Monster chef revisited: was that outrageous pizza idea delightful, disastrous—or both?

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So, just as I finished putting sauce and cheese on the pizza, my intuition said, "You could stop right there. That’s a great, simple pizza."
 
But no, I was busy answering the same question I posed to you a couple of weeks ago: What outrageous homemade pizza inside you is growling to get out? And after my experience, I continue to believe outrageous pizza is fun. But be ready for the possibility that there will be blood.
 
Not actual blood. Not even fake blood. Metaphorical blood. Maybe just tears. Or, as in my case, an annoyance that can be assuaged by sausage and judicious surgical removal of the genius toppings.
 
If you were here for that last conversation, I asked you to send your ideas for your outrageous, locally inspired pizza.

ABOVE: An extreme closeup on my own monster creation to come...
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One excessive pizza came in from David in Los Angeles.
 
His inspiration must’ve been happy cows, which ostensibly come from California, and from whence cheese-happy mayhem ensues.

David’s pizza? Spicy roasted spinach, red and yellow peppers, onion, low moisture mozzarella, smoked mozzarella, fresh mozzarella pearls, and a garnish of Parmesan and fresh basil.

Cheese, cheese, cheese and cheese. Yay, cheese!

ABOVE: Just one of the many advertisements assuring us that great cheese comes from happy cows and happy cows come from California. 


David says, “The launch was a bit messy, but art is often messy. It was spectacular.”
 
I admit, the cheesehead deep inside me is curious to try this pizza.

And yes, art is often messy. 
 
 
Clint in Hawaii brought left turns and audacity.
 
Clint wrote to suggest several pizza ideas he wants to try, beginning with ulu.

That’s right: ulu. I had to look up ulu.

​Us mainlanders might know ulu as breadfruit.

Above: Ulu, known to many of us haoles as breadfruit


​Clint is talking about a pizza with ulu mash, much like a mashed-potato pizza. (If you’ve never had it, it’s a thing. Devotees of the mashed-potato pizza love it.)
 
Clint is also talking about a pizza with ulu that’s been sliced thin, and complemented with coconut shreds and huli-huli chicken. (If you don’t know huli-huli, it’s kind of a Hawaiian cousin to teriyaki. Pineapple juice is involved. It’s good stuff.)
 
He’s also thinking about a pizza with kālua pork, seaweed and pineapple. I need to try that. I love a seaweed salad. I enjoy kālua pork in moderation. And I'm still waiting to try the pineapple pizza that turns my head and makes me say, "Baby!"
 
(NOTE: If you’re unfamiliar with kālua pork, know it has zero to do with Kahlua, the coffee-flavored Mexican liqueur. I lived under that mistaken assumption for years. Kālua is a method of cooking in an underground oven, and often happens at a lūʻau. And, bonus: ulu is often served there alongside as poi instead of, or in addition to, the traditional poi made from taro root. Hawaiian cuisine lesson for the day.)
 
But of Clint’s list, the pizza idea that is genius in its gourmet economy, honoring the ingredients is…


​“Seafood from tropical waters.”
 
That’s poetic in its simplicity. Work out the details later, Jack. Just honor the ingredients.
 
SIDEBAR: I’ve been reading a fascinating book called The Big Oyster. (Yes, that’s an affiliate link because I’m a glutton for punishment by paltry referral fee at no additional cost to you.) The book is a history of oysters and oystering, mainly in New York. Apparently, New York City was a gluttonous hotbed of oyster consumption, especially in the 1800s. There were dozens if not hundreds of recipes for cooked oysters for the Americans. But the single recipe for the French was one word: raw. Talk about honoring the ingredient.
 
Anyway, David wins for the madness of his viable excess. Clint wins for his exotic minimalism.
 
And I win for the biggest bad idea.

ABOVE: A closeup of a shrimp boil piled on sheets of newspaper

​My own exhortation to you to tap your inner monster chef is how I came to finally execute my long imagined--and now dreaded--Shrimp Boil Pizza.
 
If you’re unfamiliar, a shrimp boil is an iteration of what is generically known as a seafood boil.

​A seafood boil is often identified by the star player, e.g., shrimp, crab or crawfish. Colloquially, it’s often just called “a boil.” As in, “Come on over! We’re havin’ a boil, y’all!”
 
It’s what it sounds like: boiled seafood.
 
But there are usually other foodstuffs involved besides the seafood.
 
Everything is boiled in a giant pot of heavily seasoned water. Then, it’s dumped out in the middle of a table covered with newspaper. Everyone gathers round the table, and peels and eats the feast, ideally with some crusty bread.


When we do a boil at our house, we typically end up with shrimp, potatoes, sausage, corn, asparagus and garlic.
 
And if you’ve never been to a boil, you need to know that it’s a visceral experience.
 
Newbies lose their minds.
 
All this great food is dumped out of a pot onto the table and the civilized adult inside them snaps. They begin eating great food with their hands and it’s pure joy, napkins be damned.
 
It’s practically eating in the nude.
 
We’ve literally done boil for people who’ve eaten great food all over the world, and they are floored by the experience.
 
This mass of good stuff comes rolling out of the cooking vessel onto sheets of newspaper, and their heads explode.
 
It’s fun.

ABOVE: Leftovers from the shrimp boil at our house arranged in a civilized fashion for use as pizza toppings

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And there are almost always leftovers, which I have used to make a lovely chowder.
 
But I’ve also often thought, Well, what about a pizza?
 
So after my appeal to your inner monster chef, I took my own advice. I appealed to my own inner monster chef.

We'd just had a Saturday-night boil. It was a small group, mainly southerners who grew up with boil. They enjoyed it greatly and were not too proud to give props to the carpetbagger Yankee chef.
 
And after, of course, there were leftovers.

 
So two nights later, The Fabulous Honey Parker was out teaching her students how to go for the agreement.

Honey teaches an improv class, which is a never-ending lesson in various ways to say, “Yes, and...” That is the secret formula to any and all improv comedy performances. I say something ridiculous. You say, “Yes, and...” And all that ongoing agreement propels the madness forward.
 
While that was happening across town, I was at home, improvising a pizza. I said, "Yes, and..." It was perhaps an agreement too far.  The pizza was growling to get out and I was the affable enabler.
 
In other times, I’ve made gumbo pizza (good), étouffée pizza (great), and clam chowder pizza. (That latter one has been done as both a leftover-chowder pizza, and as a deconstructed-chowder pizza—and they’re both a lot of fun.)

ABOVE: The artfully composed shrimp boil pizza ready for launch


​And here’s where your faithful pizza geek advises you to listen to your intuition.
 
I had just assembled the pizza with sauce and cheese. I looked at it and thought…
 
“That right there is a good pizza.
 
“I could eat just that.
 
“Maybe I should.”

Intuitively, I knew it was a great idea. But I had a plan. 
 
So, I quashed intuition. I instead listened to my ambition. (They would frown upon this in improv class.)
 
 
I added the toppings and made a very nicely composed pizza.
 
It was topped with shrimp, corn, potato slices, sausage slices and asparagus tips.
 
I launched it. I baked it. I photographed it. I tasted it—and I almost spit it out.

ABOVE: Beware the fully baked Shrimp Boil Pizza 2025
 

This was not a fun pizza.
 
Too many flavors with nothing to unite them. The spices were too assertive. Everything that makes a boil so much fun was absent here.
 
A chowder takes the disparate components and unites them in a savory broth. Each component gets to play with the other. But on a pizza with tomatoes and cheese? Not so much.
 
 
I began picking off the corn, the potato and the shrimp.
 
I ate the resulting sausage and asparagus pizza. And it was good.
 
I will continue to try excessive things just because they often work.
 
And I’ll continue to try simple things because sometimes, they become much more interesting than you realize.
 
Case in point: prosciutto on pizza.
 
Had it a lot. Always kind of yawn.
 
But then…
 
 
I dropped a slice of prosciutto onto a very hot pizza slice.
 
After a moment, I took a bite. And I thought, “Oh, this is the glory of prosciutto on pizza.”
 
The meat had virtually melted into the pizza. It was no longer just a slice of unsmoked, dry-cured ham. It had combined with the pizza. They had become one.
 
It was a bite of salty, porky, cheesy, melty umami goodness.
 
That single, sensuous bite was more than the sum of the parts involved.
 
It was a lucky accident and I want to have that again.
 
Anyway, let out the monster chef for whatever occasion. And know that if it’s a mistake, you always have another option. In 20 years, I’ve thrown away very few pizzas.
 
 
Pizza plans go awry. Pizza repair is always possible.
 
And those times when your madness becomes magic are always rewarding.

As my wife said of herself after tasting the étouffée pizza, “I’ve wasted my life.”
 
I doubt that anyone ever produces ambrosia, which is both expensive and mythical. But pizza innovation is fun. You get to surprise people.
 
And every once in awhile, you get a tantalizing tale of stupid pizza tricks—even if it’s “How I got a great cheese pizza by picking off all the boil toppings.”
 
And don’t forget: if you unleash a monster pizza (or you just have an idea for one) send it here. We often talk about such things as your madness.
 
Special thanks to David and Clint for sharing the outrageous joys of their pizza mania. 

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A lot of big-time professional artisan pizza makers once made their first pizza in a home oven just like yours. You can do it, too. My weird little award-winning book is one way to make it so. The book is about how to get from zero to pizza using the oven you already have. Besides learning to make great pizza, there’s not much else you can do with it. In fact, you can’t even use it to level a table leg if you buy the Kindle edition (which is less expensive than the print editions and has links to instructional videos and printable kitchen worksheets). To learn more about Free The Pizza: A Simple System For Making Great Pizza Whenever You Want With The Oven You Already Have, click here. ​​