St Louis Pizza-- No Provel Allowed!

Wow, the last week has flown by! I've been adjusting to my new schedule, which involves a part time nanny job, a part time job at a cooking/kitchen store, and part time school. It is crazy, with a different schedule every day, but I have to say I'm much happier than I was at my old job. And I'm excited about getting back into teaching, so I continue to feel I made the right decision when I quit my job to go back to school.

As you might have guessed, this new schedule has not left me much time for cooking. My part time job is mostly evenings/weekends, and my summer class meets two nights a week. This means a home cooked dinner has been happening about once a week, if I'm lucky! We've also been doing the typical summer road tripping, which meant we spent last weekend visiting my parents in their new home base of St Louis. It's just a 5 or 6 hour drive from Chicago, which is a lot easier than flying to the Netherlands!

The best pizza in StL, at least in my opinion :)

We always eat well when visiting my family, and this trip was no exception. My mom made a huge Mexican spread including these tortillas, and made two tasty cakes to help my sister and I celebrate our birthdays. Then on Father's Day we ended up near Pi Pizza, which we've been dying to try. Apparently Barack Obama loved Pi when he was campaigning in St Louis, and we had to see what the big deal was! It didn't look very crowded, so we thought we'd see if they had space for our party of 8. They had a big table up front that was perfect for us, and I am so glad they did! This place was fantastic! They're into being "green, local, etc", which you see a lot of these days. But that mentality doesn't always mean great food, right? We had four pizzas, two thin and two deep dish, and loved them all. The deep dish was true Chicago style, with some of the best crust Joe and I have ever had. We figure the owner or chef must have some Chicago roots, because some of the pizzas were named after Chicago neighborhoods like Lincoln Park and Bucktown. The toppings were fresh and well matched, and only a couple slices lasted long enough to be boxed up for the next day's lunch. The $4 PBR pitchers were like the icing on the cake, and I can promise you I'll be visiting Pi again on a future trip to St. Louis!

The whole gang. Happy Father's Day!

Thin crust samplings. We had them bring the thin ones while the deep dish was still cooking, just in case someone would starve in between... Good call :)

My cute sister and her finace, all excited for true Chicago style Pizza.

Does this even need a caption?

And can I please get a slice, ASAP?