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National Calzone Day 2025
National Calzone Day on a blustery November Saturday? Naturally! Let’s stay inside and have a nice toasty 🥟 calzone to keep us warm…
Flavor From The Cheeses
I make a plain calzone, and that’s all I make. If you want something else in it, I’ll put it in there, like a topping, but I don’t recommend anything because of the flavor from the cheeses. ~Mark Iacono
I’m a big fan of this Italian treat.
Some people think of it as a pizza folded over into a dumpling, but that’s not quite correct.
The calzone starts with a smaller piece of dough because it’s only going to be the size of a personal pizza folded over.
The basic principle is the same for pizza, calzone and stromboli: dough, sauce, cheese, toppings/stuffings.
With a calzone, you’re making an oven-baked dumpling.
Is it the only kind? No. There are pasties, piroshki, empanadas, nikuman, samosas and other varieties the world over.
But the thing that sets a calzone apart from all of those savory hand pies is the cheese.
How To Calzone
How To Make Calzone! (OriginalNYPizza)
Okay, the Chicago style is deep-dish style, and the provolone base provides an interesting zing, but I can’t help but lean toward the Big Apple.
The ricotta cheese base that he starts with before adding the stuffings such as sausage, mushroom, green pepper, pepperoni, whatever; it really makes the calzone the special treat I’m familiar with.
The combination of ricotta and mozzarella creates a memorable texture by itself, but I love what the stuffings bring to the dish.
A nice marinara sauce to dip it in as opposed to having the sauce inside is what makes it not just a pizza folded over.
You can eat it without the sauce, especially if you’ve added some nice juicy meat, but having that dipping sauce is part of the whole experience.
Chicago’s Best Calzone: LaCoco’s Pizza & Pasta
Stunning Culinary Innovation
It was more like a savory pastry filled with tomato sauce, cheese, and seasoned meat. Just a stunning culinary innovation. ~Ben Wyatt (Parks and Recreation)
It varies by restaurant, but I prefer a calzone without the sauce inside.
We all have our preferences.
That’s what makes books sell, too.
It’s the readers’ preferences that drive sales.
Some people will grab every mystery they can find time to read.
Other people live and die for romance or even romantasy.
There are those who won’t read anything that isn’t flowery and literary.
Me? I like fantasy, science fiction, action and the classics.
This is a frequent refrain for aspiring writers: write the book you’d like to read.
That’s exactly what I’ve been doing.
If you’ve read my stories, you’ve read my reading list.
I don’t know how it is for other authors.
Maybe they write stuff just to see if they can.
I guess that could work for a short story, but I can’t imagine writing a novel on a dare or as an experiment.
That’s not how I’m wired.
If you can, mazel tov.
You do you and top it off with a savory calzone.
That’s all for today. See you back on Wednesday for stress awareness…