Pizza
in a Cup
I first watched Carl
Reiner’s film, The Jerk, starring Steve Martin, when I was eight
years old, and it changed nearly everything about my sweet suburban life (let’s
go with “for the better,” although I suppose you should read this and decide
for yourself).
As I was watching The
Jerk nearly nightly and well past my bedtime, mornings were rough.
They would usually begin with my mother shaking me violently, pulling off the
covers, and yelling at me to brush my hair and teeth, get dressed, and come to
breakfast.
Eventually I would make
it to the breakfast table, where my sister, Nanette—whose perfect barrettes
matched her perfect dress (perfectly)—would be finishing the last few bites of
her cereal while quietly reading another American classic (electively). Nanette
my mother understood, whereas she often looked at me with love, yes, mixed with
something mystified, like “Really? This came out of me?”
as she shook her head and prodded me to finish my pancakes. A honk in the
driveway, and there was Bus 24 idling by our house, waiting to take us on our
long journey, forty-five minutes away, to the next town and to school.
We lived in Great Neck,
Long Island, a predominately Jewish neighborhood, and we couldn’t be more
Italian if we tried. My father had a moustache (as did my sister and I). Since
neither yeshiva nor the public school down the street was an option, my parents
sent my sister and me to the Catholic school in a neighboring town, where we
were the only students from Great Neck and were thus quickly labeled “those
weird girls.”
I dreaded every minute of
that forty-five-minute bus ride. My sister would always get on the bus before
me, take the first seat to the right, and bury her face back in her book. I
would follow behind, with my crazy hair, half dressed in a dirty uniform with
pancake syrup on the side of my face. But unlike Nanette, I opted for the back
of the bus. Since we were the only students on the entire bus who came from
another town, we were mysterious, and with mystery came a lot of whispers,
stares, and speculation. We were teased and made fun of relentlessly, until one
day I realized that since there was already a big mystery surrounding who we
were, it was my obligation to fill in the gaps. If we were going to be the talk
of the bus, I was going to give them something to talk about.
My exaggerations (okay,
lies) were easy to get away with, as my sister had mastered the art of ignoring
me and mostly stuck to her studies. So while I held court in the back of the
bus “big fishing” it, my sister was conveniently too far away to interfere. The
film The Jerkserved as the inspiration for my tall tales.
Me: “Yes, Anna Maria
Russo, we have a bathtub shaped like a clam and a red billiards room.”
“What’s a billiards
room?” a boy named Tom would ask.
“It’s a place to play
pool and where you display your stuffed camel collection.”
As “wows” and “ahs” and
“what elses” were thrown my way, I was loving the attention.
“Mary, do you really have
a tennis court and a pool?”
“I have three pools,
Vinny, and a water cooler that dispenses red and white wine, and sometimes I
sneak a little vino.”
This went on for weeks,
the crowd on the bus growing larger each day. At one point, I had the entire
bus believing that I had a disco in my basement, that my father drove a yellow
Lamborghini, and that I had a dog named Shithead who could smell danger from
miles away.
And then one day, the
unthinkable happened: a girl at school actually wanted to have a playdate with
me! Me, the girl with one eyebrow from a faraway town who smelled like pancake
syrup. I remember being excited and terrified at the same time. I quickly told
her yes, and a date was set.
In the days leading up to
her arrival, I did my best to fill in the gaps between my boasting and reality.
I put two blow-up pools next to our existing in-ground pool (I never told them
what kind). I begged my cousin Scott to bring over his mini pool table and
created a makeshift billiards room in my basement. I put a blinking flashlight
in our spare “junk” room, stuck a tape in my boom box, and poof! I had a disco.
My mother asked what I
was doing as I moved a fern from the living room into my bedroom to create a
jungle for my “pet monkey.” I told her I was setting up for my friend Anne
Marie’s arrival.
“Mom, please please
please please serve us our pizza in a cup like in The Jerk!” I
pleaded. The Look, a muttered response, and she returned to the kitchen.
When Anne Marie arrived
for our playdate, I was panicked. I took her quickly on a tour of the house to
see all the things I had fabricated, making excuses for why Iron Balls McGinty
(my bodyguard and another character from my beloved film) wasn’t there to play
with us and how the arcade I’d boasted about having, with its very own Ms.
Pac-Man machine, had been destroyed in “the flood.”
“It was just terrible,
Anne Marie, just terrible. Our giraffe drowned in that flood, too.”
Slowly Anne Marie started
to realize that the only thing drowning was me in my sea of lies. In the nick
of time, my mother called us upstairs for lunch. She had cut up our pizza and
put the pieces into little cups with forks, just as I had described. Anne Marie
smiled, sat down, and began to eat her lunch.
I sat there waiting for
her to get mad or angry, to call me a liar, to tell me that she was going to
expose me to the entire school. I waited and waited as, piece by piece, Anne
Marie quietly noshed each bite of her pizza in a cup.
When she was done she
placed the empty cup down, looked at me, and said, “Mary, this pizza is really
good. Can I come back tomorrow?”
My lucky break with Anne
Marie created a monster; because from then on I was deeply wedded to the idea
that my fantasy life would always trounce the real world. I’ve continued to
believe this theory to this day, which explains why I’ve made a pretty nice
living creating unique party experiences for clients who have seen it all. I
encourage those on the fence, whose imagination is perhaps… lacking… that
turning their garage into a disco is always a great idea, or I encourage them
to take a chance by serving only hot dogs and martinis at their next soiree,
and when I suggest that we try to contact the real Elton John to play at the
end of their event for the ultimate party Wow!, I really do believe
I can make that happen. Point is, nothing is impossible. If you can dream it,
you can do it (or at least some variation of it, like my makeshift billiards
room).
Many years later, at the
moment I felt I had finally “made it,” I went on eBay and purchased my very own
Ms. Pac-Man machine. Anne Marie, feel free to stop on by anytime and take me up
on that game I promised you thirty-five years ago.
Deconstructed
Pizza Skewers with Roasted Tomato, Fried Mozzarella, and Basil Aioli
MAKES 24 PIECES
As good as I am, it’s
quite hard to convince my clients to eat pizza out of a cup, so here is how I
pay homage to my favorite childhood meal.
¾ cup light mayonnaise
⅓ cup basil leaves
¼ cup baby arugula leaves
1 tablespoon fresh lemon
juice
1½ teaspoon minced garlic
1 tablespoon grated
Parmesan
Salt and pepper to taste
1 half-pint container red
or yellow grape tomatoes
1 package small
mozzarella bocconcini (24 pieces)
½ cup breadcrumbs
1 egg
For the aioli, blend
mayonnaise, basil, arugula, lemon juice, garlic, Parmesan, salt, and pepper in
a food processor until completely smooth.
In a pan, warm a teaspoon
of olive oil on medium heat.
Add the tomatoes and stir
to lightly cook and slightly blister their skins. Remove and cool.
In a separate bowl, beat
the egg. Dredge the mozzarella in the egg and then in breadcrumbs. Fill the
frying pan with olive oil, heat until 400 to 450 degrees, and fry the
mozzarella balls approximately 30 seconds each or until golden brown on all
sides. Set aside on a paper towel to cool.
Once the mozzarella is at
room temperature, use a toothpick or skewer and poke through one tomato then
one mozzarella ball, dotting the tops with the basil aioli. Repeat.
