Cookin' With Uncle Marv- Grilled Pizza

About a month ago Aunty MeMe and Uncle Marv spent a weekend with our three and a half year old twin nephews while their folks got some “Mommy and Daddy time” in Santa Fe.  Naturally my wife did most of the heavy lifting during those couple of days since I am not really down with doing bathroom runs and cleaning up snot rockets.  She kept waking up throughout the night to a little face about a foot from hers, eerily lit by the glow of the street light through the curtains.  For some reason one of the twins would get up and just come stand like a ghost by the bed until someone noticed him.  

Hey I did my part people!  I watched cartoons and drank milk with them in the morning.  I went and picked up Pho for dinner (for me), and dressed them as cool as you can dress a kid.  And most importantly I taught them to sing "Take Me Out To The Ball Game", thus cementing my legacy as the world's coolest uncle.

One of the issues about being an uncle even if you are the world's greatest is passing on bad habits to your nephews.  Luckily they haven’t started going around dropping F-bombs, eating on the couch, jaywalking, or punching their grandfather in the nuts while wrestling.  All of which I may be implicated in.  They can however blame/thank me for some of the guilty pleasures they may have in life associated with cooking.

Dough Boy

Everyone has made pizza before, but not everyone has tried grilling it, including me.  One thing was certain; we needed dough and our go-to mix was a pre-packaged gluten free product from Bob’s Red Mill.  Everything in the process went fine until the point at which the dough is placed in a warm spot to rise for twenty minutes.  I had covered it with a cloth and put it in the oven on warm.  Twenty minutes passed and with it adult beverages and business banter with my brother-in-law.  At that point it was discovered that I had set the oven to warm, but had failed to hit the start button.  Once the ridicule died down another problem began to rear its ugly head.  Every few minutes one of the twins would come into the kitchen and ask to see if the dough was rising.  I obliged each request because I to wanted to check its progress. Needless to say it took twice as long to rise.  That whole thing about not opening the oven if you want something to bake is already lost on two three and a half year old's thanks to me.

The Art of Snacking

One of the best things about cooking is snacking during the process!  And making pizza is one of the prime times for such indulgence.  Who can resist grabbing some pepperoni, mushrooms, or mozzarella during assembly to pair with your gin and ginger?  Unfortunately it’s frowned on by your sister-in-law when you fill up your nephews prior to dinner on sausage, green peppers and fresh basil.  I chose to see it as a life lesson from Uncle Marv.  What’s wrong with sticking clumps of basil in your craw like chewing tobacco?

Stone Sour

Most of you are probably wondering how you get a pizza onto the grill and have it cook without falling through the cracks.  Our plan was to use a pizza stone on top of the grill, however it turns out that when you heat a well seasoned stone up to about 500 degrees it tends to catch on fire.  And if you attempt to remove said stone from the flames with tongs it will probably break.  So we ended up having to sacrifice a cookie sheet to the grill gods which worked well for pizza but probably will not for cookies ever again.  My nephews now know that not planning well is the real mother of invention.

Top Till You Drop

When my in laws arrived at the house for dinner they were met at the door by two grand kids with the news that they could have "anything" they wanted on their pizza.  I have to take responsibility for that notion.  It seems as if two types of sauce, pepperoni, sausage, basil, onions, mushrooms, green peppers, and two types of cheese had turned into "anything" in the mind of a three year old.  But I will not take responsibility for the pepperoni, gummy bear and mozzarella pie one of them made and ate with his grandpa.

Football on the East Coast

The funny thing about kids is that they often take two things you tell them and morph them into a comment later in the day that makes zero sense.  After most of us had enjoyed our pizza we worked it off with a family game of soccer in the back yard.  At one point during the match one of the boys said that "soccer was called football on the East Coast."  After a laugh we eventually pieced together that he had combined a book about the rest of the world calling soccer football, with a story from Uncle Marv about growing up on the East Coast and finding puff ball mushrooms in the woods and bringing them home to cook.  It sure is fun being Uncle Marv, and I am in no way responsible for how those two turn out.  

Chuck's

As a boy one of my favorite books was “The Little House" by Virginia Lee Burton.  It’s about a little house in the country that gradually is incorporated into first a town, and eventually a city.  Finally one day when it is surrounded by skyscrapers and boarded up someone comes along, puts the house on a truck and takes it out into the country.  The little house is fixed up and appears happy again away from the crush of city life.  Burton wrote the book in the 1942 so my guess is that the fictitious house has been moved a couple times since then.  Good thing the little house wasn't in my neighborhood because it would have been scraped by now.

The Highlands/Berkeley section of northwest Denver is in the process of cataclysmic change. It was once a modest area of single story brick homes laid out like ribs with Tennyson Street as its spinal cord of commerce.  Now developers are tearing down those little houses and replacing them with what my friend Matt coined as Ikea houses and condos.  Tennyson is changing as well.  Gone are the hardware store, the dance hall, vintage toy store, and the convenience store/laundry mat.  In are brew pubs, gourmet burger places, and boutiques.  The news is full of talk that the bowling alley is going to make way for a natural food store.  It feels like the music store, transmission shop and diner are next.  One place I hope never goes is Chuck’s Barbershop.

In 1957 a young Chuck began working at the barbershop on Tennyson that he would eventually buy in ’63.  Fifty eight years later he is still there, reading a magazine in one of the barber chairs while he waits for our hair to grow.  The shop is long and narrow with three cutting chairs and just enough space for a row of waiting patrons.  The walls are covered with old pictures of Denver, an old TV plays Rockies games, and the magazine selection is excellent.  Chuck himself cuts hair on the first chair while two other long time staff man the others.  Across the street is a new hipster barbershop with its magazines and old pictures and sipping bourbon.  Chuck’s doesn't need to compete with the cool competition, it’s in that rarefied air above cool that comes with time.

This Saturday afternoon was in full lazy mode as I pushed open the glass door of the shop. As luck would have it, Chuck’s chair was emptying as I arrived, so I grabbed a Sports Illustrated and settled in.  I always feel honored to have the man himself trim my locks even though the task is arduous.  You see Chuck is ancient and his back is bent in such a dramatic curve that I don’t see how he sees the top of my head.  But I slouch as low as I can in the classic old barber chair and let the magic begin. The man can cut hair! 

Sometimes when I am around women I'll hear stories about going out to get a mani/pedi, massages, lunch and some shopping in on a Saturday.  Going to Chuck's on a Saturday is like that for a guy. Besides a quality haircut and good magazines how about a head, neck and shoulder massage with a machine straight out of the sixties that clacks and bangs but soothes away the weeks stress?  How about a neck shave with hot lather and a straight razor?  Followed by witch hazel and a vacuum that cleans you up nicely. Yes please!

I betrayed Chuck's recently, and for that I am sorry!  I cheated with a chain (rhymes with Coopers Nuts) cutter because I told myself it was convenient, fast, always open  and near the house.  I feel ashamed for getting those 5 minute rush jobs instead of taking the time walk the 6 blocks down to Chuck's for the real thing.  How could I have lived with myself had Chuck gone to that great barbershop in the sky while I was being unfaithful? Soon enough God is going to need his ears lowered and put in a call for Chuck. When he does go I hope its sitting in that chair with The Denver Post across his knees.  Until then I will look forward to my monthly slouch in that chair and the feel of a warm blade on the back of my neck.