I hate food.

Yeah.... it's been quiet on the blog.

That might be because me & food are not in a very good place right now.  It is a very odd thing to deal with the fact that wheat had such a bad effect on me.  And it's just everywhere.

Not there, though!!  Apparently one of the local pizza biggies - Lou Malnati's - does a "gluten free" (wheat free is the important bit for me) pizza.  Basically... their deep-dish sausage pizza contains the sausage as one big disk.  Someone was real smart and figured out they could use that as the "crust", and then put the toppings on that.  And it is just like eating a slice of their regular stuff, sans crust.

At least when we come back from Vegas (going at the beginning of November to celebrate the hubby's big 4-0 birthday) I'll know I can order up a couple of personal pizzas (with crust for him) for us for dinner.

Our area Whole Paycheck (Foods) has a cooking class next weekend on "gluten free cooking."  After much inner debate... I'm going to skip it.  I've pretty much already figured out most stuff I need to know on my own, and this particular Whole Paycheck tends to be frequented by a lot of rich 2nd wives from the affluent 'burbs around these parts... and there is a very high chance I might get violent around someone who is doing this as a "lifestyle choice" and not because they HAVE to.  Because when they cheat or mess up, there are no consequences.  There are when I mess up (and not cheat... have no desire to cheat and make myself feel miserable). 

I used to love food.  I especially loved food prepared by other people for me.  Now I almost dread Friday night and ordering out and trying to figure out what I can eat that won't leave me hurting the next day.

Hopefully the kitchen mojo will come back soon and it'll be less of the totally bland food I've been doing lately (most things are so plain they are totally boring).  Anything on a bun or bread I usually eat "naked" pretty much because although Udi's does make a pretty decent gluten-free bread, it's expensive and I am cheap.  If I'm gonna use it... it better be worth it.

This also means I am spending more time actually in the kitchen - I gotta do my own breakfasts (usually an egg) and lunch for every day.  It's not like it is easy to just pick up something wheat-free if I don't plan ahead (although I am increasing the stockpile in my desk with things like Minute Rice, canned oil-packed tuna, jars of beans, etc.).

I might be doing some full-out meatballs with wheat-free pasta and red sauce and - gasp! - some french bread for me next weekend because I have discovered that a local area bakery - Deerfields - does GF french bread and I did pick some up,  but again.... $5 for two mini loaves - I want to do it justice.

Let's clear up some things about Chicago style pizza, folks....

Ok, rest of the country.... from 2009-2013, you're going to have to deal with a Chicago boy in the White House. So it's time to clear up some things about Chicago-style pizza.

Everyone always seems to think "deep dish" when they think of Chicago. While it did originate here, it's much more of a "special occasion" thing than your everyday take-out pizza. The first time I ever had deep dish was when I was 13 and I went with my friend Erin to the Printer's Roe Book Fair. Even though we were only 13, we were actually allowed to go downtown on the train and to the fair on our own, because Erin had been going to a charter school in the city for years (her parents kinda split time between the city and the 'burbs) so she knew where she was going and everything. For lunch, we had plans to go to Edwardo's. We got a deep dish/stuffed pizza (stuffed pizza is similar but it involves 2 crusts, a top and a bottom) with tomatoes and elephant garlic. It was wonderful.

Anyway... what the majority of corner pizza places serve is not deep dish. It's not like fluffy Pizza Hut pizza, either. Crispy, thin, breadstick-like crust.

We ordered a pizza from our new favorite place on Saturday, after the hubby put together my new elliptical. He didn't have any lunch, so he was hungry. Very hungry.

This is what it looked like when we were done eating....



Not too much left. But take a closer look at the thin, crispy crust....


Oh, that was a corner piece. Those corner pieces are prizes. Growing up, there were four of us in the house and four corner pieces to a pizza, and I would raise hell when I was somehow denied my corner piece.



See that? Thin thin thin thin thin crust. Good sauce, and then cheese and toppings. This was our usual "garbage pizza", which is sausage, pepperoni, onions, green pepper, and mushrooms. We still have yet to find a new place that does a good version of our "stinky pizza", which is sausage, shrimp and garlic.

So, for the next four years, if the president is ever in your hometown and you hear he's looking for some good pizza, you know what he likes. He and the family are apparently fans of this, the most typical of Chicago pizza. They're not looking for deep dish. They're looking for this.

Happy Election Day!

I hope you did, too! Although I had to do a provisional ballot since my info apparently got lost. It was fine the last time I voted, and the hubby's info was all there, but not mine. Sigh. Gotta work on submitting my info because even if it's a done show, I want to do all I can to make sure my vote is counted.

In honor of this history-making night, I wanted to make some history of my own. A successful pizza out of my own kitchen.

I have bad, bad luck with pizza. My own dough never, ever, works, and store-bought dough sometimes gives me mixed results. But, the place I get my produce sells balls of frozen dough that are very cheap, so I wanted to give it a try again.

Peek-a-boo, dough!!




I had glamor shots of my shrimp, sauce and sausage, but I lost the picture. Bad me.

The dough in the pan with the garlic-filled sauce...




I just used a jarred sauce, and added some chopped garlic confit and herbs. Was pretty tasty, actually.




Wooo... covered in shrimp and sausage. I actually probably should have used less shrimp. But it was all good in the end.

I also thought I took an "on top of Old Smokey All Covered In Cheese" picture, but it also went poof. But I got the money shot....




Mmmm. Pizza. Tasty, tasty pizza. Looks good even through a blurry camera lens.

It wasn't bad. We actually like our crust super-thin and this was a little doughy for our tastes, but it was still good. I cooked it at 400 degrees, I probably should have upped it to at least 425 and I probably should have used the convection setting. I need to figure out how to get the super-thin, super-crispy dough.

The Great Pizza Hunt of 2007

Both my hands are totally shot right now. I figured it wasn't worth cooking dinner tonight. If I got my hands on a knife, I'd probably either seriously hurt myself or intentionally chop off my hands just to stop the pain. Arthritis in your 30s sucks (as it also did in my 20s - but I think being a smidge younger, it didn't seem as bad).

So, the Great Pizza Hunt of 2007 started tonight. And it might be over already.

Some backstory that I learned recently... our old pizza place was next door to a bar that was, um, a dump. A dump where a lot of illegal things happened. It was bad enough that several years back, the one time I picked up a pizza, I decided I was never going to pick up a pizza there again. One of those places that even a pretty tough gal like me doesn't feel 100% safe in the daylight.

Turns out, Dumpy Bar's liquor license depended on the pizza place next door to serve food to the customers. When the pizza place moved from that location, the bar had to close. This made law enforcement and town officials very happy.

This made me hopefully that although the first pizza we got from the "new" location was terrible, they might just be going thru old supplies (frozen crusts, frozen sauce, crappy cheese, etc.) of the Italian place before going for new supplies.

Got the monthly mailers of coupons and such of places in the area, and there was an ad for the pizza/Italian place that mentioned the pizza place was there now. Good sign.

So, tonight, we got another pizza from there. Toppings, cheese and sauce were much improved, if not spot on. The crust still stinks. I can tell it's frozen dough... there is just no life to it.

We might still try the other very nearby pizza place, but I can live with this for awhile, as long as it gets better along the way.

Stoopid economy

Sigh.

When we moved to the Chicago 'burb we live in back in 1999, it took us a good six months to find a decent pizza place. And it was even beyond just "decent", it was by far the best delivery pizza we'd ever had (and I am really picky about my pizza - not a deep dish girl, I was raised on thin, crispy crust pizza from a hot brick oven).

We actually found this place on my birthday. I wasn't cooking, and I wanted a pizza with shrimp and garlic for dinner. We called several of the places we'd been ordering from and none of them had shrimp that day. We finally decided to try this new place, Chicago Pizza Authority, and we were floored with how good it was. We haven't ordered from another place since 2000.

It's been awhile since we ordered from them, and tonight I got home from work and fell asleep sitting up on the couch (and I'm dealing with a nasty pulled muscle in my neck from freaking out upon when the world's largest centipede jumped out at me in my car bright and early this morning). So, we decided to call the pizza place.

But it's not the same.

Since we last ordered, they moved from their original location (which was in an area that turned into one of the two crappy areas in town) to working out of an Italian place that is only a couple blocks away. And the pizza is not the same. It's a different brand of cheese, the sauce is a little different, and the crust is WAY different. It's got no good "chew" to it.

It's not bad, but it ain't as great.

Sigh.

When we were looking to move out of our craptacular apartment, one of the key deciding factors was still being in the delivery area of this pizza place. This was the pizza we'd order when entertaining. In recent months, they'd been knocking every pizza outta the park with each pizza's fantasticness. I'm really, really sad right now.

Sorry, Chicago Pizza Authority. We did our best to be loyal customers. Heck, I still have 67 "collect 12 for one 50% off pizza PICKUP ONLY" coupons that I was going to try to barter for one stinkin' 50% off delivery pizza. Guess I'm too late.