It has been a rough several days, and I have felt burned out after the ordeal of writing and editing my long abortion post, but I think it is time to begin blogging again. I have more photos of local flowers to share, but first, a culinary experiment.
I have a friend who insisted one of the worst foods ever devised by mankind is something called "Altoona-Style Pizza." I was told I should never try it. This piqued my curiosity. I am naturally contrarian like that. However, I also live on the wrong coast to try anything even tangentially related to Pennsylvania. My only option was attempting to make it myself. I do not claim perfect accuracy, but I hope this is a moderately-successful imitation.
According to Wikipedia, I need a thick and chewy Sicilian-style crust, tomato sauce, green bell pepper circles, salami, and American cheese. I made my usual crust, used some store-bought pasta sauce, stacked some sopressata salami, cut my bell pepper into smaller pieces due to the small pan I used in this experiment, and topped it with Daiya "cheeze" slices.
I am definitely not following the instructions to a T, but this is what I can get, and this is what I can eat, so this is what I used.
Behold, the meticulous construction and the result after baking. This was extra dough left over from making a proper pizza violently pressed into a small rectangular stoneware pan.
Is it awful? No. Neither is it an undiscovered pizza game-changer. It is . . . OK, I guess. It was also doubtless hampered by my substitutions. I do not think I will make it again, but I also do not regret giving it a try. Besides, I was able to torment the friend who told me how terrible it is by sharing pictures along the way, and I will send him a link to this post, too. Mwahahahaha!
The first image is an edited meme, source unknown. The photos are mine.
