Pickle pizza?

 HALLIE EPHRON: The dog days of summer are here, and who feels like cooking? Not me. So of course I’m ordering takeout, and pizza is always a favorite–year round really, since it’s not something I’m equipped to make at home.

I like a thin crispy crust, straight up with a zesty tomato sauce (not fresh slices, please - too wet and bland) and cheese (mozzarella, parmesan) with lots of oil and seasoned with fresh basil or oregano. A mushroom or two might find its way onto my slice, but no kale or pineapple, please.

I am in mourning because my all time favorite pizza place, two blocks from my house, closed a few years ago (replaced by an Irish pub) and I’m on a fruitless quest ever since to find somewhere that makes pizza their way.

The other day I saw a recipe for pickle pizza, and I thought: Feh!

But apparently I am alone because when I googled “pickle pizza” I got 250K hits. Even Pizza Hut is making Pickle Pizza.

Here’s how they describe it: “crust, sauced with Buttermilk Ranch, and topped with cheese, crispy breaded chicken breast seasoned with a kick of Nashville Hot Seasoning, sliced white onions, and then loaded with spicy dill pickles and a drizzle of Buttermilk Ranch to finish it off.”

I repeat: Feh.

Next thing you know, they’ll be putting sardines and chocolate sauce on pizza.

So how do you like your pizza, and what do you want kept OFF your crust?

RHYS BOWEN: I’m a big fan of veggie pizzas— spinach and mushroom, onion, peppers, olives. ( although probably not broccoli) Husband John has to have chicken bacon ranch. And always thin crust. And never pineapple or pickle!

We also love Trader Joe’s tarte d’Alsace.

JENN McKINLAY: Pizza snob here. New Haven has the best pizza hands down. Back me up, Lucy.

Sally’s Apizza or Pepe’s Pizzeria in Wooster Square - apparently, they’ve been using the same brick ovens since the 1920’s.

When I bartended at Toad’s Place decades ago, Sally’s used to provide the happy hour pizza on Fridays. My fave night to work! Absolute best pizza ever is the white clam pie. Period. Full Stop.

I can’t think of anything I won’t try on a pizza. During Covid, Hub made a cheeseburger pizza that was actually damn good, ground beef, cheese, mustard, ketchup, pickles and all. But I’m still a snob and no one lives up to Sally’s or Pepe’s - and, no, I won’t choose between the two.

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I figure pizza is bread, and you can put pretty much anything on bread. When I'm in England I try to have my favorite pizza from Pizza Express at least once. (Pizza Express is a chain, but nice restaurants, not like US pizza chains.) Pizza of choice is the Padana, a very thin crust with goat's cheese, sweet caramelized onions, spinach, tomato, mozzarella, garlic oil, and red onions.

So good. But it will not fly in my house–Rick only wants marinara sauce and cheese. Sigh.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: I could live on pizza. I love it so much. That fragrance of PIZZA! The first cheesy bite. Yum yum yum. With extra oregano. Anyway. NO HAM. NO PINEAPPLE. I mean, not for me, thank you so much.

I love pepperoni and mushrooms. Extra cheese. Veggie, with peppers and onions and mushroom and whatever they put, is fine, but not as transporting as pepperoni. Hamburger and green pepper and mushrooms is delish, too, although I know it sounds iffy. It's all about fabulous mozzarella and chewy crust and oregano. Now I am SO hungry.

I'm interested, Debs, in your pizza is bread concept. So I thought—peanut butter on pizza, how about THAT? Ha ha. And then I thought, well, just pb and crust would be pretty good....with maybe, bacon. Oh. I want this.

LUCY BURDETTE: Yes Jenn! New Haven pizza is the absolute best! People stand in line for hours to get seated. I adore pepperoni pizza, nice and crispy, but I will eat a slice of their white clam pizza if someone else orders it.

When I’m making pizza at home, my favorite is BBQ chicken pizza with BBQ sauce on the bottom, then rotisserie or leftover chicken, red onions, cheddar cheese, and topped with cilantro. Mmmmm.

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I will cross swords with Hank and say if you don’t like Hawaiian pizza, it’s because you haven’t had really good ham and pineapple on it. It’s one of my faves, along with Greek pizza, which also needs to have good quality ingredients on it.

Probably the best pizza in the greater Portland area is Otto’s, a local chain that makes crust to die for and some truly interesting specialty pies. One of their award-winning combos? Mashed potato, bacon and scallion. I know, the first time I saw it I said, “Are you kidding me?” But it’s amazing, with a blend of textures and and seasonings that are so good.

I’m in the pizza-is-bread column, and the cool thing about all bread products - tortillas, dumplings, baguettes, flat bread - is that eventually, in our country, they’ll get used to hold ingredients the original cultures never would have dreamed of. That’s what makes us great, folks. USA! USA!

HALLIE EPHRON: This is making me very hungry. What about you? Are you eating pizza out or ordering in? What’s on your crust and what had better not be?

Happy National Pizza Day!

JENN McKINLAY: Yes, February 9^th is National Pizza Day!!! Now you know what you’re doing for dinner. You’re welcome!

Dinner tonight: Lou Malnati's Classic Chicago

A brief history: The invention of pizza is credited to a baker, Raffaele Esposito, in Naples, Italy in the 1880's and was brought over to the United States with the influx of Italian immigrants. Flatbreads have a longer history in Italy, but it is said that Esposito created a pizza for King Umberto I and Queen Margherita using fresh mozzerella, tomatoes, and basil, which is the same pizza margherita which enjoy today. 

  

I love pizza. I mean, I loooooooove pizza. Going to school in New Haven, it was pretty much my daily bread, as it were. Now I know lots of people are partial to their regional pizzas. Yeah, whatever. Only one pizza can be the greatest and it is hands down the white clam pie from Sally’s or Pepe’s in Wooster Square in New Haven, CT. Sorry, this is simply not up for debate. 

The first thing I do every trip home is to hit up Wooster Square for a pie. The first time I dragged my desert rat husband back east with me, he was indoctrinated into what real pizza (has to be brick oven) is supposed to taste like and there was no turning back. Little known fact: When I worked at Toad's Place on York St in New Haven, Friday night was Yale happy hour and we served Sally's pizza. No surprise, I always asked to work Friday nights!

Clearly my fave is the brick oven, thin crust, white clam pie (did I mention it usually has bacon?), and everything else is second rate, but I’m willing to listen to differing opinions. So let me have it, Reds, what’s on your pie?

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: I could eat pizza every day. Every day. It is the perfect food, all cheesy and tomatoey and crusty, when the cheese greats a tiny bit brown on top? We used to make it from boxes, Chef Boy-Ar- Dee, I think? When you made the yeasty dough, and put on a can of tomato-like stuff and cheese-like stuff? We LOVED it.  But now--real pizza. Street pizza, thin crust, and pungent with oregano. And the crust on the bottom all crusty (you know what I mean) with the dusting of flour still on it. with pepperoni, and extra cheese and mushrooms.

And that is ALL. Yes, I've had grilled chicken, meh, and carmelized onion and potato, fine, and prosciutto with basil, all good. Pizza from other lands--taco pizza?--no. Ham and pineapple? Don't even go there. I say: why waste pizza on any other kind of thing but real regular pizza?

And anchovies. Gah. Even if you take them off (trying not to actually touch one), the pizza keeps that gray fishy residue. As Snoopy says, bleah bleah bleah.

HALLIE EPHRON: Cheese. Maybe mushrooms. But basically wonderfully oily salt cheese. And thin crust, please. I do love a good pizza.

I remember my first taste of pizza at a Micelli's restaurant on La Cienega in Los Angeles... a date with the son of friends of my parents. I don't remember being impressed (by the pizza or the boy). In those days pizza wasn't everywhere. Even tacos hadn't found their way to California yet.

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Thin crust, yes! I hate gooey, doughy, pizza. We do homemade pizza often. Whole wheat crust if I'm not too lazy or busy to make it. Rick only likes cheese and marinara sauce, but I usually do a base with a combination of good cheeses and some dried herbs. Unless I feel very inventive, my slices get at least sliced cherry tomatoes and fresh mushrooms, and basil if I've got it. 

Image: Pizza Express

But my favorite pizza is from Pizza Express in the UK (this is not fast food like Pizza Hut, etc., but a good restaurant chain.) They do one called the Padana, with a super thin crispy crust, fresh mozzarella, tomato, caramelized onion, spinach, red onion, and garlic oil. It is to die for. And you can add anchovies! (Sorry, Hank.)

LUCY BURDETTE: Hold the anchovies! You can have my share. New Haven has the best pizza in the US, I'm sure of it. We get either pepperoni (crispy, salty, oily) or white clam pizza. If I'm cooking at home, we like a barbecued chicken pizza with red onions and cilantro!

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: If you're visiting Portland, ME, our top three vote-getters every year in the area papers' and magazines' "Best Of" contests are Ricettas, Portland Pie Company, and Ottos. That last features some weird and wonderful combinations, most famously their bacon and mashed potato pizza. I promise you, it's delicious.

Photo credit: Maine Today: Mashed potato and bacon at OTTO

JENN: GET OUT! Totally trying that when I'm next in Maine!

JULIA: I'm going to reminisce about my mother's "pizza" since we haven't touched on making it at home. She had the recipe from my Grandmother Fleming, who made it for my dad when he was a teen, and it was as authentically Italian as you might guess from a lady of French-Canadian descent cooking in central New York in the 1950s.

First, you spread out pre-made biscuit dough on a baking sheet. (I seem to recall my mom alternatively using Jiffy brand mix pizza dough.) Cover the dough with a layer of canned plum tomatoes, which you slice up in the can (you can use a clean pair of scissors for this.) Use all the liquid! Shake Italian seasonings blend and garlic powder over the tomatoes, and then - for the pièce de résistance - lay slices of cheese in a grid pattern. I can't recall what my mother used, but I strongly suspect it was American Cheese Food product.  Bake for the amount of time indicated on the biscuit mix box. 

We loved this "pizza." Loved it! It was in regular weekly rotation, because my dad was and is SUPER Catholic and we never ate meat on Fridays. What can I say? It was the late seventies. 

RHYS BOWEN: I remember pizza when I was a child and we vacationed in Italy. It was dough, drizzled with olive oil with a couple of olives and anchovies on top. None of the fancy toppings we get today. I am not a fan of any of the meats on pizza. I love veggie pizzas, chicken and artichoke, and thin, thin crust. More flatbread than pizza actually. And you can add anchovies for me too!

Okay, Readers, what’s your go-to pizza? Or are you like one of my hooligans, who doesn’t like pizza? (Gasp!) I know it’s just shocking! Pretty sure we dropped him on his head or something.