What's a Falzone?

It's usually necessity that's the mother of invention. Tonight it was excess. Excess pizza dough, that is.

I was rolling out the dough (thanks Trader Joe!) and got close to something resembling a circle except for a little extra bit. I trimmed that off and threw the pizza in the oven. Then I thought about what to do with that six-inch excess.

With a little the cheese, tomato sauce, mushrooms and olives still out, I thought about making a mini-pizza. Kinda like a silver dollar pancake, but more savory. But I realized that if I made a calzone, I could fit it on the pizza stone along with the real pizza.

I rolled it up, pinched it shut and popped it in the oven.

Only after taking it out of the oven did I realize that I may have invented something new: the finger calzone. Or, as I like to call it, the Falzone (which sounded better than the Calzinger, Fingone or Finzone).

In the calzone family, the Falzone is the opposite of the mammoth P'zone. It's more like a stuffed breadstick. For me, that's a plus, as I often think calzones have too much squirty, scalding sauce.

The only factor holding back the Falzone's widespread adoption is that it's pretty labor intensive for a hand-held item. Yet if the Pizza Powers That Be can create a crust that folds over the pizza, I'm optimistic they'll figure out a way. Maybe they can talk to the Twinkie people.

Monday Links

What to make of the Pizzacone? The invention features a dough-like cone filled with pizza ingredients that supposedly allows you to eat pizza on the go. I guess that's better than ice cream pizza.

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In honor of yesterday's Po-Boy fest, check out this history of the fabulous New Orleans sandwich. Seems the original Po-Boy purveyors--Martin Brothers Restaurant--sold their sandwiches in 15 and 20-inch varieties. And you thought the foot-longs at Subway were hefty!

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Good on this Irish food writer for taking a shot at Thanksgiving. Unfortunately, she gets a few things hilariously wrong. Check out step four on the turkey and the dessert choice.

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Finally, after seeing these funky new toasters, your beat-up old one may be, well, toast. There's the transparent toaster, not to be outdone by the gliding toaster. And in an age of instant messaging, why not toast messaging?

Spork Notes: Ellio's Pizza

From time to time, I write about a favorite food in a feature I call Spork Notes. Today's topic: Ellio's Pizza.

While some folks' freezer pizza of choice is round, I hew to the rectangular. Within that genre, French bread pizza has regal aspirations. Ellio's aspires to no such heights. Its beauty lies in its simple, solid taste.

An Ellio's box contains three sheets of pizza, each one perforated into three "slices." Apparently some people will only cook one or two slices, but I've always made three. That's probably because when I wanted a "pizza snack," I went with that traditional Italian treat--Bagel Bites.

Besides, snapping off slices before baking takes some doing, seeing as they're frozen. I've stopped that practice because it shakes loose a bit of the cheese, of which there isn't much to spare. That's part of the charm in this age of inch-thick mozzarella.

Ellio's Pizza was the second "dinner" I could make for myself, after hot dogs. Interestingly, both involved the toaster oven. Maybe that's why I'm fiercely loyal to a toaster oven, and can't stand the pop-up kind.

While Ellio's remains pretty low-brow, I've always seen it as customizable. What began with garlic powder and parmesan now looks a bit more deluxe.

Sadly, McCain foods doesn't sell this prince of the pizza aisle here in North Carolina. Perhaps that enhances the allure. It certainly explains why two Ellio's boxes filled my cooler on the return leg of a recent trip to Delaware. (If you work for McCain and are reading this...let's talk).

Since then, Ellio's has ousted Mrs. T's Pierogies, as my standard solo supper. As you can see from the photo, which I've named "Dinner for One," you could do a lot worse.