It's eight o'clock on a Friday night on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. M and I arrived here yesterday and will be here for the next couple weeks enjoying the Low Country, one of the prettiest regions not only in the South, but the entire country. No, the local chamber of commerce did not pay me to say that.
Normally when we are in this part of the world, my mind races to seafood. What shall I have, where shall we go. A few years back on a different two-week stay, I had 15 different types of seafood in 14 days. Yes, 15! I kept a list, and you thought I ate nothing but shrimp and oysters. I know, I need serious professional help.
But for the purposes of this blog, we are going to leave seafood behind and visit another of our favorite foods. Pizza. More specifically, we are going to talk about two of my favorite pizza places. Frank and Helen's in University City, Missouri and The Noble Fox in Loretto, Tennessee.
If you read this blog, you know a few days ago I wrote about my genealogy. If you read between the lines, you realize I do not have any Italian blood in my DNA. None. Of course, when I cook something Italian at home, especially if M likes it, I stick an "I" on the end of my name and call myself "Daltoni." That kind of sounds Italian doesn't it?
I honestly can't remember when we didn't eat pizza in our family. Not often mind you, but maybe once or twice a month, we would go to one of our favorite pizzerias and pretend we were sitting at a sidewalk cafe in Torino. (That's a story for another blog.) Mom would even buy those Chef-Boy-R-Dee pizza and we would craft it and cook it at home. It wasn't the same. It never was.
During my early teen years, when it was a Church of Christ rule that you had to have a Sunday evening service, we would frequently go out for pizza after church, more often to Frank and Helen's on Olive Street Road in U City, which had been serving pizza since 1954, (Quick note, U City is where Nelly is from). Sometimes it was just the four of us, Dad, mom, me and my brother Barry, or sometimes my parents' best friends, Don and Ann, along with Bob and Mona would go along with us. At the time Don and Ann had one daughter, Paige, who loved to torment me and Barry. Bob and Mona had three kids, two older sons, who were usually too busy doing other things to attend, and a daughter Lisa, who was a year younger than my brother.
When we arrived, we would push a table or two together. The parents generally sat on one end and us four kids at the other end. Another quick note, I know these things just come to me, I must be getting old. Another bonus of going out for pizza was Barry and I would get to order a Coke. That's Coke, not Pepsi. Even on a school night we loaded up with sugar.
But back to the pizza.
Like most St Louis pizza parlors some things were standard. The pizza shells were thin. Communion wafer thin. The argument was, do you want to eat bread or toppings. Made sense to me. The sauce of course was always a deep red, slightly sweet and spicy at the same time. Rarely were the kids entrusted to pick their own toppings. We usually had to share a small (are you serious?) pepperoni pizza, but being the nice, angelic kids that we were, we gladly accepted whatever was ordered for us.
I almost forgot, the cheese. For most of you, the cheese of choice, and this includes Miss M, is mozzarella. A fine cheese, it does the job, but taste wise is nothing spectacular. Another St. Louis tradition is provel cheese. You will find most neighborhood pizza places only top their pizza with provel. What in the world is provel you ask. Well I'm glad you did. Provel was invented in the 1940 s by a pizza owner in St. Louis who wanted a cheese with a clean bite (not stringy) and something that would melt well. Provel is actually a hybrid. It is a mixture of provolone, cheddar and swiss, and has a gooey, buttery flavor. In a word, it is glorious.
When your pizza was done, it was brought to your table. The first thing you notice is your pizza is cut into squares, not triangles. Who says you can't do geometry while eating pizza.
When we got older, our church youth group would go there A LOT. Seems like it was everybody's favorite place to go. I also remember it was a good place to sit next to the girl you wanted to ask out, but were too shy to ask. But again, that's another blog for another day.
Finally, I haven't lived in St Louis since 1995, but anytime I would go back, I would try to get to Frank and Helen's and I would not get aa small pepperoni.
Ok, let's move 370 miles or southeast to Loretto, Tennessee. Our good friends, Jess and Kim Eastep (imagine, more church friends) live near the Alabama/Tennessee line and would go there on occasion. Kim would post incredible pictures of their Artisan pizzas. No plain pepperoni here. The topping combinations must have been made up during a bad LSD trip. Figs? Goat cheese? Wild honey? Feta? Ground lamb? Buffalo sauce? Spiced pears? Spinach? I think you can see where I am going.
We finally set a date with Jess and Kim and met them at this Holy Grail of pizza places. I had no idea what to order, but when it comes to food, I can be adventurous, so I confidently ordered "The Noble Pie." It had roasted tomatoes for a base, followed by piles of prosciutto, figs, yes figs, goat cheese, topped off with a hot honey drizzle.
I am here to tell you that in my 67 trips around the sun, it was one of the best things I ever put in my mouth. I'm serious. I'm so serious, every time we went back, I ordered the same thing. Nathan and Tara Jaynes would join on occasion as well, and the six of us woofed (Woofed, Noble Fox, get it?) down four or five or six pizzas. There was rarely enough to take home. We would make the 40-mile drive back to Tuscumbia very happy with full bellies.
I told you all of that to tell you this. In the last five days, both of these establishments announced they were closing. For good. Frank and Helen's had been a St. Louis fixture for 70 years. The Noble Fox had been in Loretto for only three or four. Still it's stunning. I was in St. Louis two weeks ago but did not go by. They are closing in early December. Maybe I'll get a chance to sneak back up. I'm not sure about the Noble Fox. They may already be closed.
No, I do not talk about food all the time, but there are times when you just have to. Thank you, Frank and Helen's and Noble Fox, you have made this scribe very happy over the years, but this week, you've made him sad.
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