Friday, March 11, 2011

Recipe #4: Little Zeno’s Pizza

I may look more like my Polish half, but I definitely get my taste buds from the Italian side (not to mention my taste for wine—or could that be from my Irish blood?). I absolutely love, love, love Italian food and have a special affinity for pizza in particular.

My relationship with pizza goes way back—back to before I was born and my dad, the best pizza chef I know, had dreams of opening up his own pizza shop to be called Zeno’s (you know, since Dzenawagis’ doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue). Although he went as far as purchasing the equipment and acquiring the recipes, apparently it wasn’t meant to be because things fell through at the last minute (on two separate occasions) when a term in the purchase and sales agreement wasn’t agreed to. This didn’t stop him from making pizza for the family though, and it certainly didn’t stop me from thinking he was still the best pizza chef in town—Zeno’s or no Zeno’s.

Pizza also served as a sort of special occasion indicator in my family. The arrival of the Papa Gino’s deliveryman signified the start of the weekend, a bunch of Christo’s pizzas at Grammy’s house was a telltale sign that a family party was underway, and a trip to Town Spa in Stoughton meant something even more special than both of the previous two events combined. So for me, pizza has always been a little more than just pizza, it’s a harbinger of happy memories.

So when my family came up last Sunday for a visit, is it any surprise that they suggested pizza as their meal of choice from Danne’s Kitchen? Since one of my clauses this month is that I try all new recipes, I decided to make a few pies with ingredients that I haven’t tried before. In addition to a few staples like pepper and onion and sliced tomato and garlic, here are a few new combos that were added to my pizza library:

Little Zeno’s Pizza 1: Red sauce, mozzarella, and sautéed sweet potato with globs of ricotta
Little Zeno’s Pizza 2: Red sauce, mozzarella, sautéed white potato with garlic, spinach, and onion.

Many pizzas were made and many Zeno’s were fed, and since I again failed to photograph the meal, I’ll leave you with this photo of two pizza loving Zeno’s.


1 comment:

  1. Hold on a hot minute..Danne, why are your shoes so big?! ha ha

    ReplyDelete