We got those boxed pizzas, but I don’t think the ones we used were from Chef Boyardee. Appian Way pizza, I think. That dried cheese you sprinkled on top was pretty pathetic.

I remember as a kid a pizza chain called Uno's that served Chicago style deep dish pizza. Didn't go there to often as my parents were New Yorkers. Also worked for a mom & pop place as a delivery driver for a few years for a couple originally from Chicago. They didn't do deep dish, but made the pizzas "Chicago" style. They said the difference between NY and Chicago styles was where the toppings go. Chicago would put the toppings on after the sauce, but before the cheese. NY would put the toppings on after the cheese. After all this time, I prefer the NY style, but as a driver, I would do 30 to 40 deliveries on an average night working 3 to 11 pm by myself or 20-30 deliveries working with a second driver on busy nights.

Deli sandwich purchased earlier today as potential luncheon for my spouse
fresh fettucini with Rao’s marinara and leftover meatballs & spicy sausage
grilled cheese

I was shocked to learn that Lou Malnati was the Uno’s founder. I learned this years after going to THE UNO’S and discovering their tight tables and benches. I had been going to the UNO’s in SF for ages before hitting Uno’s Mecca.

I like Giordano’s and Gino’s East but Lou Malnati’s is my favorite deep dish. I can’t decide what to do about deep dish so for now I’ll remain inactive. No goldbelly for now.

(Emphasis mine.) As someone who grew up on NY pizza and has lived in Chicago for 30+ years, I strongly disagree.

First, Chicago has deep dish, stuffed and tavern style pizza. Two of those are cooked in pans, and NY style never is. And tavern is cut into squares while NY style is cut in wedges. Don't even get me started on the crusts...

My dinner tonight: NY strip steak with Montreal steak spices and horseradish sauce, WF's avocado ranch bagged salad.

I don't think that's quite correct. Lou's father, Rudy worked at Pizzeria Uno in the '40s and legend has it he had a hand in the creation of the deep dish pizza, however, he wasn't the founder of Uno's.

I hadn't thought about Chef Boyrdee pizza (should I put "pizza" in quotes? :D) in years. I have fond memories as a child of Friday nights when my mother would tell us that is what we were having. I'd probably hate it now, but it's a nice childhood memory

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...2f43746e14.jpg

Tonight's fare was a guilty comfort food: a couple of Sonic corn dogs. Feel free to judge ;)

Same. We had those pizza kits as a "treat" growing up.

Tonight's dinner was supposed to be chicken fajitas. I was out at dinner time, so I ended up having an Arby's Classic Roast Beef. No judgement here on your Sonic corn dogs. Some days, it's all about the comfort food.

Me three! My mother would put little hunks of ground beef on it. :D

:) We didn't have that luxury! If we were lucky, we had shelf-stable pepperoni. Maybe a can of mushroom pieces and stems for half of it.

Same here! Along with strips of this fine dining treat:

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...d2c80ec7f.jpeg

So, you had real Italian pizza! :)

Ah yes. Just googled the history. Grazie :-)

Aww no judgment here.
I know or ate Chef B but didn’t know they had pizza. I recall random frozen pizzas including Stouffer’s thick pizza.
my childhood fridge/freezer was definitely larger than the one we now have, but I grew up in a larger house.

This is definitely the best I've had, and consistently rated among the top frozen pizzas on any reliable list.

I think there's a whole thread somewhere on this. Roots makes the Quad Cities style in Chicago. It's annoying when people wonder out loud how Chicagoans eat filling deep dish pizza all the time. The truth is, we typically do that when we have out of town visitors. Maybe an occasional Lou's pizza if we really want one. But many surveys, as well as every corner bar, support the fact that tavern thin crust is far and away the favorite of Chicagoans. The only Uno's I'll eat at is the one in River North and it's after a day of escorting out of towners around the sights.

I started to comment on the Uno's chain, but I just won't...
The comment about the toppings going above or below the cheese - not sure about this. I would say this is generally true, but I've also had many with at least some toppings, such as pepperoni, above the cheese. As others have noted, Chicago style is a very thin crust, often cracker-like, round but cut into squares, and piled with toppings. IMO, that last part is the most important difference. NY pizza is a thin layer of everything. On a Chicago pizza you could expect to see the height of the toppings double (at least) the height of the crust. If you folded a Chicago style in half to eat, all the toppings and probably a fair amount of delicious grease would fall onto your plate.

I've never even heard of Chef Boyardee pizza. Our treat was a Tombstone frozen pizza...but in the early 90s my mom got onto the Boboli craze and started buying them, so we would assemble our own pizzas from those for a while.

I just started looking at this thread and have only made it this far; apologies in advance if this has already been discussed. There is also Hooked on Fish Chicago. I think orders come in once a week and you pick them up from a designated porch near you. I don't know how many locations there are in the city and the suburbs. A friend has been doing this and is very happy with it so far. (And Fresh Farms has an overwhelming seafood selection!)

Same here. Although my mom didn't buy Boboli, I believe she eventually made her own crust from a box mix. Tombstone has been replaced in my adult freezer with Jack's. Basically the same, but IMO a much better quality than Tombstone. We probably eat 1-2 of these per year, they're strictly for emergency meal situations :).

I think you had to grow up in the late 60’s to late 70’s to really get into the pizza in a box “craze”. I don’t recall buying frozen pizza's until the 80’s.

When microwave ovens became popular, I think a lot of meals in a box lost market share.

I get their emails, but haven't tried them yet. Have you tried it?

Dinner tonight: Leftover chicken-turmeric-bok choy soup (sort of like a congee).

Poached salmon (Scottish farmed sustainable)
homemade dill sauce
baked potatoes (rock salt bath inspired)
sautéed red onion

i crave dessert for myself :-)

Dinner stir fry
 

After the great vegetarian stir fry lunch yesterday, I mentioned that it would make it even better with some Costco bacon bits. I guess the green beans were out, so I got some tender cauliflower. Still spicy, with onion, bell pepper and ginger over nasi putih.

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...01a8772c7.jpeg


No dessert yet, but I have nice Es Puter Kelapa Muda to try.

I remember when working for Blockbuster in the 90's, an equipment addition to our stores brought in exclusively to take advantage of the popularity of Tombstone Pizza (Pizza and a movie, a cheap date during the recession) was a small reach in freezer near the check out line. After a year of tepid sales (pun intended) due to high price point, they decided that ice cream novelties would be a better use of the freezer. A smaller price point and a higher profit margin per unit, I think they made a good decision, as our waste was considered high due to people preferring fresh baked pizza rather that from frozen.

I can understand why people would opt out of the pizza at the store. I'd simply place an order for pizza near the Blockbuster store and pick it up on the way home.

Agreed. Plus, would someone really trust that the food handling procedures at a video store were safe?

I just think it's great that someone brought up Blockbuster. Not to get off topic, but remember when they used to be on every corner, kind of like Starbucks now?

Dinner last night was grilled pork chops (had to burn some for one housemate), broccoli slaw, and roasted veggies. Tonight will be baked lemon rosemary chicken and roasted vegetables (whatever looks good at the store).

I don't think I'd be that worried about if the frozen pizzas were kept frozen.

Exactly my concern. You might remember the teenagers staffing those Blockbuster stores.

LOL, I do. :)

Burned pork chops? Eeeek.

I don’t think I’ve seen broccoli slaw before.

Apparently that's how his mom cooked them growing up so that's how he likes them. I cooked ours for 10 minutes and his for 30. It hurt to do it.

I get a bag of broccoli slaw mix from either Trader Joes or Kroger, typically has shredded broccoli and carrots in it (rainbow slaw mix will also have cauliflower) and then toss it in whatever dressing I want. These days I'm hooked on Trader Joe's vegan Green Goddess dressing but I also like to make one from scratch using apple cider vinegar, oil, brown sugar (or a sugar substitute), dried mustard, and spices. Sometimes I just do the bag of mix and the dressing, other times I'll add a combination of sliced cucumbers, radishes, green onions, bell peppers, craisins, roasted almonds, sunflower seeds, whatever I have available.

Yep - love broccoli slaw. It's also amazing sauteed. Just heat up a little olive oil, dump in the bag and add your favorite seasonings. My wife uses some seasoning mix she likes and it's really good. I don't know what she uses but even simply salt, pepper, and some garlic powder (or fresh sliced) would be good I think. We make it often as an easy side dish with fish. I think all the major stores probably carry it as I've seen it in both Kroger's and Albertson's brands. It's usually near the bags of cut lettuce.

There are other versions that have different veggies. One of my favorites has shaved brussels sprouts, cabbage, broccoli, carrots.

Last night was steak frites with the family for a B-day dinner.

Tonight will be homemade shaking beef, which I'm greatly looking forward to.

Homemade fish cakes from hot smoked salmon with home grown yellow beans. Fairly healthy apart from the Tommy K.

We didn't have back stock and had weekly (at first, then bi-weekly in slower stores) deliveries by the vendor who would rotate the product and the managers would check expiration dates every Monday for anything that was going to expire that week.

​​​​​​​Remember, this got replaced with Ice Cream, and same setup with the vendor. Our back stock was candy and popcorn and was auto ordered based on actual sales.

Tonight, grilled lamb loin chops with almonds and orange blossom, an adaptation of Ottolenghi's grilled lamb fillet recipe from Simple, and roasted eggplant with tamarind and cilantro from Sami Tamimi's Falastin.

Mongolian beef stirfry over rice. Tunisian Kurma for a small dessert.

I agree...all of the veggie slaws are good. I like broccoli slaw with added chopped mango and I use Feast from the East asian sesame dressing and sprinkle with chopped cashews or peanuts. Yum. I suppose I could add a protein like chicken and that would be a great dinner.

Back on topic, last night hospital food:

Baked Chicken Breast, boiled veggies-carrots, peas, and cauliflower (which I didn't eat), unsweet ice tea with lemon, and sugar free vanilla pudding which had so much aftertaste, I almost puked.

Tonight's dinner: Chicken katsu bento box from a local Japanese place.

Grilled halibut (coated in mayo/mustard marinade) and then sprinkled with dill
Romaine salad with dried cranberries, dried hatch chilis, ranch dressing
brussels sprouts
couscous with garlic olive oil

Do you need us to send you a care package of food? Maybe Uber Eats or GrubHub?