Michael Gillan Maxwell

Lunch Lady Husky Tuscan Rustic Pizza

~The Lunch Lady Cookbook Presents ~

Lunch Lady Husky Tuscan Rustic Pizza

Hey there fellow gustatory travelers, gastronomic wanderers, and seekers on the epicurean path! This is the Lunch Laddy, Michael Gillan Maxwell coming to you across space and time with a spontaneous and unplanned outburst that has morphed into a new installment of The Lunch Lady Cookbook. Today we venture down the path of one of the most sacred and venerable of all comfort foods ~ the time honored classic with humble beginnings ~ PIZZA. Ah yes pizza ~ and I’m here to tell you, that unlike some of the other recipes in The Lunch Lady Cookbook, this IS a staple served in Middle School cafeterias by Lunch Ladies the world over.

LunchLadyActionFigure — Lunch Lady Action Figure

Some of the most delicious pizza ever is an elemental combination of the most basic staples ~ dough topped with simple everyday foods such as tomato sauce, vegetables, cheese, and meat. The ‘traditional” pizza is about as simple as it gets ~ flattened dough topped with olive oil, fresh sliced plum tomatoes, chopped garlic, fresh shredded basil and baked in a wood fired brick oven. However, this simple dish can also be rendered as a gourmet delight with endless variations. Certainly entire books have been written on the subject. However this is not the realm of Lunch Lady Husky Tuscan Rustic Pizza.

Go ahead ~ sing it with me peeples ~ in fact ~ try saying it 10 times real fast and see what kind of trouble you get into ~ Husky Tuscan Rustic Pizza. It’s a tongue twister and a mouthful to say, and it’s also a mouthful to eat. You can make everything from scratch. It’s really not that difficult. Dedicated true believers will settle for nothing less. In fact I have a friend who went so far as to construct a wood fired brick oven for bread and pizza in his own backyard. However, even though the Lunch Laddy has a reputation for going to extremes, he took the path of least resistance on this one and this particular recipe uses commercially prepared fixin’s and leftovers from the Lunch Laddy larder. In fact it could just as easily have become Lunch Lady Slum Gullion Stew, but I’m glad it didn’t. By the way, “why Husky Tuscan,” you may ask? “Is the Tuscan husky or is the Tuscan rustic or why Tuscan at all Lunch Laddy? Just friggin’ tell me!” I don’t know. Maybe it’s because I am in love with the very IDEA of Tuscany, although I’ve never actually been to Tuscany. I’ve been to Tucson, which is no where near Tuscany, but it’s almost spelled like Tuscan. “Tucson ~ like Tuscany, only different.”

Sorry. I tried to find a sign that said “Tucson City Limits”, but this is the best that I could do. But I digress, so ~ getting to the point, I present:

Lunch Lady Husky Tuscan Rustic Pizza

This is the stuff I used:

(While this version is admittedly a carnivore’s delight, it’s easily adaptable to vegetarian or vegan cuisine. There’s undoubtedly gluten-free dough as well. If you’re lactose intolerant, well, I’m not even gonna go there. Just don’t use this recipe.)

1 Package pizza dough (already mixed from my local supermarket)

1 Jar Joey’s Famous Italian Pasta Sauce ~ Fra Diavalo (Hot&Spicy) Made in Syracuse

1 Tablespoon olive oil

Spices ~ basil, garlic powder, black pepper, red pepper flakes

Ground beef (Left over taco meat, but it worked)

1 Spinach and feta chicken sausage

Roasted red peppers, sun dried tomatoes, chopped sweet onion (also from taco night)

8 0z package Italian Cheeses ~ mozzarella, provolone, parmesan, asiago, fontina & romano

Lightly flour some surface ~ I used a butcher block, but a counter top will suffice.
Bend, spindle, mutilate, roll, push, prod, poke, pinch, coax & coddle dough into whatever the hell shape it wants to take. (This is the “rustic” part) I somehow ended up with a shape that looked like the state of Minnesota. I kind of felt like Richard Dreyfuss with his mashed potato mountain in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. “This means something!”
Coat lightly with Extra Virgin Olive Oil. (Extra virgin olive oil in a 450 degree oven is about as close as you can get to sacrificing a virgin in a volcano without actually doing it.)
Season the state of Minnesota (dough) accordingly with spices.
Spread sauce evenly over crust. Don’t go right up to the edge because it gets legs, runs all over the place and makes a helluva mess. Nobody needs that.
Top with the aforementioned meats and vegetables sliced and diced to your own discerning specifications.
Spread 6 Italian cheeses.
Pop in oven pre heated to 450 degrees. (Unless you’re at my friend’s house, in which case you open the door to a roaring fire, singe your eyebrows and set your hair on fire, & use a 6 foot paddle to place pizza on hot bricks dusted with cornmeal.)
Bake for about 15 minutes (much less if you’re using my friend’s wood fired oven)
Let rest and cool for at least 5 minutes. (unless, of course, the roof of your mouth is made of asbestos and impervious to the boiling hot cheese sticking to it)

MUSICAL PAIRING: “SHOWDOWN!”

One of my favorite blues albums of all times ~ Showdown ~ Albert Collins, Robert Cray & Johnny Copeland An absolute classic. Albert Collins’s telecaster is an icepick in the temple (in a good way) Robert Cray’s voice and strat ~ smooth as silk and Johnny Copeland is a funky, soulful, visceral presence throughout. Their cover of T-Bone Shuffle will blow you away and you’ll never be able to fall in love with another cover of that song again.

BEVERAGE PAIRING: Il Sogno Sangiovese

OK ~ so this is where things finally get totally Tuscan and you know we’re not in Tucson anymore Toto! One sip (or, in my case, one massive gulp) will have you saying: “Hmmm ~ Tastes like more!” That’s AMORE!

June 10, 2012 4

Lunch Lady Smoothies

Hi boys and girls! This is Michael Gillan Maxwell, The Lunch Laddy, comin’ at ya with a new installment of The Lunch Lady Cookbook. Today we’re gonna do some gustatory galavanting with the ultimate “meal on the go” ~ “smoothies”. These recipes are good and good for you!

Stop all the moaning and groaning! I know what you’re about to say. People write me all the time to say: “ Lunch Laddy ~ W.T.F. dude? What kind of Lunch Lady Cookbook is this anyway? You promised us classic Lunch Lady comfort foods and you keep comin’ at us with whack stuff like vegan dishes, quiche and God knows what all? Where’s the good stuff like Lunch Lady Meatloaf and Lunch Lady Sloppy Joes? And by the way ~ no Lunch Lady Mac and Cheese? C’mon! What gives?” To which I reply: “Patience Grasshopper. All in good time. I promise. In fact, the recipe after this will be so heart-stoppingly unhealthy, you’ll need the crash cart and paddles to revive you!”

The first smoothie on today’s list is: (Tada!)

“All-Time Incredible Hulk Monster Behemoth Breakfast Smoothie”

For this you will need the following:

1 Banana
1 Mango
1 Handful Blueberries
2 Whopping Tablespoons Low Fat Greek Yogurt (I prefer vanilla)
1 Cup Chai Tea

( I use Bolthouse Farms Vanilla Chai Tea with 59 grams of soy protein per 52 oz. bottle. That’s “Soy Protein”, nimrod, not “Soylent Green” ~ there’s a big difference. It also has 18 amino acids and builds strong bodies in 12 ways like Wonder Bread ~ and no, it’s not the kind of acid you took at that outdoor music festival last year.)

1 Tablespoon Garden Greens Protein Shake

( This has soy, spirulina and pea proteins ~ that’s “pea” ~ not “pee!” Jeez ~ will you please get with the program?)

Toss that stuff in a blender and whip it into a frothing slosh. (Not to be confused with Old Frothingslosh a prosaic working man’s beer from Pittsburgh)

Drink heartily. You should be channeling Yule Gibbons within 10 minutes, but take his transmissions with a grain of salt because I think he met his untimely demise from eating pine cones, one of the very things he extolled the virtues of.

Follow with a brisk 40 minutes of nude Tai Chi and a sponge bath on your balcony. The neighbors love that kind of stuff.

Musical Pairing:

Hamza El Din “A Wish”

Hamza El Din is a legendary Nubian composer and in my humble opinion, the greatest oud player in the world,

Now hang on to your hats kids because here comes the next one. I call this the Lunch Lady

“Lunch When You Ain’t Got Time to Munch Smoothie”

You’ll need to hit the produce department at your local grocery store pretty hard for this one. You’ll need:

1 Raw Beet
1 Handful Spinach
2 Stalks Celery
1 Handful Baby Carrots
1/2 Cup Carrot Juice

Again, throw that stuff in the blender and put the pedal to the metal. If you don’t have a blender, you can use a weed whacker or a boat propeller, but it’s not recommended. Whaddya mean you don’t like beets? Quit whining, ya big baby. If it helps, pour a couple of shots of vodka in there and call it a Bloody Mary. Anyway, beets are good for you. Just ask Dwight Shrute. You’ll be channeling Jack Lalane after this one. He lived to be 100 and had like a 26 inch waist. Although, if you hit the vodka too hard you’re more likely to be channeling Jack Palance. In either case, you should be levitating shortly.

Beets Are Good For You! — Beets Are Good For You

Musical Pairing:

Tinariwen “Amassakoul”

Tinariwen is a band of Tuareg-Berber musicians from the Sahara Desert region of northern Mali. The band was formed around 1979 in refugee camps in Libya but returned to Mali after a cease-fire in the 1990s. Their music totally kicks ass.

The Lunch Laddy is going to throw a bone to all you naysayers out there with one final recipe. The Lunch Laddie is a transplanted Wisconsin boy, die hard ex-pat and life-long cheesehead! This power packed concoction is called:

“The Bucky Badger Cheesehead Smoothie”

For this you’ll need:

1 20 oz micro brewed IPA or Stout
1 Bratwurst
1 healthy chunk of Sharp Cheddar

Toss all that in the old Bass-o-Matic and whip it up!

Musical Pairing:

“Live From Camp Randall Stadium: The University of Wisconsin Marching Band Tuba Section Plays the Greatest College Fight Songs of All Time!”

Bottoms up and until next time ~ Keep on chooglin’!

June 3, 2012 8

Cloud Over Land and Sky

May 31, 2012 4

NightFall

May 31, 2012 6

Going Postal

GOING POSTAL

I mailed something to Spain recently. The surreal encounter in the Post Office did little to enhance my faith all things postal. I think Charles Bukowski put in something like 20 years as a postal clerk, if that tells you anything. But then again, John Prine was a Chicago postal carrier, so maybe there is hope after all.

I stood in line for eternity while a blue haired, frail old lady inquired about shipping her pet tropical macaw. The next person mailed Christmas cards. That would be fine except that it’s May. Then I stepped up to the counter and came face to face with someone who could only be described as the guardian at one of the gates of Hell.

“Mailing to Spain you say? Are there any explosives or flammable liquids?” “Um … it’s a flat envelope containing a letter.” (I wanted to say: “I’m mailing Spanish boots of Spanish leather. What does this look like you idiot? It’s a letter envelope!”) But I knew that would only prolong the agony and most likely end with her subjecting me to a thorough and vigorous body cavity search in full view of all the other customers.

“Well, if it’s anything other than paperwork, such as a document, you’ll need to fill out this customs form and sign here, here, here and here. Just remember this may be inspected and you will be subject to prosecution if you falsify this report or enter any inaccurate information.”

“I’ll bet the weather is rather pleasant in Guantanamo this time of year. A black hood will actually go nicely with virtually anything in my wardrobe,” I thought as I turned away from the counter. By this time the line behind me had grown to at least a half dozen impatient customers who eyed me with suspicion. I filled out the form in triplicate, put a checkmark in the “contents” box that signifies “document”, dutifully described the document as a “NY State Drivers License”, and trudged back to the end of the line, whistling “Alice’s Restaurant”.

After another eternity, I slid the form and envelope across the counter. She inspected the form, arched her eyebrow and asked why I would be sending a New York Driver’s License to someone in Spain. I wanted to say “You caught me! I’m a sleeper operative in an al-Qaeda cell, supplying fake IDs to my comrades in arms in Spain!” Once again, I prudently bit my tongue and explained that it was for my next door neighbor here in the states who has been living there with his family, but will be returning soon.

After some deliberation, she began ruthlessly stamping the form and pulling apart the duplicates to be distributed to various places, including one for me, with all the information that would be needed to track me to the ends of the earth. I started to wonder if my black hood would be itchy.

“Do you want this to go Overnight for $45, Express for $23 or First Class for a dollar nineteen?” I chose a dollar nineteen, and hoped that the license would reach my friend before it was time to renew it again in 10 years. I decided to skip the rest of my errands and head straight to the liquor store.

May 19, 2012 4

Healed from Chronic Lyme’s Disease: My Journey [Kindle Edition] Stephen Leslie (Author)

Stephen Leslie’s book “Healed from Chronic Lyme’s Disease: My Journey” depicts the author’s personal journey, in which he battles and eventually overcomes, this insidious tick borne illness. The author is thorough, and while he takes an analytic approach that is well founded on science, research and fact, his message is conveyed in an easy-flowing, conversational writing style that is highly accessible and easy to understand. I especially value Stephen’s exploration of time honored “alternative” healing practices, the human energy field and the relationship between body, mind and spirit. The author does not dismiss modern science or western medicine, but rather, takes steps to integrate it with a holistic and homeopathic approach to healing and over all health and well being. It is an important book for anyone who wants to take control of their own well being and offers pragmatic, applicable tools based on experience. It is a must-read for anyone who is interested in ways of overcoming, not only Chronic Lyme disease, but any “dis-ease”. I highly recommend it. It is available on Amazon.com.

May 18, 2012 0

Lunch Lady Cookbook ~ Lunch Lady Tuna Casserole

Lunch Lady Tuna Casserole

Hey there boys and girls. This is the Lunch Laddy, Michael Gillan Maxwell, bringing you another recipe from The Lunch Lady Cookbook. Today we have a dish that ranks right up there with the All-Time-All-Stars of Comfort Food – a time honored go-to – the venerable Tuna Casserole. I’ve been in many a school cafeteria where the Lunch Ladies were slingin’ Tuna Casserole and this actually is the first legitimate Lunch Lady staple to grace the pages of the Lunch Lady Cookbook.

This does come with a caveat ~ a little tuna casserole goes a long way. Too much of a good thing could even lead to the disintegration of a relationship as depicted in article in the New York Times (April 7, 2012) that examined various reasons for divorce in England, which unlike every state in America does not have a no-fault divorce law. In one case “a man declared that his wife had maliciously and repeatedly served him his least favorite dish, tuna casserole.” A conservative approach relative to the frequency with which tuna casserole graces your dinner table will go a long way towards maintaining a peaceable kingdom.

No question about it, tuna casserole is a prosaic working man’s special, to be sure. But this is no reason to throw in the towel and go totally lumpen proletariat. All it really takes to class up this dish a little is a little imagination with your spices and garnishes and your beverage and music pairings. This Lunch Lady workhorse of a dish could be juiced up and spiced up in any number of ways, and this particular spin on Lunch Lady Tuna Casserole does incorporate one or two ingredients that might not be used in a typical Middle School cafeteria. So without further adieu, I present to you

~ LUNCH LADY TUNA CASSEROLE ~

Ingredients:

1 12 oz can of White Albacore Tuna in Water

1 Can Campbell’s Golden Mushroom Soup

1 5.5 oz. Can V-8 Juice ~ (Psst! Secret ingredient. Good and good for you)

1 Package Frozen Sweet Peas

1 Small Spanish Onion ~ sliced & diced

1 Small Tomato ~ sliced & diced

1 Celery stalk ~ sliced and diced

1/2 Cup Shredded Sharp Cheddar Cheese

12 oz. Wide Egg Noodles Bistro Style

Whole Wheat Bread Crumbs

Worcester Sauce

Salt

Pepper

Garlic Powder

Red Pepper Flakes

Basil

Preparation:

Slice and dice fresh veggies.

Assemble your arsenal of spices, sauces and garnishes.

Boil the noodles ~ don’t over do this ~ better to prepare them “al dente” ~ they will cook more with the casserole.

Drain tuna. Feed tuna juice to your dogs and cats. They will love you with a white, hot passion for this.

Combine all ingredients in a 2 Qt. casserole dish, adding spices and a bit of the cheddar cheese intermittently as you gently stir together. Hold half of the tomato in reserve for topping.

Top with bread crumbs & rest of the cheese & tomato.

Bake covered on center rack of oven at 350 for 1 hour. Uncover for last 15 minutes if you like the topping a little crusty.

Music Pairing

I dialed in a potpourri of songs from artists including Guy Clark, Old Crow Medicine Show, Steve Earle, Gillian Welch, Jerry Garcia & David Grisman, John Prine, June Carter Cash & others. Songs about working blokes, hopeless romantics, broken hearts, mercenaries, moonshiners, orphans, vagabonds, drifters & dreamers, hard luck cases & whimsical goofballs. There’s even a gender bending sea chanty in there. These songs all have a familiar feeling. Even if you don’t know them, they somehow sound like songs you grew up listening to, songs that were the background of your lives. This became the foundation for a collection of tunes I burned to a CD and called 3 Chords & A Cloud Of Dust Collection Volume I. But I digress ……

3 Chords & A Cloud Of Dust Collection Volume I

Wagon Wheel Old Crow Medicine Show

Mystery Train Part II Steve Earle

Dublin Blues Guy Clark

Galway Girl Steve Earle

Those Memories of You Parton, Harris & Ronstadt

Souvenirs John Prine

Shady Grove Garcia, Grisman

Ring of Fire June Carter Cash

Poor Man Old Crow Medicine Show

Orphan Girl Gillian Welch

Paradise John Prine