Your Opinion

Have you been consuming your weekly doses of pizza? Because I have not. It's been a long dry spell (about 6 weeks now!) and I'm beginning to have pizza withdrawals. 

I guess I can't say I've been 100% pizza free; there was one instance where the husband and I dropped into a pretty good smaller pizza chain in Las Vegas. Then another weekend spent drinking and carrying on with friends landed us in a fantastic little New York style pizza place in Hermosa Beach. And finally, I dabbled in a bit of the local Pizza Hut fare one delirious evening and instantly regretted it because that was by far one of the most disappointing pizza experiences I've had yet. 

I won't go on about those pizza endeavors, but I can say that I've missed making my own za in my own oven with my own pizza stone. The good news is that I will have all my pizza paraphernalia back in my possession by this weekend! My husband and I have been patiently waiting to move into our house and get our stuff out of storage (adios, living out of a suitcase!), and alas, the weekend has arrived during which we will be transitioning from temporary house to permanent home. And I will personally be transitioning from the pizza-withdrawl-shakes-syndrome to fat-kid-at-heart-gets-her-pizza-tools-back-and-dives-headfirst-into-mozzarella-and-dough-recovery. Praise the Lord! Sure, I'm looking forward to having a real address, decorating the house, and sleeping in my own bed again. But I must say, the weekly pizza binges are a thing that I value highly in my life, and now that I've started, I simply see no end to the tradition.

So, pizza eater. The wait has been long. But it is almost over. You've demanded pizza and I intend to provide it. So set aside a calorie allowance for some choice za, and stay tuned.

Isn't that just one witty little t-shirt? It brings a smile to my face. I found it on Jac Vanek but have no intentions of buying it. ($44 for a spool of cotton and some iron-on letters? Puh-lease. I could craft that up in 20 minutes for less than $5.) But hey, that's just my opinion. 

Farewell, My Fair South (Pizza)!

The first time I told someone in California that I am from "down south," they thought I was referring to southern California. Let it be known, I am from the southeastern part of the United States. Namely, I have lived in Georgia, Florida, and Mississippi. (Whether Florida is "the south" is arguable, but I'm going with it for the sake of the region I'm in currently.) Although I've traveled in many of the upper 48 as well as Hawaii and abroad, I have really only ever really known heat, humidity and the two seasons of the south. Needless to say, coming to California has been more of a climate shock than a culture shock.

Maybe I'm missing the south already, just a little bit? Maybe I didn't say my goodbyes thoroughly enough to the hot, damp air and southern hospitality I'm so used to? We'll see how I feel about the air come summertime, but for now, I'd like to pay a tribute to one last pizza; the last pizza I ate in the south before my departure, and a truly remarkable one at that.

Ladies and boys, I present to you, Antico Pizza.

Thought by some as one of "those" places that you have to eat at while in Atlanta, I'll admit, they serve up a great za worth trying.

Located on Hemphill near downtown, also known as one of the shadier areas of the city, and boasting a menu that at least half of which is written in Italian, be prepared for a cultural experience upon entering the vicinity of Antico.

Having never been there before, my husband and some friends and I took the advice of the employee working the cash register when it came to ordering some za. She seemed more fluent in Italian than English herself, so I'm not really sure what we ended up ordering. But I can say this - it smelled divine and tasted amazing.

I'm pretty positive that the pizza in the foreground of the above photo is the Margherita, and there's a good chance that the one in back is the San Gennaro. Both were excellent. I kept eating a slice from one then a slice from the other until I was just so stuffed that no more would fit into my pizza-loving belly.

You can tell by eating this za that the ingredients are truly remarkable. They are a far cry from your standard pizza place's cheese and crust. Just a simple bit of mozzarella is all that's needed to top a pizza and Antico really hit the nail on the head with that one. Not to mention the crust! Oh what mastery they've achieved in crust making. It's crispy but not cracker like. It's chewy but not doughy. It is baked to perfection and topped with ingredients that compliment it perfectly without overpowering it. If I could be a fly on the wall to observe the craft of dough making and crust baking, I would probably get swatted down and murdered, because that's what you do to flies. But I would like to know what foreign secrets are imposed on this dough!

Let's just say, the pizza bar has really been raised for me. Although I am 1/8 Italian, I don't expect that I can pull off an Antico-level pizza. However, I will certainly try to acquire fancier (yet budget-friendly) ingredients for pizzas that I make in the future (yep, I'm still not a millionaire). At the very least, I'm going to go for better mozzarella and fresher spices. And who knows…in two to five years I might even be making the sauce from scratch!

Oh what a joy. I want to get started already!

New Girl

This southern lady has been officially displaced! And my, what a journey. Seven days, 3 time zones, and over 2000 miles later, my husband and I are officially in California. 

I would have loved to make this a post about all the delightful pizzas I ate and exciting workouts I did along the way, but that simply did not happen. Between being on the road, visiting friends along the way, seeing the sights in cool cities, eating the other good foods those cities had to offer, and having to crash in hotels after hours of driving only to pick back up and do it again the next day, I was lucky to work out at all during the journey. 

I mean, let's be real here; the first stop was in New Orleans. For mealtime I was more in the mood for seafood than pizza; for cardio I was willing to count the couple of hours spent wandering around the French Quarter that evening as my workout. Sure, it's a little unconventional, but life on the road is not a typical thing for me, so as long as I promised myself to hit it hard in the gym once we got to the destination I knew that everything would be just fine. Without regular workouts I just don't feel like me.

So we've arrived and it's time to begin!

But first, I thought I'd just share with you a little of what I did manage to do while on the road. That's right - no gyms, no equipment, and at the mercy of mother nature. Spoiler alert: I did a whole lot of running.

New Orleans: I think we've covered that one thoroughly enough already.

Houston: 30 minute run around a golf course near a friend's apartment. What drew me to that run was a combination of things. First, the friend we stayed with is a real runner and hardcore athlete. Yes, she's one of those athletes that has medals hanging on her wall from all the races she's completed, most of them being half marathons, duatholons, or some other crazy long distance. Second, the trail around the golf course was a closed loop. Translation: I will not get lost! That's pretty key when going out for a run in a strange new place. It was hot and humid there, but nothing I haven't experienced in the south before. 

El Paso: 30 minute run around Fort Bliss. Unlike in Houston, I did not have a tour guide telling me where the best place was to go run. However, since this was an Army Post, I felt pretty sure that I would not run to the "bad part" of town by accident, and also, that I would be able to find my way back to the hotel afterwards. Success and success. It was a chilly morning run (got out before the sun came up!) and the climate was rather dry, but it felt refreshing to do that before hitting the road.

Las Vegas: 30 minute run around a friend's neighborhood. What's up with all these 30 minute runs? I don't know. But in this case, our friends lived in a small gated neighborhood in which the longest route was a loop that took me 6 and a half minutes to run. I ran the hell out of that loop until I reached 30 minutes and nearly complete boredom from literally running in circles. Afterwards I did about 10 minutes of core work inside (just some crunches, planks, and push-ups), and about 10 minutes of stretching. More cool, dry weather and it is drying out my sinuses and making me so thirsty for water! Adapting to the dryness is definitely the most noticeable adjustment I'll have to make being out west.

Alas, we have arrived in the high desert of California and perhaps more interesting than my first run were the gorgeous sights I witnessed while out on foot. Behold…

…and not a single filter was used on those photos! I don't need a hashtag to tell you that, and besides, filtering those natural sky blues would do them no justice!

Now let's be clear about these mountains. They are real mountains. Compared to my well-known rolling hills (which I'll admit, are by no means easy), when running in this area you're either going up a long hill for a long time or down a long hill for a long time. There is no in-between. Oh, and did I mention I am now at an elevation of nearly 2500 feet? It's no mile-high city, but I'll definitely need to acclimate. 

So run number one of many more to come went a little like this…

• I had no idea where I was going. I just followed the sidewalk and main roads.
• My it's windy here! Thank God I didn't get caught in a dust storm.
• 42 minutes total (longer than I originally thought I'd be running), and about a 9:11 pace (slower than I thought too, but hey, whatever).
• Totally exhausted and thirsty when I was done. The combination of a higher elevation and drier climate caught up with me later that night, but I slept like a log. That was lovely. Tomorrow: another mountain! 

Pizz-adventures

Well a weekend has passed and I just found myself too busy to make a pizza! It's kind of a sadness when a weekend goes by and I have not eaten the delightful combination of bread, tomato sauce, and cheese. But life goes on - I'm not starving. Hence I bring you, travels and pizza. After all, my own za making would be nothing if it were not for nearby pizzas that inspire me. 

• First, The Buffalo.

I probably would not have thought to make a buffalo chicken pizza on my own had it not been for The Bufflo at CJ's Pizza in Columbus, MS. This lovely za is covered in wing sauce, chicken, onions, crumbled bacon, cheddar cheese, and a spiral of ranch dressing. 

Not too shabby. 

Not to mention, CJ's was apparently voted "Best Pizza" for 3 consecutive years. I don't know who voted (I know that I didn't), but I would definitely say that CJ's does have the best pizza in town. Given of course, I live in a very small town (we're talking about a population of less than 30,000) and the only other pizza joints are Papa John's, Domino's and Pizza Hut. So not to say that they don't deserve that award, but I don't think anyone else could really compete with them. 

 

I do have to hand it to them - for a little pizza shop in a strip mall, they are a force to be reckoned with. Their large pizza is huge. Really, it could feed four hungry people and there would still be leftovers. And it's fresh. You can see back into the kitchen where they do all the prep and that dough is being tossed by hand. My other recommendations from their menu: the Pesto Gourmet (pesto sauce, ham artichoke hearts, onion, sun dried tomatoes and feta cheese) and the Chicken Florentina (ricotta cheese, chicken, spinach, mushrooms, fresh garlic and olive oil). The Rock & Roll is also a good, but that's something I would call "man food": pepperoni, onion, green pepper, jalapeños, ham, sausage, cheddar cheese, and crumbled bacon. 

Although the buffalo chicken pizza was tasty and satisfying during this particular eating adventure, it was just a bit greasy. In the past it has not been quite so greasy, so I will give them the benefit of the doubt and say that they may have just been a bit too heavy on the bacon this time around. Too heavy on the bacon? Impossible! You must think I'm insane for saying that. But yes, the bacon bits themselves were very large - more like small pieces of ham instead of tiny bits of bacon. But like I said, that was unusual for this place as we have ordered that pizza at least 6 times before and have never had it turn out that way.

• Second, Pizza Rustica.

You're probably looking at that picture and thinking, the heck is a salad doing on that pizza? Hear me out. That is arugula, which is a close sibling of our friend spinach, which is by no means uncommon on a pizza or any other dish for that matter. 

Yes, I know this pizza looks a little bit, well, different. But my goodness, once you tasted it you would not care if it looked like roadkill. 

This is from the restaurant La Famiglia which we visited while on vacation in Destin, FL earlier this year. This Italian restaurant serves more than just pizza, but since we hadn't filled our weekly pizza quota prior to this restaurant visit we just knew that za was what we were ordering. This one is topped with mozzarella and gorgonzola cheeses, tomatoes, ham, grilled chicken, and of course, arugula. What made this pizza so memorable was the crispy thin crust and the gorgonzola, which I never would have thought to use on a pizza as that is one cheese I've never really cooked with. And the fresh crunch of a little arugula on top was just the perfect thing to finish it out. 

Pizza lovers, gather round the table at La Famiglia when you have the chance. Our waiter that evening told us that the place was started up by three "very Italian" sisters. He didn't say they were somewhat Italian, or even half Italian. He said very. So it made sense that the food was so enjoyable...I guess those three really knew the cuisine of their motherland!