At Long Last, My Search is Over

Back when I was around 11 to 13 years old, my father was working as a field serviceman for an electronics company. Sometimes during summer vacation he would take me along on service calls. This one time we were out on a call in West L.A., and around lunch time my dad asks me what I'd like to eat. Pizza, I reply. Can't go wrong with pizza, right??? One of the guys at the customers' place says, "There's a good pizza place a couple blocks up called Chicago Pizza Works, you should go there." It came recommended, so that's where we went. At my tender young age, I didn't know from Chicago pizza, I though pizza was pizza. Little did I know. I learned that day, and my world was forever changed. Chicago deep dish, thick as a cake, with just a skin of crust, with cheese, sauce and toppings swimming within. Angels wept. Quite simply, it was the best pizza I'd ever had.

Around the time my firstborn was about the age I was at the time of my pizza awakening, it occurred to me that with the advent of the internet, I could find the place and return. I easily found the address, and packed up the family for an amazing lunch. We made it out there, only to discover that it was long since closed. I had built it up to them pretty much like the first paragraph, and I was disappointed. That seemed to set off a pattern of disappointment, with every place claiming to have deep dish pizza actually having fill-up-on-bread thick crust.

So, this was another huge attraction for this year's vacation trip to Chicago!!! We're going to go to a get a genuine Chicago deep dish pizza in Chicago!!! More than one to choose from, but from the Yelp stars and proximity to our lodging, Giordano's won out.

Ended up being the evening of the day we'd gone up to Milwaukee to see The Fonz. I'll give a bit of the back story, since I've not done a lot besides high points and the Six Flags Great America fail. The night we got there, we ended up about two hours later that the time we had planned on, thanks to the crap bag car rental I'd booked, Payless. Do not rent from them. Rat bastards stranded us at the airport for more than an hour, and told baldfaced lies every time we phoned them. It ended up being around 2 in the morning when we finally got checked into our room. The next morning was the pass in review ceremony, fairly bright and early to get there on time and get parked, in the hall and everything. After that, the man-boy had liberty until 1900 hours. We went to lunch with my parents and him, he selected Steak & Shake, which we had enjoyed on our last Florida trip. Following that, we went to see Jurassic World. The wife & I both dozed off a little bit during that, and we ended up bailing out a few minutes before the actual end, because showing up AWOL on his first day would have been a bad thing. One other main thing the fresh faced sailor wanted was his laptop and his MP3 player. It was not allowed in boot camp, and subsequently could not be handed off to him on base, but could be given to him at the airport before his departure to South Carolina... at zero dark 30!!! After the few hours of sleep the night before and the theater nap, I got another couple hours in, then back to O'Hare. Thank you to the USO for having a lounge there were I was able to meet up with him for the hand-off!!! Turns out that military families are allowed to pass airport security to be with the servicemen until they actually depart, so I ended up hanging out with him until around 0600, then Chicago traffic back to our lodging and FINALLY a bit of sleep. Another sleep deprivation experiment!!! Got up around 2:00 in the afternoon, and headed up to Wisconsin. Got turned a bit on the way back, and added probably another hour or so to the drive, and finally made it to the famed Giordano's. It had started raining on the final part of the drive, after being overcast all day.

One thing to know about a true deep dish pizza, it will take a while in the oven. After the side trip short cut detour, everyone was already hungry. In addition to the pizzas, we also got an order of mozzarella sticks and cheese garlic bread. I don't know if I've ever seen this kind of perfection in mozzarella sticks, not in the flavor or construction, but in the serving temperature. Usually they come out flaming hot and, unable to be resisted, burn the taste buds off your tongue and the skin off the roof of your mouth, but these were perfection in edibility!!!

That first pizza pic is now the lock screen on my phone.

My parents got a small Chicago Classic, that has pepperoni, mushrooms, green peppers & onions. I could take or leave the 'shrooms, but I don't do green peppers, they have a lingering after effect on me for a day, quite unpleasant, even if I'm fine with them while downing them.

We got a medium Meat & More Meat, that has pepperoni, salami, sausage & bacon, and a small Bacon BBQ Chicken with BBQ-basted chicken, bacon & balsamic onions, with BBQ sauce instead of tomato sauce. Oh. Oh yes!!! Truly AMAZING!!! It was SO good, but it's a lot. I may have only had one slice of each, or perhaps I split a second slice of the meat masterpiece with my wife... or maybe I put away a whole second slice by myself!!! It was a pizza lovers' utopia!!!

We had enough leftovers for something like three more meals, and reheating didn't diminish the magic!!! They also will ship out frozen pizzas for a fairly reasonable price (considering they aren't that cheap to begin with, and if you were to factor in airfare to Chicago, it's a relative bargain), something I will likely do at some special occasion in the future.

So what was the verdict of the rest of the family??? After hearing me go on about Chicago deep dish pizza in such glowing prose for so many years, they agree that I did not oversell it!!!

The Final Piece

Here's the next one we did, another 500 piece puzzle!!!

As you can see, unlike the last one, we managed to get all the pieces in this time!!! It was pretty tricky, too, all those clouds and white water were tough.

A couple of quick random pictures I came across while preparing this, the primary ingredients for my chili (less one bottle of beer, preferably dark and flavorful), arranged in a nice pyramid. The crowning glory of which is a couple of bulbs worth of garlic cloves!!!

Next is a few slices of pizza, artistically arranged. Half of them are pastrami pizza with dill pickle chunks and a mustard base. When they said pastrami pizza, I was picturing more like The Hat, where it would be stacked layers high. Oh well, it was pretty good anyway.

Lastly is this week's whiteboard art, a couple of guys watching the shapes in the clouds. Nice, huh??? Not so much, it was inspired by a segment from Robot Chicken, hopefully the embed works & remains!!!

Night of the Coyotes

Did I ever post here that my son got himself a pet chicken??? I don't know that I have, but he's had her since before his last birthday (actually, he bought her as a chick and she was pretty well full grown by then) and I may have a picture of her in that post.


Anyway, I made this Rage Comic up about the true story of how coyotes came calling one night & how I felt about our encounter afterwards. I've submitted it to that site, but I never even see my submissions on the voting pages, so who knows. I have a feeling the image may come out too small to easily read here, try clicking on it to see it larger!!! Better yet, hold your ctrl key and roll your scroll wheel up.

Chicken Boy!!!

Haha, I was looking on Google Maps at a place near my home, and happened on Chicken Boy again!!!



Not as good a shot as the one I got, but it's always good to see him!!! Every time we drive by him, we shout out his name!!!

Who You Callin' Chicken, Boy???

While I was out yesterday with my camera to survey the damage that had woken me up, I saw a glorious thing. Chicken Boy!!! I've heard tales of him for years, but I had no idea that he had returned, and so close to my home!!! Good to see you, Chicken boy!!!