I’ll come up with a better title for my quest, but I just wanted to get this blog started now.
FYI: This blog is an experiment, inspired by the movie ‘Julia and Julie.’
Prologue
There is no specific format for anything that I will be blogging. As noted earlier, I just wanted to get this blog started now. I lack willpower. For a moment, I will be inspired to embark on a grand quest that I would remember throughout the rest of my life and could brag about (like on my resume). Just yesterday, my very dear friend Hannster (she is a real person, not a pet) and I were driving back after visiting a friend in Naperville, and I had this sudden urge to go a road trip with her to NYC. It was and is a great idea, but due to my weak willpower, that plan may backfire, like all my other ideas.
So this prologue is like a warmup for my writing. Usually when I write, I prefer a quiet, isolated place with no one but myself and my tools. But now, my parents are talking in the background. And it sure is annoying, but I won’t go into much detail about that. The TV is tuned to the ABC 7 evening news, and the sound of the laundry running echoes through the vents throughout this 1970′s modeled house. I write to mask my frustration.
To the point, I started this quest in the summer of 2009. How did it all begin? Well, first it begins with a passion for food. Who doesn’t like food? But there’s a difference between liking food and having a passion for food. Now, there’s window shopping. As some females window shop at department stores, I window show at grocery stores. When I’m bored, I run to my nearby Walgreens and look at their food. There’s this pattern that I follow: First, the candy isle, then season isle (depending on the holiday specials), cereal isle, then refrigerated isle. I also drive to the Dominick’s just one mile from my house and head straight to their bakery section and savor the sweet smell of their breads, check out what donuts they have, and drool over their ginormous muffins. I could go on.
More to the point, my favorite food: CHICAGO STYLE DEEP-DISH (PAN) PIZZA! Preferably sausage. Yum! Why? I dunno. Believe it or not, I used to HATE deep-dish pizza. I grew up only knowing of Dominos and Pizza Hut. It was always, “Dominos vs. Pizza Hut.” But Little Ceasar’s was also up there on my list. When I was in elementary school, I got these certificates for free crazy breads at Little Ceasar’s. Back then, there was a Little Ceasar’s play place (like Chucky Cheeses’). Every time I earned those certificates (for perfect attendance or something), my parents would take me and my sister there and we would have pizza and loads of crazy breads. But now, Little Ceasar’s has downscaled to a ‘hole-in-the-wall’ and so have my cravings for low-quality pizza.
OK, long-story told short (I didn’t realize how much I’ve been rambling and I too want to get to the point on how I embarked on this quest) … Since I love deep-dish pizza, and since Chicago (woot!) is the home of this great creation but not all restaurants serve the same deep-dish pizza, I wanted to try all the different types of deep-dish pizzas that are served throughout the Chicago-land area.
For my high school basketball outings, we always ate at Lou Manlati’s and ordered a deep-dish cheese and sausage pizza (I used to be all pepperoni and despised sausage, but now the tables have turned). I’ll be biased, Lou Manlati’s is the best! The crust to bread to cheese to sausage to tomato sauce ratio is perfect! (Put simply). Plus, the sauce is just quality. I do taste a hint of alcohol in their sauce, and that’s what makes it thE best deep-dish pizza (to me).
I’ve heard my other friends say that Giordano’s is their favorite. I google-imaged Giordano’s pizza’s, and the pictures just made my mouth water. The image of all the cheese oozing right out of the pan once the waiter serves it to you is just mouth-watering. I told myself, “I have to try that!”
But once I established that DD Pizza is my favorite food, I began to take note of the various pizza joints around Chicago. When I would go to downtown with my dad to pick my mom up from work, I noticed the Uno’s Pizzeria that we would always pass since I was 5 years old, and all of a sudden a spark rekindled in my heart for a desire to eat there after so many years. I also noticed Duo’s Pizzeria and Gino’s East.
I wanted to hit up all the local pizzerias, and that’s when I put aside time for my 2009 summer to go on my quest for the BEST DEEP-DISH PIZZA IN CHICAGO. Summer was the perfect time. First, I had all the time in the world, since I was only working at Corner Bakery and taking summer classes at a community college. It was my first summer after my freshman year in college, so it was perfect timing to use this quest as an excuse to catch up with old high school friends and build on the friendships that I made at U of I (I wouldn’t be able to go on this journey with my family because no one in my family loves pizza as much as I do, and I would feel like such a fatty and loner eating by myself). Speaking of being fatty, I didn’t have to worry about gaining weight or staying in shape because summer is when I’m most active and less stressed. In addition, I was working, so money wasn’t really a problem.
Here was my game plan: Order a deep-dish sausage/cheese pizza, critique, and compare it to other’s that I’ve tried. Blog.
Simple.
Willpower.
