The Return Home aka the Best Sausage Pizza Anywhere

We packed a lot into our little two-day road trip up to Dana-Farber; and I was completely bed-bound for a day and a half following our return, but it was worth it. In particular, our final stop on the way home was one of the best: Colony Grill in CT.

At home, Gary and I eat vegetarian and organic (as evidenced by our monthly Whole Foods bill)... but when we travel, we eat whatever is the local specialty. The best way to understand the culture of a new place - whether it be a new country or a new state, is to eat whatever the locals eat. Luckily for us, the locals in Stamford, CT eat sweet sausage pizza.

We left Kennebunkport, ME in the afternoon and reached CT around 8 pm... we once again turned to our book Road Food to see if there was a place to stop for dinner; its suggestion was Colony Grill - right off of route 95:

"Pizza is the only food on the menu, available in one size, about a foot-and-a-half in diameter with crust as thin as a saltine...Aside from the wild crunch of their crust, Colony pizzas are known for sweet sausage made across the street at another neighborhood survivor, DeYulio's Sausage Co,, and for the optional topping called 'hot oil': peppery olive oil that imbues them with zest and lusciousness unlike any other." - Roadfood

We ordered a mushroom, sausage, and hot oil pizza. When it came, it looked amazing - Gary took one bite and waived furiously at me to stop... don't eat. His eyes started watering as he mouthed "hot" - I asked "temperature or spice" and he choked out "spice."

Uh oh.

I took a bite and assured him it wasn't too spicy at all... which is weird since he can stand spice more than I can. It turns out that (unbeknownst to us) a "stinger" had made its way onto our pie, which is what Gary had bitten into. We later searched the internet, but couldn't find just what exactly a stinger was... other than ridiculously hot! (I tried a small "stinger" bite and it singed my taste buds). We did come to learn, however, that every hot-oil pie has one to two stingers placed in the middle to indicate that the hot-oil had already been applied to the pie. I guess accidental stinger consumption is part of the "rookie" Colony experience... we won't make that mistake again when we return. And yes, we will drive to CT to have another pie - it may have been one of the best pizzas I've ever had. (That's saying something coming from an Italian-Jersey girl!)