Home At Last! with Patty Gironda

It's great to be King. . . I imagine. This is my son, Shane, and he makes really great pizza. By the way, he is a "self-proclaimed" king. . .In his defense, his Pizza Marguerita is really delicious and my favorite - which in my book qualifies him to be king. I have discovered conflicting accounts of how this pizza came into being but most of the stories include kings and queens so we are going to stick with what makes the story work. In one version, King Ferdinand was said to dress up as a commoner to enjoy a delicious slice of this Neopolitan delight-banned by his queen. In another version, a baker created the pizza in celebration of Queen Margherita's visit to Naples. Thankfully, the popularity of this pizza has spread through-out Italy and is available in just about every pizzaria.

  I love anchovies and sneak into them into many of our favorite dishes in the form of paste, fish sauce or the whole filets. (whenever I am feeling particularly mean.) Living in a "NO ANCHOVY" zone like I do-I have learned to be pretty discreet. I don't rush to disclose every ingredient when the "delicious-ness" of a particular dish is heralded! Last night was a perfect example. . . I decided to make pizza. Since I hadn't planned homemade pizza for dinner I didn't have much on hand in the way of toppings. I did have a can of black olives and had every intention of using them. There was also a cooked sweet sausage, grape tomatoes and Vidalia onion. But at the last moment I remembered a cupboard-full of anchovie-stuffed green olives from Spain and thought it would make for an interesting experiment. . .if I could keep my mouth shut. I tried not to pay too much attention to Ron's first bite-knowing that things could go either way. I didn't ...