Pineapple Express: Someone Is Wrong on the Internet?


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Max Miller's latest episode of "Tasting History" is relevant to this thread.

Alice Mae Redmond may be my previously unknown pizza angel. While most of the pizza I’ve eaten in my life is more closely related to NY style by sheer force of availability, I personally prefer a thick crust. And the description of her modifications ring a bell.

The unfortunate truth is that I cannot remember WHERE I had my favorite thick crust pizzas as a kid. I didn’t get to try an Uno until one opened near adult me in the 1990s, and it’s long since closed. And Geno’s East opened a location near me maybe 10 years ago, but I’ve never been.

Whichever pizzeria made it, the crust was quite thick- at least an inch. There was a decadent buttery (or olive oil) taste to it, and where there was no sauce, you could see it was a beautiful golden brown, like a biscuit. Alice Mae Redmond’s influence, perhaps? The sauce had soaked partly into the top. And it was generously topped with mozzarella and pepperoni.

Beyond that, when my Mom was making pizzas when we lived in Germany, the spirit of Alice Mae Redmond may have been guiding her. In mid-70s Stuttgart, pizza was simply not available except when the American military base facilities decided to have pizza night, and Mom’s not a baker. So she improvised by making her crust from those Pillsbury canned biscuits. Again, her crusts were buttery and golden, with a slightly soaked transitional layer.

Might have to try making biscuit pizzas again…
 

There's definitely no one being called out or shamed for their setting preferences in their home game. Not one bit of judgment. No sir.
 


I'll add that if you've ever had super cheap, cafeteria style, overcooked, badly prepared, sauce-less lobster, it's really easy to see why he prisoners hated it. Lots of gourmet food can be terrible without the proper prep.
Beyond that, eating the same thing repeatedly can also wear out its culinary welcome.

My freshman year of college, I didn’t have a car, and my campus wasn’t close to a grocery store, so grocery trips were rare. And THAT year, most of the food service locations were closed for renovation, except the main cafeteria which closed at 7PM.

So my parents bought me institutional sized jars of peanut butter and grape jelly. I missed a lot of closing times, so I ate a LOT of PB & J sandwiches. By the end of that year, I couldn’t stand grape jelly- I haven’t had any since 1987.
 

Is that 12 feet or 12 yards?



I have a story about this. For most of my life I have lived on or about the old poverty line. One of my go-to cooking options was lamb shank.* Cheap and tasty, especially when slow cooked. I went and lived overseas for a few years. When I came back lamb shank had gone from being a cheap, almost throwaway cut, to trendy and expensive.

There I was just back from living OS, unemployed and broke, finding I couldn't even afford to cook a lamb stew. I was, to put it mildly, miffed.



*This was a while back, I don't eat much meat any more.
I have a similar story about clothing. My parents split when I was in high school and my father was a deadbeat. There were several years where we barely kept a roof over ourselves and there were times I literally couldn't go outside, because all the clothes I owned were in the wash. I found that I could afford a fair bit of stuff from army surplus stores, as ex military pants, shirts, and jackets could be had for a couple of bucks each. Of course i took flak about it from the "Cool Kids"(R) at school, but I was OK with it.

Then, the next year, guess who were all wearing what they had been giving me grief over. Prices went way up. I was priced out.
 

Lots of gourmet food can be terrible without the proper prep.

Well, it isn't like there's some list somewhere of foods that are intrinsically "gourmet" and only fail if you don't prepare them correctly. Most foods can be awesome if you figure out how to deal with them.
 

Well, it isn't like there's some list somewhere of foods that are intrinsically "gourmet" and only fail if you don't prepare them correctly. Most foods can be awesome if you figure out how to deal with them.

Does that include pineapple pizza with bbq sauce?
 

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