Sicilian

When I was growing up, there were two choices of pizza at the local places. Plain, flat pizza, cut into triangles, and Sicilian, cut into thick squares. When you 'wanted a slice', you got the first kind, but if you were really hungry, you either got two or three of the first, or you got a Sicilian. Rare was the person who could eat more than one Sicilian slice. Having a Sicilian was almost a meal in itself.

Over the years, I forgot about Sicilians. I encountered variations of the plain, flat pizza -- most notably, the pineapple and pepperoni's that we got at Magpie's, in Tucson, or the thick pizza at Pizzeria Uno (of Chicago origin, but found elsewhere), or the pizza at places like Bertucci's, near Fanueil Hall in Boston. All were good. Lots of bad ones, too -- for some reason, people seem to think that throwing sauce on dough automatically makes a decent pizza; even around here, where the pizza pickings are slim, its obvious who those places are. Not so obvious why they're still in business. But no Sicilian.

The other night, we had a Sicilian.

We were out for some reason, and thought we might as well eat at a restaurant. Heading for one, my wife mentioned that we would be passing the site where a car wash event will be held. "It's at that restaurant across from the Dairy Queen, near the post office", she said, but I couldn't bring one to mind. Slowing to look at it, I realized I had seen this place before, but never gone in. But it was a 'ristorante', which usually means 'pizza and some spaghetti', so we went. And, seeing Sicilian on the menu, I thought 'what the hell. Bring back my childhood'.

Whereupon they delivered a Sicilian pie to us of eight slices, each about three times the size of the ones from my youth. It was pretty good, but, even being hungry, and pausing, we couldn't eat more than about a quarter of it. No way would we abandon this masterpiece, though. We boxed up the rest and brought it home. It now resides in the downstairs freezer, where the box is so big, it dominates a shelf.

Sicilian. Good stuff. Even if, as it turns out, my daughter doesn't like it because it's not like the ones we get at Grandma's house.