Living Life in the Northwoods: The Pizza Priest

Our parish priest, Fr. Mike, made a visit to our home this week to make his infamous south-side Chicago thin crust pizza. He is known to all folks in town as the "Pizza Priest" and loves to share his delicious pizza with as many people as possible. He loves to promote his motto of "Food and Relationships" and how food promotes positive and healthy relationships with those that we love.

Now when Fr. Mike said he was coming over with pizza, I just assumed he made and baked them at home and in a 10-minute drive to our home, we would be sitting down to eat warm delivery pizza. I had a salad and fresh fruit prepared and on the table, ready to go, when he pulled in the yard. But as he began to remove the items from his vehicle, he came in with two large bags of ingredients (including almost every type of cheese possibly made) and it was then I knew we were making the pizzas at our house!

Fr. Mike is excellent with children, and it's taken a while for Michael to warm up to him. But each encounter with Fr. Mike softens Michael, and last night was no exception. Fr. Mike makes the pizza dough and sauce from scratch, and as he began to roll out the first blob of dough, he asked me if I had another rolling pin so Michael could roll out his own pizza crust. It was such a grand idea, and Michael gladly joined in, took direction from Fr. Mike, and rolled out his own pizza crust.

Fr. Mike brought all of these awesome toppings including sweet Italian sausage, pepperoni, mushrooms, whole back olives, and dill pickles (yes, dill pickles....try it sometime...it's delish)! And in the end I think he put on 5 different types of cheeses!

The pizza was absolutely awesome, and Michael can attest to that because he ate the whole little pizza he made!! Normally, I'm lucky if I can get him to eat one piece of pizza, whether is a store bought frozen pizza or a Pizza Hut pizza. His smile says it all....