TGIF!

Yes, I am thanking God it is Friday. Why? Because I don’t have to cook, that’s why. Every night except Sunday and Friday I cook dinner. I have no idea what I will cook or how I will make it. Of course, I need to complicate what I make so that I stay somewhat creative. I push recipes one way or another, fuse ideas and even say to Hell with it, I’ll try doing something different.

Sometimes my creations come from the Internet on how to make something that I have not all the ingredients for, so I improvise and get some great results.

Cooking is a challenge and sometimes it requires patience and foresight. Every morning I ask TLW (The Little Woman) what she would like for dinner and get a dismissive answer to the effect that I should make whatever I like. I learned early on that the Italians have no recipes, they have traditions that make Italy the capital of culinary greatness. So what I have on hand becomes my ‘pallet’ for a creation yet will go to the old standbys on will from the time-tested recipes handed down through the generations.

I go into the freezer and search around among the many saved creations of the past, through the raw meat and fish that hide among the frozen vegetables and try not to repeat something I may have made only days before, after all, variety is the spice of life except for according to my wife women.

But on Fridays my day of rest, we order pizza, covered with half sausage and half-covered with Pepperoni. A bottle of beer and a good mystery and we are set for Friday evenings at supper in front of our TV, how cozy is that?

Like most Italian Americans, Friday pizza has been a long-standing tradition during my life. It started when Friday was a no meat day in the Catholic Church and Mom would make fish every other Friday and Pizza on the others. Sometimes she made it and sometimes we bought it, going down to the corner bar where you could order it. I would go with Dad and loved to enter the bar with its smell of hops and leave with a great smelling pizza.

When I married TLW (The Little Woman) never cooked on Fridays, taking the nights off.

The kids loved it and so did Mom and Dad. Often Dad would arrive with Mom for Friday night dinner and decided if the pie was to his liking. Being how he grew up in a pizzeria and learned how to make pies. Critical to the making of the pie was that the bottom was cooked right, the crust was crispy and the sauce above all was perfect. We found only two pizzerias that Dad approved and so we stayed with them.

The pizza fix is also a TLW tradition started about 47 years ago when she was home with the kids and to reward herself for not killing me for going to work while she stayed home to cook, clean and take care of two small children all week, ordering pizza on Friday nights as her reward.

Now that I am old and deteriorating, the only thing keeping me alive is Friday night pizza. Not unlike the Friday Night Fights on the old Dumont Television network on Channel 5, pizza is always the main event.

But if you wanted a real pizza, created by the Master herself then you went to Grandma Frances, got down on your knees and begged that she make you a pie. Grandma Frances had an imperfect way to make her pies. They weren’t round they were odd-shaped as she created them with a certain flair, a flinging of the cheese and the deployment of her sauce with fresh plum tomatoes, homemade mozzarella cheese and fresh basil, the little chips of garlic calling out my name.