Academy pizza party inspires new cookbook
Goldie Rapp
Fr. Dominic (a.k.a. the Bread Monk) recently published a second edition of his cookbook Thursday Night Pizza (Reedy Press, $22.50). This updated version includes a number of recipes inspired by an annual fundraiser he organizes with Academy Wrestling Coach Sam Allen.
A few years ago Coach Allen was lamenting on how hard it is to come up with original fundraising ideas, especially something that didn’t require our students to sell a certain number of tickets or products to family and neighbors. He made an offhand comment to Fr. Dom: “Maybe I should pair up with you and we could call it ‘Stage Rats and Wrestlers’.”
“I told him I would do it,” Fr. Dom recounts with a smile, “just for the cool name and the chance to design an awesome logo! We also wanted to demonstrate that at Saint Bede, athletics and the arts don’t have to be in competition with each other, as they are at so many schools.”
They settled on the idea of a gourmet pizza party and wine pairing, a semi-formal event with tablecloths to the floor, real tableware (no plastic, please!) cloth napkins, centerpieces and candles. The wrestlers serve the wait staff with Coach Allen as the maître d’ and Stage Rats run the kitchen under Fr. Dom’s direction. The menu generally includes a soup, five gourmet pizzas paired with carefully curated wines and a homemade dessert such as tiramisu cream puffs or lemon mousse-filled cannoli with a blueberry drizzle.
The fundraiser has been a huge hit and has become an annual event, but that popularity has put a lot of pressure on the organizers to keep the menu varied, to keep guests coming back. Coach Allen says, “We want people to think: ‘I wonder what they come up with this year?’”
That creative thinking was the part of the impetus behind the new edition of Thursday Night Pizza. New pizzas include a Sicilian sausage pizza with pistachio pesto cream sauce, a tomato bacon galette topped with gorgonzola cheese, and “Piggy in the Vineyard,” with ham, shallots, smoked gouda and red grape halves, drizzled with honey and garnished with fresh thyme.
The other factor encouraging Fr. Dom’s creativity is the popularity of backyard pizza ovens.
“I had to write a whole new section on patio pizza making, and include a recipe for Neapolitan Pizza dough that can stand up to the high temps in a wood-fired oven,” he said.
The new edition of Thursday Night Pizza is available in the Academy Business office during regular business hours or at www.stbedeabbey.org/monksmarket. This year’s gourmet pizza party and wine pairing will be held on Oct. 26; tickets will go on sale Sept. 16. Contact Fr. Dom for more info.