I was at my neighborhood pizza place tonight picking up my
favorite—salami/crispy red onion, thin crust.
Light on the sauce so that you can easily taste the melding of the
toppings. There’s nothing quite as satisfying, as salty and savory as this
combination on a cracker thin crust. I
first had salami/red onion pizza in, of all places, Playa Conchal on the Guanacaste
coast of Costa Rica. It was quite late
as we had arrived in San Jose and had driven several hours to our resort. The air was heavily humid as we were near the
beach and there was a slight breeze, so salty you could taste it and feel it on
your skin.
We were ravenous and wanted nothing more than a good meal
and a good drink. After wandering around the nearly deserted row of bars and
eateries, we found a cantina which was still open despite the late hour. Their house specialty was my first exposure to
this crusty, salty salami & red onion goodness. We had this pizza with Cerveza Imperial (the national beer of Costa Rica). The bottles were so cold they were nearly
frozen and melted in our warm hands.
Admittedly, I am not typically a beer drinker, but on this late night in
this humid coastal town in a foreign land, I had never tasted anything as delicious
as an Imperial and this pizza. As we ate
and drank I noticed that there were Iguanas climbing the walls of this patio
bar. I, to this day do not know if it was
because of the fatigue from traveling, the heat, the hunger, the lateness of
night, the 3 cold beers I had back to back or a combination of the above, but I
swear these Iguanas were at least 4 feet in length. I later read that these green Iguanas are,
although slightly off putting to us tourists, a desired component of the Costa
Rican ecosystem in that eat a variety of insects and spiders.
This balmy, salty late night in Central America with my
family, a few ice-cold beers, the salami/red onion pizza on a crispy crust (and
yes, even the enormous Iguanas) are the stuff of dreams.
