Since I’ve been married, TLW (The Little Woman) has asked for pizza on Friday nights. This is because she hates to cook and Friday night would be her night off as a mom and housewife. Traveling home from the railroad every night, left me in no mood to want to cook, even though I love to.
Then when I retired, she went to work and the tradition stayed, and we have evolved into a more sophisticated patron of pizza, choosing a particular type, called the Grandma Pie. I happen to like this type because it is made with plum tomatoes, basil and garlic, and all the ingredients are fresh.
In our quest for pizza happiness two things happened along the way that had a profound effect on my enjoyment of the Friday night ritual. One was finding the Grandma pie by accident, and two ‘Rosie’.
The accident happened one Friday when Albert’s Pizzeria happened to deliver the wrong pizza to my door. Not knowing what TLW had ordered, I took the pizza and paid for it. It was not my usual square pie, but it looked interesting. Its soft melted cheese seemed to claim all the unoccupied landscape that did have the glistening plum tomatoes, fresh basil and garlic. The smell and look of things reminded me of when Mom or Dad made homemade pizza when I was a kid. Taking one bite and I knew two things: one they weren’t getting this pizza back and two, this was the new Friday night routine! As sure as I’m a holy man… as sure as I’m a religious man… ok, but I do go to church every Sunday… a lot of Sundays, the delivery guy came back with the correct order, saw it was too late, so he gave us the pie we had ordered for free! Boy, what a night!
So we started to call every Friday night and this wonderfully friendly lady would answer:
“Albert’s, pick up or delivery?”
“Pick up, I’ll have the Grandma Pie! The name is Del.”
“Can I get you anything else?”
“That’s it.”
“That will be 25 minutes, Mr.Del.”
And so every Friday night:
“Albert’s, pick up or delivery?”
“Pick up, I’ll have the Grandma Pie! The name is Del.”
“Can I get you anything else?”
“That’s it.”
“That will be 25 minutes, Mr.Del.”
Then the conversation changed.
“Albert’s, pick up or delivery?”
“Pick up, I’ll have the Grandma Pie!”
“This you Mr. Del? How are you? Can I get you anything else?”
“That’s it Rosie.” We had introduced ourselves formerly one Friday.
“That will be 25 minutes, Mr.Del.”
Before you knew it, the Grandma pie was synonymous with Mr. Del.
Then one Friday I called in and a tiny little girl’s voice answered, it wasn’t Rosie! No longer was there that assurances that my pizza would be there for me, that they would even have the correct order! It was a cold and disappointing feeling, knowing that Rosie was no longer there, that this stranger was taking my order! Why it felt like I was kissing my sister. The warmth that accompanied my pizza on Friday nights with Rosie’s reassuring voice was no more. This pain of separation lasted for too long, and I was eating just ‘pizza’.
Then one Friday I called in.
“Albert’s, pick up or delivery?”
“Pick up, I’ll have the Grandma Pie!” The voice had changed! Could it be?
“You mean the pie with the fresh basil, plum tomatoes and garlic?”
“That’s it.”
“Is this Mr. Del!”
“ROSIE! You’re back. How great is that!”
“That will be 25 minutes, Mr.Del.”
That night, the world seemed right again, that night pizza had warmth, and taste, and damn it was good!
2 comments:
You better cut the pizza in four pieces because I'm not hungry enough to eat six.
Yogi Berra
When Meg and I lived in Levittown (PA) there was a pizza place next to our local watering hole called Pizza Star. It was our favorite. We used to get some slices before we headed next door to meet up with friends etc. We got to know the owner, Sal, pretty well. He was an older guy, Italian, had the accent going on.
After leaving one night we popped in to get a pie to bring home. Of course, I needed a slice while we waited so I was eye balling a unique, square looking slice that was in the window. He said it was called Grandma pie. It had all the ingredients you described. He was always such a nice guy and he ended up giving me the slice for free since it was the end of the night. It was fantastic! Meg started talking to him and we found out that he moved from Holbrook where he used to have another shop in that area. He also said he was moving back soon (this was all around 7 or so years ago)
We ended up getting that pie on a regular basis until he moved back to Holbrook. Maybe one has nothing to do with the other, but who knows? We both miss Sal's masterpiece a ton.
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