My Pizza Memories - National Pizza Day!

           Growing up on the ranches my dad worked for all over Arizona and California, we grew up being country kids. We could look out the window and just see row crop, hay, cotton fields for miles and miles. It was normal for us.

          We only saw small towns or cities when we visited relatives or the parents took us along when they went to shop for groceries. Mom bought staples, ingredients, things she could make meals out of because there was no McDonalds down the street. We ate what she served and we never complained.

          One thing that mom used to make for us was homemade pizza. We never ate pizza from a restaurant, we really didn’t even know what pizza was, but we loved mom’s version, it was the best because she added dill pickles! I can still remember the taste of her pizza.

         

I guess now it would be called a hamburger pizza because she layered the top of the homemade pizza dough (from a box of Jiffy “just add water” mix) with tomato sauce, cheese, ground hamburger meat that she browned on the stove and pickles, that was it and it was amazing. Of course, we had never had real pizza, so this was all we knew. It makes me wonder now; how did mom know about pizza? I’ll have to ask her.

          I’m glad that we learned to appreciate the little things in life, we didn’t have everything handed to us before the age of 7 like the children of today. I didn’t go to Disneyland until I was a teenager, we didn’t have phones and even if we did, we were too busy playing outside, riding our bikes on the ranch, playing with the other ranch kids.

          I don’t think I had a real pizza until I met my husband. We used to go to

Shakey’s Pizza all the time and real pizza was quite a treat. My fav reason to go there to get pizza was so I could have their mojos…Yum! They were fabulous. In the early 1980’s I worked for a dentist and across the street was a Shakey’s Pizza. The other girls and I would go there at least twice a week and gorge ourselves on pizza, mojos, and chicken…the good old days when I didn’t have to count every carb! 

          Today is National Pizza Day and it reminded me of my mom’s pizza with pickles. What is your favorite pizza or pizza memory? What is your favorite pizza? Mine is the Hawaiian with pineapple, Canadian Bacon, and lots and lots of onion! Happy Pizza Day!