Winter Wonderland

Well I do not know where all of you are located but as you all know I am currently in Austin and the past week has finally introduced us to a bit of actual fall. When this weather finally swooped in "Texans" freaked and immediately pulled out their winter coats. Are they crazy?! The weather only got down to about 40's at the lowest. Meanwhile back in Chicago my friends and family are thrilled with weather like that and are still out golfing!
It is very weird to me that I am waiting for this weather to finally come in full force. I see sweater commercials on the TV and think when am I finally going to be able to wear a sweater?
To me, things that are meant for cold weather and no longer occur for me in cold weather don't feel real. Like to be getting Starbucks holiday cups is crazy to me because it still feels a bit like summer, well at least spring! I hope you all can come to Chicago or another cold city and see the actual winter. The snow, the people dressed like marshmallows, ice-skating outside, horse and carriage rides, the Marshall Fields holiday windows (a famous department store in Chicago).
I know I will go back home to Chicago for Thanksgiving get a nice smell of winter and the fires burning and be ready to return to sunny Austin but until then I am still yearning for some snow

Mamma Mia, Pizza!!

After craving "normal"(to me) pizza I finally tried Mangia's "Chicago Stuffed" Pizza. Unfortunately, the report is not the best. I want to be hard on Mangia's and say I am ashamed they claim it to be "Chicago stuffed" but I will hold back and not be too critical. But, for the record, we call it deep dish and not stuffed.
For a Chicago-an or anyone that knows real Chicago deep dish pizza, the pizza was decent for pizza but most definitely not the same as Chicago deep dish pizza! But the others that I ate the pizza with (who are not from Chicago) thought it was good!(No offense to them) They didn't know what to expect and had they had real Chicago pizza I think they too would have been disappointed.
I have been let down by some pizza places in Chicago but none of them compare to the imitation stuffed pizza I got at Mangia's. It is hard to describe why the pizza was not the same to me so I will attempt to explain real Chicago stuffed pizza and attempt to explain why Mangia's was under par. (I say attempt because you have no idea until you taste it yourself.)
First, you all need to know that deep dish pizza is not like normal pizza because there is the crust and then the cheese and on top is the sauce (weird, I know but trust me). So at good pizzerias in Chicago the crust is buttery and flaky and thick! Then, the cheese is ooey and gooey! And, the sauce is a bit sweet and tangy and made with fresh, real tomatoes (the sauce even has some chunks of fresh tomatoes).
Now, at Mangia's the crust was too hard and not at all flaky. The cheese was decent because that's pretty hard to mess up. I have to admit, the cheese was pretty gooey. And the sauce was too thin, there were no real tomato chunks which are always a great surprise.
As we were eating we were discussing how it's weird that even with the same recipe some dishes just don't come out the same as the one you're trying to mimic. I just don't get it? Any ideas on how two dishes cooked with the same recipe can turn out very differently?
Although it is not the same to me, Mangia's has earned a number of awards including recognition as the best pizza in Austin from the Austin Chronicle Readers Pole.
But, my favorite pizzeria in Chicago, Lou Malnati's, has won a ton of awards and is the best deep dish pizza in the country (in mine and many other's opinion). The restaurant also won a throw down with celebrity chef, Bobby Flay.
So, go to Mangia's for good pizza but please know that that is not real deep dish pizza. And if you are ever in Chicago you NEED to eat at Lou Malnati's!

Lou's

VS.

Mangia's