Pizza Night!

The birthday week celebration continues for Anne O'Connell Polini
with 'Pizza Night', a dinner that includes one of the happiest days of my life.
A tradition from when Annie and I were wee teens was homemade pizza night with Mom. We’d gather together Saturday night, put all the ingredients together perfectly (or close enough), smell it cooking, set out the plates then race in front of our portable 18” color television to watch The Mary Tyler Moore Show and The Bob Newhart Show (except when I insisted on “KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park’ one night). We’d also have a bowl as big as a medium sized above ground pool of Mom made salad to keep us “healthy’.
Maybe I should start thinking of that ‘healthy’ thing for my kids too.
Annie and I continued the fun when we moved to Chicago in ’79/’80 to stay with Dad, she to attend high school and me off to the The School of the Art Institute. This time, instead of TV, we’d trek in the afternoon to the local video store, painstakingly going through all the giant clamshell ‘be kind please rewind’ rentals to make sure we had the perfect double feature (that night it was a thriller ’The Eyes of Laura Mars' and a comedy whose name escapes me). Back at home it was time to roll out the dough, slice the mozzarella, cut the pepperoni and start baking. A half hour later, everything was cooked to perfection and ready for another blissful pizza night.
That is, until I put the tape in the VCR and ...NOTHING!
Static filled the screen. Frantic moans and hair pulling ensued. After pushing at every button on the front and back of the tv, I finally stumbled upon changing the channel from 3 to 4 which was the one that got the VCR feed. The 'FBI Warning', as if by God’s hand, appeared! Unbridled joy burst throughout the room. Annie and I jumped up and down for 10 minutes. Well, at least I jumped up and down for 10 minutes, and since I had a good grip on my sisters arms, she was was stuck doing the celebratory dance too.
I was a little surprised about how happy I was. I think after the birth of my 3 children, this has a pretty good hold on 4th place.
I guess I like Pizza Night!
And I want you to be just as happy too, so here’s the recipe, hand written by my little sister!