October is Pizza Month.
Pizza is such an amazing food, so versatile, can be so healthy, no forks needed, it’s just a genius culinary accomplishment. I have also lately become a convert to mozzarella and tomato slices on naan, which I feel is close enough to pizza to qualify. Maybe some mushrooms, a scattering of oregano, maybe a little basil, possibly some onion . . .
A local pizza place does a great Chicken Caesar salad pizza. The crust acts as a giant crouton, and then the dressing is the sauce with chopped lettuce and chicken as toppings. It’s really good. My fave regular pizza? Onion, mushroom, black olives. The basics.
And then there’s your basic Heart Attack Slice: sausage, pepperoni, tons of cheese, white flour crust. Disturbingly good.
What’s your pizza poison?
I never object to just about anything pizza. No anchovies. But just sent anything else. I’ve never tried salad pizza, but why not?
As a kid Hawaiian was my favorite. And I still order it sometimes as a comfort food. I know many people can’t cope with the pineapple though.
I did a presentation yesterday for dental students (and some med students and faculty) about the effects of rare disorders on oral health, and I was expecting maybe ten or twenty people would show up, since it wasn’t a mandatory class session, but the person who set it up was smart, and he ordered about twenty pizzas, and when I saw it, I thought most of it would go to waste, but we ended up with 70-80 people in the room!
The power of pizza!
I was at an activist stategy/book signining event with pizza. It was at one of the local universities. There was pizza.
About 8 or so students wandered in and didn’t seem sure that they wanted to be there (didn’t seem to be a class assignment). We all yelled, “Come on in there’s pizza.” So they stayed for a bit.
A couple of them actually got engaged. So some group somewhere may have gotten a few new members.
I used to go to a lot of talks and events at university partly for the food. Never anything I wasn’t interested in, but getting dinner or cookies tipped the balance.
In deference to my MD, I order a gluten free crust. But other than anchovies and olives, I’m all for whatever comes on the crust. Yum!
We’ve been trying cauliflower crust – it can be quite good! Depending on the place lol
I like anchovies but most places here (Seattle) don’t offer them.
Our last pizza had figs, prosciutto, and basil.
My husband has an outdoor pizza oven which I’m convinced is in some obscure way related to competition with cousins who own pizza stores. The neighborhood acclaimed favorite is Gouda and grape but he feels that he has to also make margharita as an acknowledgement to his ancestors. His bagel Pizza ( creme fraiche and lox) is also excellent. The margarita doesn’t work that well…
For me plain and simple works best. I prefer a thin crust pizza. Basic tomato and cheese, not too much tomato sauce bubbly and rich with almost molten lava cheese, oregano and pepper flakes. Next would be chicken and broccoli with Alfredo sauce. A thicker crust would be needed for the fixins’. I do remember that at one time Stouffers used to put out a vegetable pizza on French bread in the frozen food section of the supermarket it was so good, but that was years ago. I don’t know if they still make it. When the boys were home our freezer was filled with Stouffers, Elios and frozen pocket snacks for them to heat up after school. Then they had to deliver the newspapers. My husband happened to mention that when he went to the supermarket to selective shop the prepared pizza dough had gone from $1.99 to $4.00. In some stores the dough is better than others. If I go with him selective shopping goes out the window. A list is just a suggestion.
Pepperoni all the way! 🍕
That’s my favourite too: Pizza Express American.
I discovered pizza while travelling through Italy on Interrail in 1976. My friend and I declared the one we had at the railway station in Naples the best. Can’t remember if that was before or after we sneaked into Pompeii at half past six in the morning and wandered round: no one there but us and the lizards.
All the meat. All the cheese. All the time.
But I only eat pizza every few months so that’s allowed.
Best pizza was in Dubrovnik at the entrance to the walled city.
Hawaiian for big guy, everything else for the rest of us, granddaughters have ‘fluffy’ crust with only tomato sauce and Diaya cheese. Fluffy is thick crust. Veg pizza with lots of olives for the vegans.
Going to try the naan.
Hand tossed with crust bubbles. Toppings on top of cheese so they can carmelize not steam. Now I’m hungry. If the crust is fantastic with some chew, you can split it open and make little ice cream sandwiches.
Round, thin crust with tomato sauce, cheese, and mushrooms; although, I’ll eat just about any topping except chicken and wing or barbeque sauce.
We were going to get incredible deli sandwiches as a “home from vacation” treat, but due to the UofM football team playing at home, when I called to order just before 3pm, their first carryout spot was 7:30pm. Pizza to the rescue! Though I will still have to drive through football traffic to pick it up – too far out of town for delivery. Tomato, feta and pepperoni for us.
Does your Eloquent need waxing? ’cause I could do that for a long, long time on the subject of pizza. Back in the 50s and 60s, papa would take us out to Tony’s Pizza in Key West for cheese pizzas, and afterwards a round of Goofy Golf. From then until 1971, I only remember Pizza Hut because that’s where the future wife and I dated. The only thing I remember about those pizzas was She like to shake pepper flakes on them.
I shared a great pizza (HUGE) with some shipmates in Madison, Wisconsin, on a night off from Navy schools in Great Lakes, IL. We rode the train up and back. Darned if I can remember toppings besides cheese, though.
For the next dozen years, the only pizza that stands out was the ones from Great Oaks Pizza, Gales Ferry, CT. They were Greek. Deluxe or supreme were the way to go. After that we were in Virginia Beach, and it was when the Hut was experimenting with a double crust pizza. Anyone else remember those? At the same time, all the mothers were doing kids’ birthdays at Chuck E. Cheese’s, as a penance for having the little darlings. We had one within walking distance.
Then I retired from the Navy, and before I signed on with the Commonwealth of Virginia, I worked at Walmart for a stretch, and then delivered pizza for Domino’s Pizza, for about 18 months. Besides a substantial employee discount, our manager used to sell any leftovers at closing to whoever wanted them, for a buck or two. There were almost always leftovers from people who canceled orders or addresses that couldn’t be found. That and I’d use some tip money to make the Wife’s favorite: a small half-anchovies/half pineapple. For a year, the family ate a lot of day-old pizza.
After the wife passed, I ate a lot of Tombstone original pepperoni pizza. The kids ate actual meals. I ate pizza. Later, I found a place that delivered. True story – they only delivered for about six months, then stopped, except that the always delivered to me. I always tipped well, and many a night the manager himself would bring my pizza.
Since the heart attack, pizza has become a seldom thing. I usually make one from some low-carb flatbread, tomato slices or diced tomato, cheese, onion, mushrooms, peppers, hot peppers and pepperoni. For variety, I add ham and/or bacon. Or picture all that stuff on a few English muffins, or maybe deli bagels.
I left out a few hundred pizzas, because.
My current favorite is from Spenard Roadhouse–the prosciutto fig pizza. It has arugula, chevre, and a lemon vinaigrette on a thin crust. Sounds fussy, but it’s delish. Daughter and I both order it whenever we go.
What I like from the local pizzeria that delivers is pepperoni and mushroom, sometimes also with black olives. Please keep your onions off my pizza; I’m not at all an onion fan. I also like a good classic margherita.
Son will eat virtually anything on a pizza, including anchovies. Daughter likes Hawaiian. They and their friends like to order the cheeseburger pizza for delivery when they congregate at my place, but I think it looks and smells disgusting. Guess you need to be a teen to appreciate it.
Love fresh basil on mine : ).
Best pizza I ever had was in an ordinary pizza place in Dublin. It was probably the quality of the cheese and those wonderful local cherry tomatoes. These days our local Zachary’s makes me up an extra-thin crust (New York style) with onion, bacon, and double mushrooms. Must drop by . . . .
Off topic question for those who crochet: is it possible to crochet an open work blanket in one big piece? Or are crocheted blankets made of many small squares sewn together?
I’m rewatching S6 of Buffy and once more in love with Willow and Tara’s crocheted white lace-like bedspread.
And looking for a winter project.
I have never crocheted anything large and openwork. (I’ve hardly ever crocheted anything small and openwork. I’m a solid pattern-made-with-color kind of woman.) I’m pretty sure it would be possible, just unwieldy. To return to the topic, I’ve rarely crocheted anything larger than a pizza, so I may not be the best to provide advice.
My Grandma, who was a non crocheting knitter, always knit an afghan for each grandchild as they went off to college. They all had alternating squares and we each got to choose the colors we wanted. But I had seen a picture of a really cool crocheted afghan and asked if I could have that instead. It was all one piece, so it must have been a real pain to work on, but Grandma learned how to crochet so that she could make it for me. Besides being gorgeous, it was quite possibly the most tangible proof of love I’ve ever owned.
Sure, you just crochet it in rows or in the round.
Here are some openwork stitch patterns:
https://mypicot.com/crochet_patterns_openwork_lace-1.html
You can do them in rows or rounds, use one pattern or stripe in different patterns, make it any size you want.
I’m doing a shrug in a pattern that’s similar to this one:
https://mypicot.com/2032.html
I like it because it’s both open and structured, which would be good for a bedspread.
Thanks all!
I love a good italian sausage pizza, possibly with black olives as well. But it’s really had to find good italian sausage, and none of the places in town, that are still open, have it. So I typically get a medium, thin crust, pepperoni and black olive pizza. In fact, I just had one. It’s hard to mess up pepperoni.
Margherita, fresh basil. I sometimes venture outside that, there’s a local-ish place that does pear, blue cheese, bacon and thyme and that’s delicious. But I love margherita best. Cooked in a wood-fired pizza oven, so there’s slightly burnt bits and air bubbles in the thin base. It’s 10.15pm and now I want pizza, damn.
Fiorentina – spinach and egg….
Or prosciutto and rocket
I live in a town with two colleges. We have a lot of pizza 🙂 Much of it is actually pretty good. I like thin crust cheese pizza with thinly sliced breaded eggplant. Or a white pizza with garlic. I think I’d probably love that salad pizza.
But my favorite pizza ever came from a place a friend introduced me to when I was out in CA for a conference, called Pizza My Heart. They had a pizza called Figgy Piggy with figs and bacon. I thought it sounded odd but it turned out to be amazing–a little bit salty, a little bit sweet. Oh, my heart.
Sadly, pizza isn’t the same for me since I learned I am allergic to pork and onion. So, I tend to make my own with turkey pepperoni, bell peppers, olives, and extra cheese. If ordering out I tend to go for chicken ones – bbq chicken pizza w/o onions, chicken alfredo, …
It kinda stinks at large gatherings with pizza since I’m a carnivore but almost all pizza meats are pork based. Then the veggie ones almost always have onions, so I eat a slice of the plain cheese one.
White clam apizza on Connecticut’s shoreline!
New Haven?
Sorry so late in replying. Yes!
All are good, but Modern Apizza is the most divine!
Can’t believe more places don’t do clam pizzas.
Dad is partial to Pepe’s. He loves the white pizza with fresh garlic.
Thin but chewy crust. Pineapple and black olives. Or mushroom and black olives. Or veggie sausage, mushroom, and black olives. Or a classic margherita. No onions, no green peppers. Never ever green peppers, which are the devil’s work.
Ugh. Never mushrooms, not on ANYTHING. 😁 I have been picking mushrooms out of food my whole life — but sometimes I still can’t eat the food even without the darned things because I can still taste them (shudders).
Love olives but never the black rubber olives out of a can, which are generally what goes on pizza. Big fat green Greek olives (stuffed with almonds!) or black Kalamatas — can eat those by the pound…
(Funny, how we’re all so different!)
I’ve gotten spoiled because I mostly eat pizza only in Italy, so the thin light crusts from those ovens is my fave. Mostly I go for pizza cotto, sometimes i ask for onions too.
However, once in a while when I am back in the States I enjoy an American style pepperoni swimming in mozzarella. With onions.
Best pizza I ever had was in a neighborhood dive in Paris near Mairie. It was a quatre fromage (four cheese) and when I got it you could see that they had put a whole quarter of a Brie in one quadrant, a huge slice of Gorgonzola on another, etc… you could still see the rinds. It was a cheese orgy. My mouth waters just thinking about it!
I’m not fussy about my crusts. But my preferred toppings are hamburger, onion, green pepper and a light hand with black olives.
We did homemade pizza over the weekend. My 11 year old put salami and pepperoni on hers, no cheese. My 9 year old put salami, pepperoni, hamburger and cheese on his.
I stuck with hamburger and cheese.
Our crusts were a prepackage mix that I had on hand.
Growing up, the favorites were Cici’s Pizza, their spinach and alfredo pizzas, hands down.
Now, there are just too many exotic variants out there to have just one favorite. They all have very different flavor profiles. Pear gorgonzola, prosciutto fig, Japan putting their egg-heavy unique mayo with furikake and corn on theirs, and lately there have been lots of Indian fusion masala pizza places popping up, which I still need to try.
Whenever I go to Pieology, though (build your own thin crust), I tend to go with pesto, alfredo, gorgonzola, and lot of greens (spinach, basil) to go with whatever meat I feel like that day.