Lord Bottletop's Fez

I had a 20-year career in telecommunications engineering in my thirties and forties, at times working alongside an Italian-American guy from New York. Bob had deeply set eyes and a hangdog look, at odds with his pleasantly matter-of-fact disposition. On Fridays, he'd show up at the office with a homemade pizza that he  called his "garbage pie”—baked dough, sauce, cheese, and whatever leftovers were in his fridge. It's always been a dish of humble origins, so when it became known that Margherita of Savoy, the first queen of unified Italy, loved pizza and often asked her kitchen staff to prepare it, the dish was elevated to an honored position, and the Pizza Margherita, in the colors of the Italian flag, was named for her. On a personal level, some things   about this dish are inviolable.   I’ll never let barbecued chicken or sliced pineapple  near it. Or broccolli or cannned tuna. That being said, it’s probably the most bastardized, personalized dish in the world, but I kee