May 11– May 17, 2026

Monday:                  White Beans and Tomatoes w/ Spinach, Marinated Feta

Tuesday:                  Frittata with Tomato Scumble

Wednesday:          Rigatoni with Trader Joe’s Marinara (doctored)

Thursday:                Grazing: Mezze Plate – Steak Sandwiches

Friday:                      Cod and Potato Chowder with Shrimp and Anchovy Toast

Saturday:                Montagna Pizza and Bitter Greens and Anchovy Pizza cooked in Ooni oven

Sunday:                   Barbecued Ribs, Coleslaw and Baked Beans

Pizza Is Fundamental

“Unless you are a pizza, then yes, I can live without you” – Bill Murray

I do not share Bill Murray’s relative ranking of pizza, being unable to live without SWMBO, the boys, my brothers and their families, my friends, the Church, the poetry of Billy Collins, the acting of Denzel Washington and Meryl Streep, those cut-down golf tees that are perfect for par threes, and so many other things.  But I feel that if Murray had a family and friends, belonged to a church and so on, we would be in agreement.  Wait . . . Murray does have a family and many friends and – oh yes, he’s a comedian and given to exaggeration from time to time.  So, I was being too serious, perhaps.  But when it comes to pizza, I am serious.

I know that I share the feeling that pizza is fundamental with many others, including my godson, Peter.  Indeed, you may have noticed that our weekly menus are built around cooking pizzas every Saturday. 

I suppose, in many ways, that I’m trying to recreate that top-of-the- mountain feeling that came in my younger days after a few beers when a pizza arrived at our dormitory.  I can’t recapture the gleeful immaturity of those college days, but I can, at least, cook a good pizza – indeed, a pizza quite superior to what the Student Pizza Agency delivered on our campus in the late 60s and early 70s.

And many people, including that godson and sons Andrew and Billy and, above all, my in-house food critic, SWMBO are interested in good pizza.  SWMBO, a woman of impeccable taste in everything but husbands, is a margherita lover.  And, indeed, the margherita is perhaps the truest test of a pizzaiolo’s craft.

But there are 52 Saturdays in the year and we have cooked a lot of different pizzas at Casa Stuarti.  I’m going to share the one we cooked last week.  I found this recipe in The Joy of Pizza by Dan Richter, a book given to me by the godson I mentioned above, Peter, a fine (superior to me) pizzaiolo in his own right.  The first sentence in the introduction to Richter’s book condenses what I’ve been trying to say in this post: “Pizza makes people happy.”

If you cook the pizza below, you will make people happy – it doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to be edible.  Some cold beer on the side would help.

Montagna Pizza

(adapted from Dan Richter)

Note:  Strictly speaking, I didn’t make this pizza according to Dan Richter’s recipe because I didn’t use his recipe for dough.  And dough is the key ingredient in all pizzas.  Nor did I make his tomato sauce (another key ingredient), but my own homemade sauce is very like his – great minds think alike.

For the dough, I use a recipe I have adapted from Lynn Rosetto Kasper (The Italian Country Table.) You can also buy dough from a good local pizza joint, use Richter’s method or any other recipe you like.  I would offer to put you in touch with Peter, who has his own sourdough starter, but he and Abby have careers, two young children and a dog and, well, he’s got enough to do.

Ingredients:

Make or buy good pizza dough.  You’ll need enough for about a 12” pie, but this recipe easily doubles, triples, quadruples . . .  (and, if you don’t have enough dough for a 12” pie, just reduce the sauce and toppings).

¼ – ½ cup tomato sauce (see below for my recipe)

Note:  What’s with ¼ – ½?  Some people like a saucy pizza, some don’t.  Almost all home cooks over-sauce their pizzas. I am speaking from personal experience.  So – ½ cup at the most, please.

3 oz. fresh mozzarella, torn into 1” pieces (about ½ of the plastic wrapped balls you can find in any supermarket.)

1 oz. thinly sliced speck or prosciutto.  (I used about 8 slices of guanciale, which I happened to have on hand – it was spectacular.  The key here is to have a deli make thin slices for you, since you’ll be layering the meat on the pizza after it comes out of the oven and it will cook only in the residual heat.)

2 cups loose-packed arugula

Parmigiana-Reggiano

Extra Virgin Olive Oil and Coarse Sea salt

Prep:

Make tomato sauce [I usually use a half-cup, not a quarter.  To make it, simply put ¼ to ½ cup of tomato purée or passata or crushed tomatoes in a bowl, add salt, pepper, and either dried oregano or dried Italian Seasoning, mix and adjust seasoning until it tastes like a good pizza sauce to you.]

If using a kitchen oven, preheat to 500 F.  If using an Ooni oven, preheat for 20 minutes, then back the heat down a bit.

Assemble ingredients and tear mozzarella.

Make and cook pizza:

If you’re cooking in an Ooni – flour a pizza peel.

If you’re cooking in an oven, lightly oil a large sheet pan [Note: If you’ve got a pizza steel, heat it up in the oven for about 20 minutes, and use that peel to transfer the pizza.  Peter suggests putting a sheet tray on a oven rack above the one you’ll be cooking on to help cook the top of the pizza.]

Finish the final stretch of the dough, using your fingers to push the edge into a slightly raised border, then brush a little olive oil on that border and sprinkle with coarse sea salt (Maldon would be perfect).

Place the dough on the peel or the sheet tray.

Now spread the tomato sauce to the edge of the raised border (the sauce will be fairly sparse – you don’t need more) and distribute the mozzarella, season with some salt and drizzle with a bit of olive oil.  That’s right, you don’t use the meat or the arugula or parmigiano until the pie is cooked.

Cook the pie (it will take 8-12 minutes in an oven and you’ll want to turn the pan around once to ensure even cooking – I presume that if you’re using an outdoor Ooni or other oven, you will have learned the technique for continually turning the dough to make sure that it doesn’t burn).

When the pizza is cooked but still hot, layer the meat across the pie, then top with arugula and shavings of parmigiano.  Mangiare!