WANDA SCOVIL'S PIZZA

   ON the Saturday nights my mother, Wanda, made Pizza, the word mysteriously got out and you never knew who would be sitting at the table when the oven door opened and that most basic of  American/Italian foods was cut - usually with scissors, it was years before she got a pizza cutter - and set on folded dishtowels, in the center of the Formica top table.  One of my brothers was a policeman and he and his partner would be there, Grandma Rena, lived with them so she was there, assorted cousins and Aunts who just happened by to see Grandma,  plus the Zeman's, the Christies, the Morans, and Tony & Sis Raineri.  And then there were all of us with spouses, kids, and high school siblings and their friends.  This was not the whole group every time but any combo of the above.  Russ and Wanda Scovil's house was the "gathering" spot.
   When did pizza become one of our family's favorite meals?  As I remember, it started with a friend of Uncle Jack's.  His name was Brinsco.  He lived  in Chicago and he and Jack had been in the Navy on the USS George Elliot.   On one of his visits to downstate, he made pizza - something new and exotic to a meat and potatoes family - and Mom picked up on the recipe and made it her own.
  The recipe is not written down but done "to taste" as was Mom's way of cooking.  It has been refined by other members of the family.


                                                                       PIZZA
2 1/2 cups of flour
1 cup of warm water
1 pkg of dried yeast
about a 1/4 cup vegetable oil
salt, oregano and garlic powder "to taste"

375 degree oven.  Spread Crisco on a regular size cookie sheet. 
Add together dry ingredients.
Mix yeast in warm water, add oil. 
Pour liquid in dry and mix.  Dough is sticky.
Oil hands and spread dough on cookie sheet. (Sister, Judith Anne was the first one to let it sit in the warming oven to let it dry and raise a little)
Spread one 8 oz. can of tomato sauce - Hunts has the best flavor - over dough.
Add cheese next, preferably baby swiss but whatever is in the house. (Sister, Carol puts cheese first and then sauce.  Her family prefers a light amount of sauce)
Cooked sausage crumbled finely and drained.
Peppers, onions, mushrooms - amount "to taste" - and chopped finely  and topped with grated  parmesan.
Bake about 20 minutes or until "eating good brown" (The family prefers a thin crust so your preference to thickness might make a difference in what size pan you use.  The recipe fills two round pizza pans.)

   My mother taught my sisters, Suzanne, Carol and Judy to make pizza and brother, Russ makes it.  In fact, Russ's friend, Butch Carey  - as in Butch's Pizza - told Russ he got the idea for making pizza after having it at Mom's house.  Don't know if Richard and Dave make the recipe  but she didn't teach me, but rather my husband, Vern.  So in our branch, to family and friends, it's known as Vern Mall's Pizza.  Vern liked to use a mixture of hamburger and sausage and mozzarella cheese.
   There have been times, though, when Vern Mall's Pizza was made by moi.
                        Enjoy!