All that molten mozzarella! Flecked with Italian spices, and little bits of hot red pepper, then dusted with some grated parmesan. This cheesy goodness floated on a skim of tomato sauce. That mozarella could stretch out an arm's length, or just be chomped right off. You ate pizza with your fingers, a lawless deviation from our normal polite, knife and fork dinner routine. If all of this wasn't magical enough, the pie was covered with savory coins of pepperoni - which I'd never tasted before. Dad was uaually a quiet, affable, gentleman, but the night he brought home this pizza, he was da wizard!
From that moment, I would have happily forsworn all other foods. There was simply no good reason not to eat pizza, only pizza, for the rest of my life.
Most of our pizza is home made, now, thanks to having married Mrs. labradog. Her pizza is of the thin crust school - sometimes so crisp that it snaps when you bite into it - and she prefers the amoebic, freeform pie design. She'll sautee the veggies first, to get a jump on their flavor
Among our favorite variations:
The white pizza, eschewing the tomato sauce for more cheeses, olive oil, herbs and garlic. Fresh basil is totally excellent, here. Shellfish.
When you roast garlic for a meal, roast an extra bulb and save it for pizza. Peel the soft, sweet roasted cloves, mash them up with a drizzle of olive oil, then spread this over the dough before the other ingredients go on.
Grilled pizza, done under the lid on your barbecue - a great way to put grilled veggies together into a smoky endorphin diddler.
For shrimp, slice through the axis of each, as if you are butterflying, but went too far. This creates a nice visual effect, while balancing the volume of shrimp against the rest of the ingredients.
Try meats other than pepperoni - prosciutto sliced razor thin, or soprasetta sausage, or Genoa salami. For thin sliced meats, sprinkle a bit of cheese over, to keep them from crisping.
Anchovies! Alone, or stuffed into pitted black olives. Or chop them up and sprinkle over.
Don't let anyone "Eww" you out of the chance to enjoy anchovies.
Unsure of your crust-making? Try a tube of refrigerator biscuit dough rolled out.
Pretty much any vegetable you enjoy roasted is good on pizza.
Thinly sliced fresh tomatoes. Sweet, or hot cherry peppers. Big, fat, kalmata olives. Grapes with rosemary are nice.
Go with different cheeses - feta, cheddar, monterrey jack
Leftover pizza? Theoretically possible. If it exists:
It's a perfect food, hot or cold. Have it for breakfast instead of toast alongside a fried egg.
Cut it up into 1" squares and put it into a salad instead of croutons. This makes a hurried salad into something really hearty and special, and adds only thirty seconds to your prep time.
Take leftover salad, and put it between two slices of cold pizza, for a filling veggie sandwich.
Roll something up in leftover pizza (avocado, meat, leftover crabcake, chorizo), then slice the roll into 1/2" thick discs, for an hors d'oeuvre.
Chop one or two slices into a fine dice, and add it to a vegetable and pasta soup.
Reheat a slice in the skillet you fried this morning's bacon in.
Julienne pizza (tiny shreds), and throw it in like a condiment when you skillet green beans or asparagus.
Things I hate on pizza:
Broccoli (or other cruciferous vegetables).
Root vegetables. (My family derided "French-Canadian" pizza for years, after, while camping in Quebec, we got a pizza which had potato on it!)
Ground beef. Post-school-cafeteria-stress disorder. Ugh.
Crust, cheese, sauce, people. Total recall.
I can smell boardwalk pizza from fifty miles and forty years away. All you add for the greatest pizza is the people:
A weekly ritual in Jr. High, three of us would get together to eat pizza and watch The Avengers. ("Mrs. Peel, we're needed!") Oh, man, was she. Visions of the wry, intellectual, hot, artistic, lethally leather clad Emma Peel grabbed the helm of my central nervous system, as I plowed hypnotically through slice after slice of that warm pie.
Hangin' at Rocco's pizzeria, as he introduces the customers to his buddy from back in New York. Rocco flippin' out when that huge revolver fell out of his chuckling buddy's jacket pocket ("Put that fuggin' shit away! You ain't at home now!)
Realizing, after you buy that girl a slice and a coke, that this is like a date! A dinner date! Another great topping: Hormones!
Going to the joint a friend worked in, and teasing "Extra cheese, and don't rip us off on the cheese, man!" Whereupon he made a crust with a turned up rim, and produced a pizza covered in a steaming two inch mozzarella bog. Like dogs with opposable thumbs we ravaged that pie.
Waiting at Pixie Pizza for G.I.Joe to show up. He was a long, lanky, shy child-man, about 6'-6", with a hatchet blade of a nose and a pencil thin moustache, who wore a plastic G.I. Joe helmet with plastic plants stuck in it for camouflage. As kids, we believed him to be either "shell-shocked" or insane - he was really just mentally retarded, as it was known then, and he loved to dance. He'd come into the shop, and hang out waiting for someone to drop a dime to play "Yakkety Sax" by Boots Randolph - it had to be that song - and when it came on, he'd do a mad shuffle. He never spoke, except once in a while, when a young motorhead came in, and Joe would challenge him to a race to "Gino's" burger joint up the highway. Before the hot rod punk ever lit up his heavy Chevy, GI Joe would have beaten him - on foot, running with great, loping, crazy strides, three-quarters mile to Gino's.
It'll be flowers and pizza for Mom labradog this Sunday. And my favorite people and pizza memory will always be the skinny young guy from the Bronx who brought my Scottish mom back from the war, and that first Pixie Pizza pie to our door!
Now, won't you share a little of your pizza world with us?