Pizza

Why am I writing about pizza?

Probably because this amazingly good pizza from our local carryout triggered memories. Of really good New York Style pizza from my husband’s home town in PA.

Pizza not found in our area, except in a few small local places.

I started digging into pizza history. Trying to remember when pizza became common here in central MD. I don’t remember pizza as a child. Not in my predominantly German American neighborhood. In the 50s.

Pizza Hut was established here when I was in college. The only pizza place I could find in some researching was Ledo. In College Park. Opened in 1955.

We didn’t have frozen pizzas in every grocery store. We cooked traditional simple foods from scratch. Western Europe mostly.

Maybe we had slices of greasy cheese pizza “downy ocean”. You have to be from Baltimore to understand. On the boardwalk in Ocean City.

When I met my husband and he took me up to his home in Northeastern PA we ordered really classic thin crust NY style pizza from Armondos. He lived in a small town, with quite a few garment factories owned by Italian families based in NY. There was a real presence of Italian foods and traditions in his town. Like incredible thin crust pizza.

I have tried, and mostly failed to duplicate it. I finally found a packaged thin crust dough, since my feeble attempts to make my own haven’t produced good pizza.

This stuff works.

I use it with toppings from the fridge. Cheeses. Oven roasted tomatoes. Asparagus from my garden. Scallions. Herbs. Thin sliced ham.

The only way to make this better would be a pizza oven to get to those really high temperatures to make the crust crisper.

But, not to be a one trick pony, we have dabbled in making Sicilian style rectangular thick crust.

I do love the air fryer/oven for making pizza. It has elevated my pizza making.

Find yourself a favored style. Experiment. Use weird toppings. You just can’t go wrong with pizza for dinner.