Aquabats & "Pizza Day" Week:

 

Times continue to be challenging as we wrap up the strangest summer I can remember. And as we head into what will surely be one of the craziest election seasons on record, I think we could all use some content that doesn’t make us want to run screaming in the other direction. To me, that means ska. Say what you will about ska music (and many have), it’s always had a happy place in my library.

We’re finding joy where we can and hope you are too. We’re still not dining at restaurants (takeout only) so we’ve been cooking a lot at home. We’ve discovered a lot of delicious tasty things and dusted off some of our favorite techniques and recipes in the last few months.

David and I went to see the Aquabats (a favorite ska band of ours) a few years ago after a different stressful time in our lives. It was a few months after his transplant operation and we were more than ready to celebrate. We got fancy meet-and-greet tickets and I brought the band a cake from the Bon Bonerie because why not. Who doesn't want cake when you are on tour? Also I may have promised to bring them a cake if they came to Cincinnati the year prior – and I keep my promises.

 

We were all set to go see The Aquabats again along with Reel Big Fish earlier in this spring, but the pandemic cancelled those plans. Is nothing sacred?!

So if we can’t go see The Aquabats this year, we figured we’d just bring The Aquabats to us via their classic, “Pizza Day.”
 

If you’ve never heard the song, it details out school lunches by day of the week. Monday: hotdog, Tuesday: tacos (naturally), and so on. Friday is pizza day - the best day of the week.

It also talks about how the normal, seemingly boring things like the lunches, scorned by the band at the time, were now a fond memory of a better time. Sound familiar?

Yeah, I thought so too. So queue up Pizza Day and sing along like no one is watching. Because they probably are not. Or if they are, you’ve surely done weirder stuff while stuck at home for the past year, so who cares?

Well I remember my first day of public school
I was very scared of getting pummeled
And sure enough I did at first recess
I got pegged in the head by a big red ball
And it stung and my head hung
Back to class with a bloody nose
And soon it was lunch time
Mom said I should ask about how poor kids could get fed
So I got a book of tickets and a schedule and it read ...

Monday: Hotdog

We’re big fans of Nueske’s bacon – we prefer the nitrate free triple thick cut, which we order in batches and then leave the Styrofoam box around for the cat to nap on (he loves it so). We decided to give their hotdogs a try as well. These have a nice snap and great flavor, and are super juicy. We put it on a bun from North College Hill Bakery and served it with a little leftover mac and cheese from Jeff Ruby (one of my favorites if you’re going for a deluxe mac and cheese experience, though I did serve it via the school lunch requisite, an ice cream scoop).

Tuesday: Taco

We’ve been making A LOT of tacos during the pandemic, and one of our favorite meats to include is the local skirt steak from Eckerlin’s. It’s super beefy and perfect for tacos, and one steak can stretch a few meals, especially if you are like me and prefer the Mission mini street tortillas. We season ours with either adobo or sometimes even steak seasoning. We also used our two “daily drivers” when it comes to hot sauces: Private Selection Jalapeno Tomatillo, the ONLY hot sauce I have ever bought and used multiple bottles of, and David's favorite, Gringo Bandito, a project from The Offspring’s Dexter Holland. You may smirk until you try it - it’s extremely tasty.

You're gonna go far, kid

Wednesday: Hamburgers and Chocolate Milk



 

 

Ok, so we fancied the burger up a little. More local ground beef from Eckerlin’s, butter lettuce from a local farm via Madison’s with an heirloom tomato and of course American cheese because it makes everything better. The burger is also served on THE BEST burger bun in town, a potato roll from Blue Oven. Blue Oven is a fantastic local bakery – their English Muffins are quite simply, a revelation – but tragedy struck recently when their bakery burned to the ground in August (thanks, 2020). No one was hurt, but they are fighting their way back and rebuilding. Please consider supporting them if you can, via their rebuilding fund or this personal Go Fund Me for the employee that lived above the bakery and lost her home. 

 

For the chocolate milk, we decided to make our own. Last year I went a bit nuts with hot chocolate. I started trying all sorts of them, and now we have a box of two dozen different types (whoops?). We used a blend of our top two faves – chocolate from Jacques Torres (yes, the chef from Nailed It) and MarieBelle.

The "hot chocolate box"

Thursday: Sloppy Joes and Burritos in a Bag

Once again on a fantastic Blue Oven roll, we modified this recipe from The Pioneer Woman. Love her or hate her, you can’t deny her rise to fame and power has been fueled by solid recipes like this one. The sauce is quite a bit more sophisticated than you what you were likely to encounter in a school cafeteria, but still has the homey comfort of a ketchup base.

 

The burritos in a bag, however, were a bit of a puzzle. We could not figure out if it was meant to be a walking taco, or if it was actual burritos in a bag. So I did the sensible thing. I asked the Aquabats Legion of Righteous Comrades Facebook group (yes, of course I'm a member) what they thought it meant. The answer was overwhelmingly that it was an actual burrito in a bag, but I couldn’t easily find any, so I ordered Skyline chilitos and put them in a bag. Pro tip: get the chilitos with the “bean mix” instead of the regular chili and thank me later.

Friday was pizza day, the best day of the week

All the kids would line up super early just to eat



 

 

The pizzas we’ve been making are a quick, easy way to make a high quality bar pizza. We first learned about it from Kenji at Serious Eats and have been making it ever since. Say what you will about this method, but if it’s good enough for French master chef Jacques Pépin it’s certainly good enough for anyone else. We like to use a fire-roasted crushed tomato as our sauce, and I sprouted some basil cuttings over the pandemic (which I didn’t even know you could do!) which are pulling their weight.

We also like to use the Extra Hot Mike’s Hot Honey and pepperoni from La Quercia to create a copycat Hellboy from Paulie Gee's, or sometimes La Quercia prosciutto and ricotta from Golfo Di Napoli. I also like to put some Cobanero chili flakes on mine from Burlap & Barrel - another company we’ve discovered recently producing amazing spices to up anyone’s home cooking game.

Friday was pizza day, the best day of the week
It always came with salad and a side of cold green beans

The green beans should ideally be from a can, but I couldn’t find any and wasn’t about to set foot in Kroger so we made ours fresh. The salad we also outsourced as one of our favorites - the “little salad” from Goose & Elder. There are so many elements to the salad: pickled veggies, egg, beets, tons of things other than just lettuce, we order this every time we get takeout. Jose Salazar, the head chef and owner of Goose & Elder, has been up to a lot of good things - even using one of his other restaurants, Mita's, to partner with The Lee Initiative and provide food to restaurant workers in need in the spring. Please support him if you can.

The rest of the song is below with some more beauty shots, and if you’ve made it this far through one of the silliest posts we’ve done, you are to be commended. While the days may be dragging on as we head into the fall, try to find your reasons to celebrate, no matter how small or silly they may be.

Any day can be pizza day if you try hard enough. And I won’t judge you if you swap out the Capri Sun for a juice box of the more adult variety.

Well I remember my first day of Jr. High
I had hairspray in my hair and my pants were way too tight
And all the breakers and new-wavers and the rockers and the preps
Would all be in their places on the front lawn or the steps I hung out with some punker kids who used to make me laugh
Got thrown in the dumpster by some rich kids near the caff
As time went on we figured out it was totally uncool
To eat the welfare lunch Provided by the school
So in poser punker fashion we just mooched off all the kids
And lived off eating candy bars and bags of nacho chips

Monday hotdogs
Tuesday tacos
Wednesday hamburgers and chocolate milk
Thursday sloppy Joes and burritos in a bag
Friday was pizza day, the best day of the week
It always came with salad and a side of cold green beans
Hooray for pizza day
Hooray for pizza day
I miss pizza day
The best day of the week

Well now I'm out of school and I don't have a job (you're a slob)
I just sit around all sweaty and lethargic
And I'm just thinkin' 'bout where it all went wrong
Why I can't concentrate on anything but reruns
I wish I had some more stability and I
I wish I had somebody makin' lunch for me
I guess I miss the simple things in life
The thought of pizza day
I thought it's stupid then but I wish I had it now



 

 

I just want Monday hotdogs
Tuesday tacos 

Wednesday hamburgers and chocolate milk 

Thursday sloppy Joes and burritos in a bag
Friday was pizza day, the best day of the week
It always came with salad and a side of cold green beans
Monday hotdogs
Tuesday tacos
Wednesday hamburgers and chocolate milk
Thursday sloppy joes and burritos in a bag
Friday was pizza day, the best day of the week
It always came with salad and a side of cold green beans
Hooray for pizza day
Hooray for pizza day
Hooray for pizza day
Hooray for pizza day
I miss pizza day… the best day of the WEEK!