As long as my wife and I have been married we've been making our own pizza, every Friday night. I grew up in a suburb of Chicago where pizza and Friday nights were pretty much synonymous. Ordering pizza from your local parlour was just what you did. For my family most Fridays we ordered pizza from Campagna's, which made a crispy and often very salty thin crust. Later in life we'd frequent Dominick's and then Pal Joey's, which sadly is the only one of these restaurants still in business today.
It often surprises people to learn that even as a Chicago suburbanite, the pizza which you are most likely to associate with our fair city was not what I grew up on. The flakey and buttery goodness of Chicago style deep dish that places like Giordiano's and Gino's East made so popular was not something we ate regularly. In fact, in my hometown I don't even know of a place that served that style of pizza when I was growing up. Chicago style pizza is far more diverse than the casserole-like pies where the sauce decorates the top, in fact it's the thinner version of Chicago style pizza that I grew up on every Friday night and still continue to love. Now don't get me wrong, deep dish is fantastic, that's just not the purpose of this post today.
When my wife Sara and I got married we immediately moved to the Northern side of Pittsburgh, where she started a new job. That first Friday together as a married couple I was left with an empty and hollow feeling as we struggled to find a pizza place for dinner. There's a place called Fox's Pizza that's pretty popular, but nothing about about it tasted right. For the first time in my life I didn't enjoy pizza night. So we did what any young couple would do during a culinary crisis and we decided to make our own.