Don’t Give A Damn Pizza

Don’t Give A Damn Pizza

Do you have rules for breakfast?  You know what I’m talking about.  Those mental roadblocks.  Can’t eat this, can’t eat that, would never eat THAT for breakfast.  Here are some of the common items that it’s ok for rule followers to eat when they break the fast.

Eggs, bacon, sausage, toast, biscuits, grits, muffins, pastry, cereal, pancakes, waffles, and some infrequently breakfast items, such as steak.  Now I’ve been a pal about furnishing my three faithful readers most of what you need to follow the rules:

https://stroudallover.blogspot.com/2014/09/gluten-free-biscuit-muffin-whatever.html

https://stroudallover.blogspot.com/2012/01/mastering-ubiquitous-biscuit.html

https://stroudallover.blogspot.com/2020/04/crumpets-and-english-muffins.html

https://stroudallover.blogspot.com/2017/02/heavenly-sausage-and-eggs.html

https://stroudallover.blogspot.com/2013/11/a-bloody-good-bloody-mary-sunday.html

https://stroudallover.blogspot.com/2012/04/full-english-breakfast-tradition.html

And I’m sure there are others for you inveterate followers of rules.

But, I just don’t have any breakfast rules.  So today, when I awoke and wanted pizza, I thought nothing of it until I discovered I was fresh out of yeast for one thing, for another, I didn’t want to spend a couple of hours waiting for the dough to rise!  I wanted pizza right now, in a minute.

Can’t be done, you say, unless of course you have cold pizza left over from the night before. Balderdash!  

Right away I found a recipe for no yeast pizza.  Of course, I modified it because I modify every recipe. Using baking powder instead of yeast, you cut the time for making the crust down to fifteen minutes or less.

Once again the rule makers will say, if you don’t have a yeast-fueled, rising dough, you don’t have a pizza!  And even if you do, you sure as hell don’t want to eat it for breakfast!  Ho, hum.  Heard it all before.

Give this recipe a try.  You know you’ve got fifteen minutes to spare.  Oh, you don’t have any pizza sauce?  Out of the goodness of my heart, I’ll give you a five-minute recipe for that, too.  No mozzarella?  Well, use another cheese!!!

Don’t Give A Damn Pizza

2.5 Cups flour

3 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

2 sloshes olive oil

¾ Cups water + 2 Tablespoons, if needed

Pizza sauce (see below)

Fresh herbs, or Italian seasoning

Pepperoni or sausage or whatever you want

Oven preheated to 400ºF or 200ºC

For the crust:  mix the dry ingredients, then add the water and olive oil and mix.  Add a bit more water if necessary, but be stingy with the water or you’ll end up with soggy goop instead of dough.  Too soggy?  Add a bit more flour.

Knead the dough a few turns until it’s elastic.

Roll the dough fairly thin and place it on a greased cookie sheet.  Crimp the edges a bit to form a crust.

Simple pizza sauce:

1 Can diced tomatoes, juice included

4 Cloves garlic, sliced thinly

About 6 oz tomato paste

Italian seasonings to taste. I used a couple of tablespoons

Put all in a blender or food processor and blend.

Voilà!

Put the pizza together:

Spread a thin layer of pizza sauce on the prepared dough.  Add cheese and pepperoni and fresh herbs if you have some.  I didn’t!

Pop the decorated pizza in the oven for about 12-15 minutes.

I still hear the undertone of complaints.  Not a real pizza.  Won’t taste good.  You’re not Italian.  Blah. Blah. Blah.  What you don’t understand is, I wanted pizza for breakfast and I wanted it fast! Furthermore, I just don’t give a Damn!

Naples and the Best Pizza Ever!

                            Naples and the Best Pizza Ever!

When you wander the streets of Naples, you never know what’s going to turn up.  Not saying you should take a pass on such historic sites, as Pompeii and Herculaneum.  And as all three of my faithful readers know, I’ve written about both. 

https://stroudallover.blogspot.com/2015/07/pompeii-swallowed-by-gaping-mouth-of.html

https://stroudallover.blogspot.com/2019/09/back-couple-of-thousand-years.html

BUT, neither should you neglect a stroll through both the wide avenues and narrow alleys.   On a recent trip, we stopped for a gelato in Naples’s famous Galleria, a palace of a place in the heart of the shopping area. 

Not quite true.  I had a gelato.  My companion had a chocolate martini.   There-in lies one of the glories of Europe.  Sit down at a wonderful gelato parlor and sip a chocolate martini and nobody bats an eye nor offers a discouraging glance.  Europeans view alcoholic beverages as savory delights to make the afternoon sparkle.  Americans often view them as a shameful participation in a mind-altering dance with Satan and all his henchmen.

In fact, Americans tend to be more guilt-ridden in general.  But, we were in Italy, so sinfulness took to the wing and bothered us not at all, while I gobbled gelato and my companion cheerfully sipped her delightful gift from the twin gods of chocolate and alcohol.

After that it was more strolling and a bit of shopping and staring at the artistic and architectural features of this grand city.

By mid afternoon, hunger raged within us.  We left the major areas and turned down a narrow street filled with neighborhood shops of every sort.  Hardware shops with windows filled with power tools, and electrical shops that had flashing light bulbs, and household shops packed with brooms and buckets spilling out onto the street. We were no longer in downtown Tourist-ville.

As we walked uphill, a very thin man approached us sporting old shorts, a loose shirt, a straw teardown hat, a five-day stubble, and carrying a menu.  He suggested vociferously that we eat at his friend’s restaurant.  Well, why not?  So we followed him up a block and turned a corner onto an even narrower street.  On the corner was a tiny place, with three tables on a fenced-in porch.  We were barely separated from the well-worn and well-traveled street.

The thin man disappeared and a waiter suddenly appeared.  His name was Vincenzo, which was a good start.   So Italian!  V stood about five feet tall, had a beautiful smile and welcomed us in perfect English.

“So, Vincenzo, where did you learn to speak English?”

“I lived in Miami for six years.”  Immediately followed by,  “May I offer you a little something to start and perhaps a bottle of wine?”

Knowing nothing about native Neapolitan wines, we went with Vincenzo’s suggestion.  First sip of this white wine made me think I’d made an error. Then the appetizer arrived, small plates of pasta, dressed simply with chips of roasted tomato and bits of garlic.  Delicious!  And what was more, the wine was a perfect accompaniment!

What would we think about some fresh sardines?  Hey, bring ‘em on!  V walked the five paces across the street to the neighborhood fishmonger’s.  From our table we watched the fresh catch transfer from fishmonger to Vincenzo.  

Within ten minutes we had freshly fried sardines in front of us, with a simple pizza margarita and more pasta on the way.  If you haven’t tried them, freshly fried sardines, with a squeeze of ripe lemon are crunchily delicious. You eat them head and bones included.

As soon as we’d finished, Vincenzo arrived almost immediately with the rest of our meal.  The pasta was similar to the appetizer and also just as delicious.  BUT, the pizza was the star of the show!  Naples is known as the home of pizza, so we expected a very good pie, but this was better than good…far better, with only four ingredients on top of the crispy edged crust…. fresh tomato sauce, cheese, basil leaves and a light olive oil.  Simple is often best and it was the best pizza either of us had ever tasted.  No other pizza, before or after has come close to the delicacy Vincenzo brought us.

For one thing, fresh ingredients are always better and with fresh tomatoes, there’s no need to add dried herbs, or garlic, or anything else.  For another thing, only a stone oven, with the pizza in the middle, surrounded by a hot wood fire, brings out the best of a hand made crust.  By design, the dough is baked unevenly, just barely done in the center, but charred on the edges.  You simply cannot duplicate this in a conventional oven any more than you can duplicate pit barbeque without the pit.

Some months later, I still think about that pizza with reverence and passion. 

So, I hope you’ve learned my lesson:  Walk the back streets, listen to the thin man in shorts, and when the Italian waiter selects your wine, go with it!  And, if you’re in Naples, don’t be afraid to sip a chocolate martini for breakfast and later stop in at a tiny restaurant that serves pizza!

Da Gino - Indulge Your Inner Italian

Unimposing outside, delicious inside

I gotta admit, I’m not a huge fan of Italian food in Germany.  Much of it is trite and that’s being kind.  Like scoping out the women at Happy Hour, you really have to pick and choose.  A bad one will spoil your evening and maybe your weekend.

More years ago than I care to admit, I lived in a different Germany.  Italian restaurants were few, but they were good.  In my estimation, proliferation lowered the standards.  Fortunately, the better ones are fairly easy to spot.  Parking lots are full.  In good weather, umbrella topped tables spill out onto the sidewalks and plazas.  A dead giveaway:  you hear a lot of Italian spoken, and if you’re aurally challenged, you can go by the waving hands and arms, synchronized with the moving lips.

There are exceptions to the general rules.  I found one traveling through Landstuhl, on the way to Kinsbach.

At first glance Da Gino’s is unimposing.  No outside seating.  Looks almost industrial.  You could drive right by, and I did, until some friends let me in on the secret:  Gino runs a special place.  Busy, yet intimate.  Tasteful décor.  A stone oven.  A very happy bar.  Food that dances on your taste buds.   An atmosphere that begs for a leisurely meal and warm conversation.  Invite several friends.  Bring your loved one, or your wife.

Décor, etc can be perfect, but still the main thing is the food.  The second is a good wine.  Da Gino has got ‘em both.  I’ve sucked down the red and white house wines.  Friends have tried the rosé.  All memorable.

Bread straight from the stone oven!

Pizzas from the stone oven look wonderful and the aroma of fresh tomatoes and melted cheese follows them to your table.  Haven’t eaten one, but the crusty pizza bread Gino serves is so tasty you have to stop yourself.   The gnocchi also looks and smells delicious.

Gnocchi

The star of the show!

For me, however, the star of the show is the seafood salad.  Yes, the seafood on the salad is fried, but don’t let that stop you.  Gently fried.  Very lightly breaded, the salmon and white fish filets are tender, not dry, and the calamari are crisp on the outside and not chewy.  Shrimp?  Oh, my goodness.  Large.  Succulent. 

Wash it down with a soft Pinot Grigio, and end the meal with a dessert, if you dare, or perhaps a snifter of Grappa.   Bellissimo!

Been there twice.  Will go again. No arm twisting required.  The perfect place for a bevy of friends to chat, drink, and bolster their Italian appetites.

Buon Appetito!

Kaiserstrasse 79, 66849 Landstuhl, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany

+49 6371/914441

Gino at work.

The wonderful stone oven.

A glass for every type of thirst.

Epiphany At An Italian Wine Fest – In GERMANY!

Be sure to scroll down for more delicious photos!

Every day of the year, the moderately sized town of Homburg Saar is hopping.  Markets, fests, rock n roll on Friday nights, jazz on Saturdays, and giant town square TV screens blaring all the big sporting events.  The town government knows that the key to keeping merchants happy and the money flowing is to lure shoppers, music lovers, wine addicts, sports enthusiasts, and the tired and hungry into the town center.  The lures are many. I’ve barely scratched the surface.  Old, classic car clubs hold rallies here.  Motorcycle clubs, too.  There’s a tiny cheese shop on a side street that surpasses most big food chains.  There’s Chili Coffee that breaks out on the old market square and serves as a local hangout and superb meeting point.  Restaurants?  Homburg’s got ‘ a profusion, and especially of the Italian variety, but also fish, Spanish, brew-pubs, Chinese, Asian fusion, etc.

The town’s many Italian restaurants sponsor an Italian Fest each year.  And, suddenly the new market square comes alive with long, red and white tents, a raised stage the size of most high school gyms, beer stands, balloon sellers, and the tantalizing aromas of basil, garlic, and fresh, stone-oven pizza.  The long tents are dotted with attractive stand-up tables and the walls lined with restaurant booths serving your Italian favorites, your Italian new favorites, and an almost bewildering array of wine by the glass, bottle, and case.  You’ll see shrimp as big as bananas, desserts that stagger your taste buds’ imagination, and pasta tossed in huge rounds of Parmesan that will make you long for a bigger stomach.  Hey, you DO have a bigger stomach!  Diet starts tomorrow.  Meanwhile, slosh down some more wine!  Order up!  The fest sprawls out onto side streets and down alleys.

The photos show a sparse crowd.  That’s because I crept into the new market square mid-morning.  In the evenings of this weeklong event, it’s shoulder to shoulder.  But, as always, the crowds are friendly and forgiving of shoulder bumping, hip bumping, and light toe stepping.  They draw the line at groping and fondling.  Wine spilling lingers in that gray area.

We watched some magnificent opera one evening.  The orchestra was a big one, forty to fifty pieces, with a large string section.  Three singers, one woman and two men, took turns belting out the opera world’s favorite arias.  The crowd cheered, whistled and stamped its feet.  Although my knowledge of opera extends only to the brief, but poignant scenes from Cher and Nicolas Cage in ‘Moonstruck,’ after several flagons of wine, the Homburg highlights were some of the most beautiful and inspiring music I have ever heard.  I found my Italian surprisingly improved and I could even sing along, or at least keep the beat with my tongue.

On another day, I listened to some Italian pop music, and on the final morning, as you can see in the photo, an American Air Force combo provided some vintage rock n roll.

Not all the music reached the pinnacles of rapture and in brief moments I relearned a valuable lesson.  In the dark of evening, my buddy and I strolled onto the square, where on stage was an Italian pop band, with a male lead singer and a gorgeous dark haired beauty supplying the doo-wahs.  We ambled over.  I whispered to my buddy, “I want to get to know her and I want her to follow me home.”  As we got closer, this gorgeous creature opened her mouth and out came the most discordant sounds I’ve heard since the braying of my grandfather’s mule.  Even a wailing guitar couldn’t silence her and the drummer couldn’t beat it out of her.

My buddy asked if I were sure I wanted her to follow me home.  Visions of waking up and hearing the croaking of the Wicked Witch of the West flitted across my mind, along with waves of unmitigated nausea.  Then the band stopped playing and my former dream woman stepped off stage and walked by.  Stumbled by was more like it.  She had the grace of a freelance bull, hired to wreck china shops.  “Cancel that order, God! I really want to go home to my loving wife!”  Once again, my prayers were answered and a sinner was saved.

But, enough about me.  Although I do hate to change the subject.  Why so many Italian restaurants in a medium sized German town?  As a personal observation, between when I lived in Germany in the early 80s and now, there have been bursts of ethnic restaurants coming on the scene.  Nothing new with that.  I can remember in the U.S. when you had to go to Texas or points west to get Mexican food.  Now Chinese, Mexican, Thai, even Japanese are pervasive from the small town South to the Midwest and beyond.  Sushi is openly and without shame now a part of the average college food court.

Back to the Italians in Germany and around the world.  In the U.S. there are 18 million of Italian extraction, but countries of South America have even more.  Argentina citizenry is of predominately Italian background, with over 25 million, or about 55% of the population.  It’s the only country outside of Italy that is mostly Italian.  Brazil also has about 25 million people with Italian DNA.  The list goes on and on.  As a matter of fact, there are about 130 million folks of Italian lineage on earth.  Only 60 and a half million of them live in Italy.

Germany has about 700,000 people of Italian ancestry and Switzerland has 800,000.  With the advent of the European Union, of which Switzerland is not a part, people are free to migrate and work wherever they wish, within the Union. Germany and Switzerland are both prosperous and don’t forget Switzerland is tri-lingual, and Italian is one of those languages.

People don’t migrate to less prosperity and Germany’s standard of living is high.  Drive from Germany into France, or Spain, or Italy and you’ll rapidly get a visual on ‘lower standard of living.’  Doesn’t mean any of those places are bad places to live, they’re just not great places if you’re starting a business and looking for patrons who are wealthy enough to help you grow.  Germans have money.  They spend it.

Those are generalizations.  Specifics?  Germans who live in and near Homburg have money.  They spend it.  Lots of Italian restaurants and one of the very best ethnic fests around is the weeklong Italian Fest in Homburg. Mark your calendar for next year, and just remember that not everyone on stage is cute or can sing.  I shudder.