Mathias' Easter Tradition is Resurrected

CONSTANCE: BC ... Before Constance, Mathias had a Good Friday tradition of ordering Pizza Hut pizza and watching The Ten Commandments. So we decided for Easter week blogging, we'd resurrect this tradition (pardon the pun!) (M: wrong religious event. Constance is actually a convert to Amishness from Rastafarianism so I'll let the mistake slide). My how things have changed with Pizza Hut - we did the whole transaction online. PizzaHut.com was a really cool experience (M: no it wasn't-the DMV website is more user-friendly). And did you know they're now called "The Hut!". Now you do!



We ordered the PANormous, "the biggest pan pizza Pizza Hut has ever created — over 40% bigger than their large pan pizza! (M: it's Friday night-why bring any fractions into the equation??? Friday's the time for shutting down the brain). And now you can get 1 topping per side for just $10!" Done deal! We each got to pick our topping - I picked banana peppers and Mathias picked tomatoes. It was a lot of pizza for $10 and with the packets of cheese and hot pepper flakes ... mmm tasty! (M: Constance doesn't seem to remember the Abbot & Costello routine that ensued when her banana peppers weren't on the right side of the box. Who knew that simply turning the box 180 degrees would make her so happy??)



For wings, we selected Spicy Asian, (M: "spasian??") boneless. Our total order was about $19, so for 10 wings, we paid about $8-ish I guess. So the PANormous $10 deal is definitely a marketing ploy - they got us! The flavor of the wings was really different, and they were boneless so convenient, but I missed nibbling around the bones. (M: Truth be told, when Constance gets gnawing on the wings, it's like watching a wood chipper turned to 11-there are pieces flying everywhere!!!)

For a busy Friday night, our order only took about 15 minutes and we were home on the couch watching The Ten Commandments. Now I understand where the saying "a Cecil B. DeMille" originated. What a fantastic movie and star studded cast - even Lilly Muster was in it! It's a long one though and we're still watching a little bit every night. (M: I like the movie because the Yul Brynner character has all the best lines; besides, he's the only guy that can wear a skirt and then kick your behind while spouting out memorable lines like "Moses, Moses, Moses...do ya feel lucky? Well, do ya punk? That's from the movie, right?)

The overall "Hut" experience was an 8 out of 8 slice rating! But I missed the wing bones and human element in the ordering process ... but, we had so much leftover za (M: stop the 'za!!) for Saturday a.m., no bones about it (pardon that pun too!). (M: Constance, Constance, Constance....do you feel hungry? Well, do ya?)

The 411:
PizzaHut.com

That's it!

Memorial Pizza and Wings ... Dad Would Be Proud!

CONSTANCE: In honor of my Father who passed away nine years ago on March 31, Mathias and I wanted to have a retro pizza and wing night. After all, my Father is the one who taught me to cook. His chef's special? Homemade pizza! So we took a shortcut and bought Chef Boyardee pizza in a box. Mathias was in charge of that.

Earlier in the day, we researched recipes online for marinades for the chicken wings. Mathias came across one for Cajun Spice Chicken Wings. The marinade had cayenne pepper, brown sugar, garlic powder, thyme, hot pepper sauce ... it smelled fantastic! If anyone would like the recipe, let us know and we can post that too.

Mathias was the pizza chef, and I spearheaded the wing project. After marinading for several hours, I drained the wings in a colander and then tossed about 4 at a time in a large bag with two cups flour. The wings cooked in an electric skillet with a cup of canola oil. The time? Four minutes on each side. We made about 15-20 I guess. After frying, I tossed about half of them in a plastic container with Frank's Buffalo Wing Sauce for a wet version. The remainder were served dry.

The biggest taste difference? They were not as crispy as those from a "real" wing joint; however, they were very fresh and tasted clean ... not like the fryer and everything else cooked in it.

While my adventure was going on in the south side of the kitchen, Mathias was feverishly at work on the north side. Everything needed for the pizza was right in the box! The crust took about 20 minutes, and rather than two round pies, we made one large rectangle one. Add sauce, cheese in the box ... supplement with Kraft pizza cheese and then bake 10 minutes; rotate and bake for 20 more.

Daddy's little girl used to be the mozzarella cheese grater, so using shredded cheese out of a bag was a modern luxury!

Hope you can see by the photos just how delicious this tribute meal turned out. And in "economic times like these" we spent under $20 and have 3/4 of a bag of frozen wings remaining to experiment on another recipe another time.

But that's not the point ... I wanted Mathias to "meet" my Dad, and do something to keep his memory alive ...

Our rating? 8 out of 8 slices of course :-)

See you next week!

A $4 pizza ... the stuff urban legands are made of!

CONSTANCE: This week is another unique week and we'll be doing two blogs. Last night was a plan "B" night because it got so late and we were starving; so we'll do plan "A" tonight.

Our plan "B" last night was Quality Markets at 38th & Liberty Streets and their Buffalo chicken wing pizza. Ironic because Quality was our plan "A" a few weeks back! So we called in our order to the deli, which I'd highly recommend. We were told 20 minutes on a busy Friday night ... acceptable. We actually had an errand to do in advance of the pick up and I think we were running a bit behind.

The cashier-chef, Candy, is a regular at the deli and she's the best maker of the Buffalo chicken wing pizzas, so if you can, ask for her. She recognized me and then tentatively explained there was a delay with making our pizza and we'd need to wait about 20 more minutes. As a trade off and good customer service, she said we could have the pizza at the regular pizza special price of $5.99 for Friday or Saturday nights. Done deal! We had some shopping to do anyways, so not a big deal.

We got our Easter Smith's ham. Incidentally, I've learned that although Smith's ham is a higher cost per pound, it's all meat!! The other "value priced" hams are mostly water. Thought I'd pass that along. We got our Easter eggs for dying too.

While shopping, we ran into a friend who had been in a horrible truck-pedestrian accident (yep, he was the pedestrian). The accident was New Year's Eve, and he's doing remarkably better. My son works at Quality too, but he was already gone for the day. I love shopping there because as a neighborhood store, you get a chance to see so many friends and neighbors there.

Twenty minutes had easily passed. We checked out with $81 of much needed groceries and went back to the deli to pick up our za. It still wasn't ready. I waited in the car and played with Pandora on my Blackberry and texted my sister-in-law about a recipe of mine she wants, while Mathias went back into the deli.

Candy went home at 8 and we were left in the care of Josh ... who proceeded to rip our pizza when taking it out of the fireplace-oven. As you'll see in the picture, it looks like an amoeba and the toppings all shifted during the rip. He told Mathias that it was his bad and we could have the za for only $3.99. Or wait for a new one ...

When can you ever get a specialty pizza for $4, even though it was slightly damaged. It's going down in the pizza and wing blog as "the time we got the $4 pizza!!".

The Buffalo chicken wing pizza at Quality is an 8 out of 8 slice delicious masterpiece. It's by far the best concoction of it's kind. There are some challenges with the ordering and delivery time, so as long as you're flexible and understanding to expect the unexpected, you might end up with a $4 too!

Tonight, we're making our own pizza and Cajun chicken wings in honor of my Father, who passed away on March 31, 2000. He's the one who taught me to cook pizza from scratch and to cook in general, not my Mother. He never got to meet Mathias. So it'll be a special way for him and Mathias and me to connect. We'll take some pics and post another blog tomorrow. I hope we'll have some leftovers for breakfast too!

Oh, I should mention how delicious the Quality Buffalo chicken wing pizza was for breakfast today! And I probably should e-mail my sister-in-law that recipe now too before I forget ...

Mmmmm, Viva Calamari's!!

Mathias: Okay, I've been the slacker in the couple these last few weeks and Constance has been the vigilant one. So, to pick up the slack, I'm going to blather on for a little bit here.

So me and my main Amish squeeze Constance were invited to a retirement party for our friend's mom. The setting was at Calamari's Squid Row; Constance has been there numerous times for work and I've been there a few times, most notably the one day last year when the Bar Stool Open was in full force and someone launched a Titlist at my Amish noggin.

Anyway, it was announced that the food was ready and after I threw some elbows, we had a plate full of pizza and wings. It was some standard cheese and pepperoni-the little round ones that curl up when you cook it. The wings were Honey Mustard, Buffalo and some dry type I didn't load up on. I didn't want to violate the deadly sin of gluttony so I only pigged out on two of the three flavors. Later, the staff brought out what turned out to be my new favorite pizza in town, the White Pizza.

First, the wings were bigger than most of the wings we've picked up at the local pizza joints and were right out of the oven (or deep fryer, whatever?). The buffalo were super tangy and spicy and the honey mustard were sweet and sassy. Both wings were some of the best I've had in town; I may have eaten some of the bone just to get some more of the flavor.

But, hands down, the White Pizza was the best I've had in years, if not ever. It was made with olive oil, mozzarella, basil and tomato slices. It was a standard bakery crust but mmmmmmm, that was the best pizza I've had. I mentioned to Constance that we'll have to actually order an entire White Pizza from Calamari's and take home some night. Clearly, the pizza and wings from Calamari's tonight was an easy 8 out of 8 slices; sad thing was that we didn't get a chance to sneak some home for Saturday morning breakfast.

CONSTANCE: ROAD TRIP! EriePizzaAndWings goes on the road to a retirement part at Calamari's! Mathias forgot to mention that Elvis was in the house and his performance was amazing! I am typically not a fan of honey mustard wings, but to echo Mathias's review, they were finger licking good. I'd give Calamari's an 8 out of 8 slice review too. I am just missing Saturday a.m. leftovers!

Not sure what next week holds, but we'll have all week to think about it and discover something new! We're always watching for coupons and deals of the day. See you next week ... bueno mangiare (let's hope the Google English to Italian translations are accurate with this one!).

Za ... Our Pizza Plan "B": Little Anthony's Pizza

CONSTANCE:
My personal theory on life is that Plan "A" rarely works out so to anticipate, be prepared and be flexible; that way your Plan "B" can work out even better than Plan "A" ever could have been ... and so it was last night with our pizza and wing blog.

Plan "A" will be revisited another Friday, but just wasn't in the cards yesterday. Quality Markets on 38th and Liberty has a hidden talent - in the deli, they make the best buffalo chicken pizzas. They really do, and we looked forward to having one all day. When Mathias went up to order in person, the deli pizza maker was on break and no one was available to make our pizza for at least 15 minutes. More than we wanted to wait. Highly disappointing for a Friday night about 7 p.m. Poor planning on their part. But this isn't intended as a dis, just to illustrate the sequence of events leading up to our Plan "B".

Like the gargoyle in last week's blog, how many times have you or I driven past Little Anthony's Pizza at 22nd and Liberty? Exactly! So, no flyers or coupons in hand, we looked up their phone number the old school way - in the phone book. One of the biggest things we've learned about our pizza and wing adventure is to always ask about specials when calling in. Many are unadvertised, and the savings can add up, especially when you're doing this weekly for an entire year!

So the special was a large pepperoni pizza with 25 wings. Mathias wasn't too crazy about just pepperoni. We got spoiled after the cappicola last week! So his idea was to add tomatoes to it when we got it home.

My turn to pick the wings. Cajun dry ... mmm!!

The wait time was only about 15 minutes during a peak Friday night. Convenient location. Price point under $20 and hot-n-ready in the door at home. I had a knee procedure done yesterday, so actually Mathias did the errand without me riding shotgun last night. I was on the couch waiting to watch "High School Reunion" and had a heating pad on my knee instead!



The crust wasn't hand tossed and it was pepperoni and not "our pick" for the topping, so the wings scored higher for me. Wow, they were meaty and flavor-packed to make a Cajun proud. I'd average my rating at 5.5 out of 8, due to the crust. Mathias thought the crust needed to be cooked more. It was better for breakfast I'd say ... yep I just devoured three pieces.



And the title of this blog is in honor of "Za" being added to the Scrabble dictionary this week ... short for pizza of course! And worth a lot of points!

The 411:
Little Anthony's Pizza
2204 Liberty Street
459-2110

P.S. What's up with the Homecoming Queen's secret anyways ... Mathias and I each have our spoiler thoughts on that. Does anyone else watch?

Alfee's Pizza and Wings and a Winged Gargolye too!

CONSTANCE: Gotta love the marketing of the family pizza place ... nothing better than a good old fashioned flyer placed on the porch. Seriously, that's what cinched the deal to go to Alfee's last Friday. The menu was pretty expansive. My turn to pick the pizza topping, and I picked cappicola. I wasn't sure what that was exactly, so Googled it before ordering (1). None of the other pizza establishments offered it so far.

Matt picked Cajun wings. And the wings came with Ranch dip and carrots and celery - no extra cost - how customer friendly is that?

The ambiance of Alfee's was pretty old school with an actual pinball machine. Mathias can tell you more about that. And post the pictures too when he adds to the blog.

And one of most memorable things to me was discovering a gargoyle on the way there. I got interested in gargoyles and grotesques about two years ago. And sometimes we'll just go on drives to take photos and have a gargoyle hunt. So the shocking thing was that this gargoyle was right on West 29th Street. On the way to my doctor's and dentist's office, my route to the East Side ... I've driven past it zillions of times and never noticed it before until Alfee's Pizza night when Mathias called it to my attention. The photo from my Blackberry got posted to my FaceBook page, but didn't import here. So I'll take it with the digital camera and post later. It's a huge one with lots of character. If you're like me you associate things in packages, so Alfee's will always be referred to as "remember the time we went to Alfee's and saw the gargoyle?"

Back to the pizza and wings though. We asked about specials when calling in our order, and like most places, got a large one-item pizza and 25 wings for the "expected $20" including tax. The crust was my favorite part and hand tossed. The wings were wet, but not too wet and very flavorful. Mathias said his favorite so far!! And my rating ... I'd say a 7 our of 8 slices.

The 411:

Alfee's Pizza Subs Wings
3001 Glenwood Park Ave.
866.6671

Another cool thing happened this week too. When we had eaten at My Dad's Pizza, Mathias entered my name to win a free pizza, and I won! So Tuesday night was bonus pizza night and we redeemed the free pizza. A new topping was tried - meatball ... and it was very delicious too.

Since we're blogging now for two weeks, I can tell you that Little Anthony's Pizza was our find last night. And I'm eating leftover pizza as I write to get in the spirit. You're invited to share a cup of vanilla-flavored coffee with me and read on ...


(1) Capicola, or coppa, is a traditional Neapolitan Italian cold cut (salume) made from pork shoulder or neck and dry-cured whole. The name coppa is Italian for nape, while capicola comes from capo—head and collo—neck of a pig. The Neapolitan Italian spelling, "'Capocollo'", is dervied from Latin, "caput collum". It is similar to the more widely known cured ham, Prosciutto, because they are both pork-derived cold-cuts that are used in similar dishes. However, the technical definition of ham is the thigh and buttocks of a pig (or boar) slaughtered for meat, whereas Capicola is solely meat from the shoulder or neck.

Lucky Man's Restaurant - How Apropos!

CONSTANCE: Some days you are the windshield and some days you are the bug. Well, yesterday, I was the windshield. Everything was great all day long. The highlights? I won a free pizza from the business card drawing at My Dad's Pizza - a large 1 item pizza ... it's a major award, can you say "Fragile!?" (Hope A Christmas Story fans will get my drift!) And on the ride home from work, I got every single green light. That never happens. I got a lot done at work too, and a challenging situation resolved itself in a way that was even better than I hoped for. And a whole weekend with Mathias and the critters without obligations - how lucky is that??

Earlier in the week, my friend and hair stylist guru Dawna (product placement inserted here to thank her for the great color and style ... she used Yo.Color on my hair, yep, hair coloring with yogurt - Studio Hue and Dawna rock!!) had suggested Lucky Man's Restaurant as our weekly blog spot. She loves the butter and garlic wings or mild. I got intrigued with PJ's flavor. Can't get that one just anywhere. So Mathias asked about it when placing our order with Mr. Lucky Man, and it was all my favorite things combo-ed into one convenient flavor. Cajun, Buffalo, Ranch ... kinda on the sweet side. And wet. My choice was an easy one.

Mathias got to pick the pizza topping this week. Guess what he picked? Guess? Sliced tomatoes! Really! I never thought about the tomato as a pizza topping, and it worked really well. For our Saturday a.m. leftovers, he always heats up the slices while I love em cold. Not today, the tomatoes heated up to him sounded creepy, so he devoured the cold slices with me! There were no wings left over - that says something! Something good!!

Mathias said that Lucky Man's is his favorite yet. You can see the problem we're getting ourselves into. Each week is the best until next week.

There was a fantastic coupon online and with tax, $19.03 for a large one topping (hand tossed dough) and 25 wings. Mr. Lucky Man was so nice too. He gave us back a whole dollar in change from our $20 and he said we could save the coupon and use it again.

The 411:

Lucky Man's Restaurant
3651 West 12th Street
464.9194
LuckyMansPizzeria.com

My rating? I'd say an 8 out of 8 ... an overall great experience to wrap up my lucky day. On time, nice people, to die for crust and the best wing sauce I think I've ever had. And remember, I'm from Sharon, home of original Quaker Steak & Lube!

I think that we're going to try Alfee's next Friday. Got a menu and coupon on the front porch yesterday. And a blog reader suggested Sport's Page. Plus Carini's in Waterford and Eli's ... we have a lot in the cue and are excited to discover some new favorites, but then again, we have 10 months to go! Thanks for reading and here's hoping you have a windshield kind of day!