Deep Dish Pizza (Chicago and the Upper Midwest)

I just spent a glorious week in Chicago visiting research archives and taking long walks through the city.  The past few weeks in Oklahoma City have been a little warm, to say the least, and Chicago was unseasonably not warm, so I gave my flip flops a workout.  Chicago in the summer is truly a magical thing, and I got to enjoy the best things about the city, including a couple nights at the Palmer House Hilton, outdoor concerts in Millenium Park, battling obnoxious Cubs fan  in "F---n do me" shirts on the El train, and the fantastic pizza.  No trip to Chicago is complete, in my mind, without visiting one of the classic Chicago pizza joints.  I am impartial to Giordano's, but I also enjoy Lou Malnati's, Gino's and the wonderful, whole-in-the-wall pizza places that will deliver til 3:00 a.m.  I remember fondly when my husband and I were dating we would sometimes order a pizza at 1:30 a.m. while playing Trivial Pursuit.  My husband is unusually competitive at board games, so we couldn't interrupt heated games by leaving his studio apartment to pick up food.  So, we could trust our local places to send some creepy guy out to us at ungodly hours and hope we don't end up murdered, and even worse with no pizza.  

So, Chicago style pizza, the real kind and not the kind at places like BJ's or Old Chicago's or other restaurants masquerading as Chicago pizzerias, is best described as pizza made in a cake pan.  The beauty of this pizza is the layering of ingredients and the crust.  Real Chicago-style crust has a nice balanced flavor of flour and cornmeal to create a sweetness that helps offset the saltiness of the toppings and the tomato sauce.  After the crust is set in a well-seasoned cast iron pan, a layer of mozarella cheese is put right on top, helping to create a nice gooey layer in the pizza.  Then the toppings are put on top; the very best is spinach or the Lou Malnati's patented giant single patty of sausage.  I'm not kidding about the sausage.  When you order a sausage from the place, you are making a serious commitment.  Keep that in mind.  The pizza is then topped with an entire layer of tomato sauce with some herbs sprinkled on top to boost the flavor of the sauce.  This pizza is not for the dieter or the impatient.  In order to fully cook, the pizza takes a while longer than the "hot and ready" variety you may pick up at your local pizza chain.  Calm down, enjoy a lovely basket of fried cheese, fried zucchini or fried calamari, or maybe take a quick walk around the block because this is not a low fat dish.  The mixture of flavors is incredible; almost as lovely as beating your boyfriend or girlfriend at a game Trivial Pursuit.

Happy Eating!