Dinner Ordered In

Last night my friends Stacy and Eric came over to visit me. Usually, I would be in the kitchen whipping up some kind of dinner that should probably be saved for a weekend, but I'm making it on a weeknight, because my friends need to be given only the best, most gourmet meal that I can manage. But after a weekend of that was almost more work than fun and another round of Sunday night insomnia, I wussed out and suggested pizza.
Stacy had some memory of a wonderful and yet completely vague vegitarian sandwich from Pizza Luce that she wanted. Eric, on the other hand was all about the baked potato pizza with bacon. They actually asked. I mean, how do you leave off the bacon? Stacy finally decided after Eric and I discussed her sandwich options with her twice, she went with the vegan muffaletta. Pshh. VEGAN? I mean, come ON! We have bacon options here! But, as I waited for them to arrive and I picked up the phone to order, I reread the sandwich description. Olives, banana peppers, spicy mock duck, nona-ricotta (contains nuts.) Hey... maybe I was nuts, but that sounded good. All served hot and fresh on their super yummy, crunchy focaccia. Tossing caution to the poor air circulation in my dilapitated apartment, I ordered two.
When the hip/alterna thrift store clad lad arrived at the door I briefly thought, hey, he's kinda cute. Until he saw my check book. He wrinkled up his nose as if I was offered him my poopy pants in exchange for food. Asshole. They needed my Driver's license number and two phone numbers. Uh, it's the same phone number on the order. With the same address. And how do you manage to become such a dink in such a short period of time? I was informed that they wouldn't be taking checks after the first of the year. I thought, fine, it'll be another 6 months before I order again. I have to forget how snotty half the people who work there are. (The other have is extraordinarily nice, so it's always a crap shoot.) I mean, if given the option I would have glady offered up my check card, but we were splitting this. Did he really want to break it out into three separate tabs and come up with change for each of us? Whatever. After he left, everyone laughed at my use of the word "dink" and we dug in.
Eric's pizza was piping hot with garlic mashed potatoes, tomatoes, cheese, broccoli and of course, the bacon. On the side it was served with sour cream. Whoever came up with the idea of putting together what is essentially a twice baked potato and a pizza is a goddamn genius. It was good.
And yet, it had nothing on the vegan mufalleta. Which, really, really distirbs me. I associate vegans with a bunch of malnourished whiney pants. I mean how do you not eat cheese!? What on Earth is wrong with you? But still... this was one tasty sandwich. The mock duck was indeed spicy, the olives were nice and salty, a generous amount of banana peppers and that fake cheese... well, I wouldn't want to run into it in a dark alley. It really looked like a distant cousin of ricotta by way of a sandwhich spread mixed with meriunge... but it really added something. The focaccia was warm and toasty on the outside, but chewy the way a sandwich should be. I love the rosemary and olive oil flavor that's so abundant in this bread.
So, there you have it. I had something vegan that wasn't hummus and I liked it. Try one of these sandwiches for yourself and see what I mean. But if you tell anybody, anybody that I ordered something specifically vegan when I could have gotten all kinds of wonderful salami, genoa and ham... Well, I'll just flat out deny it.