Yes Hormel makes tasty nitrate preservative free lunch meats too...Costs more...but taste delish...bacon as well... And Jimmy Deam makes a delish Natural sausage in "hot" and regular. I use the hot for pizza or breakfast. and then there is this other brand of hotdogs and polish or smoked sausage I buy that is Gluten Free and nitrate free. Bistro Naturals by John Morrell. another one to check on is Dietz and Watson...Albertsons Deli carries it. Applegate Farms (carried at Trader Joes and other "natual" grocery stores.

I made Lou's again lastnight. Here's the recipe. Lou's Pizza Dough 1 c warm water 2 1/2 t yeast 2 T sugar (I just added in an iced tea spoon worth, so you could avoid..but I find when using wheat flour it needs a little sugar or sweetener. I some times squirt in a bit of honey or Agave.) 1/4 c oil (I added in one small glug.) 1/2 t salt 3 1/2 c flour 1/2 c whole wheat ~I use 2 cups white and 1 c whole wheat, I've never used 4 cups of flour. Also when using wheat, it seems to help to have the dough a bit wetter..whole wheat absorbs more liquid and needs it to not be so "rough". I pour the water, yeast and sweetener into a bowl big enough to mix the whole batch. Let set for a bit to bloom the yeast. 6 or 7 minutes later I stir it well, pour in some oil and leave it again for a few minutes while I grate cheese or brown sausage. Then I add in 3 cups of flour 2 white, 1 WWheat and a big pinch of sea salt. Stir until it starts coming together with a fork..Then go in with my hand and start "working" into a ball. Form it into a ball and let sit on the counter, dust with flour if you want to avoid sticking. Let the dough rest a few minutes while again working on the sauce or toppings.. (the dough should be sticky) with some flour on the bench and some sprinkled over the ball of dough, start working the dough out into a circle or rectangle. Sprinkle the baking stone with corn meal and then move the dough over to the pan and stretch to your size. I tend to like the dough a bit thinner, so I usually make two 10-12" pizza's with one batch of dough..However the guys like fluffy deep dish pizza. So last night I used one batch of dough for each 15" pizza. Form the pizza dough to the size and shape you want, par bake at 450 until it starts to just turn golden on the top edges..Pull out, sauce, top and bake in the oven to melt the cheese and finish baking the crust. Lastnights pizza was deemed the best so far by my 16 yr old. I went back to using Lou's dough, used one batch per pizza and made my own sauce and didn't go super gloppy on the cheese.

Our New Years' Eve party is always a game night. The main group of contestants, our anointed Scrabble Masters, battle it out around the dining table, thrusting and parrying with their Official Dictionaries. The local Monopolists exploit each other at the living room game table. Sorry boys, but only one of you will end up as the 1%. The chatterers and gigglers gather around the fireplace and the sideboard-turned-bar. A hard core of our older guy friends loiter in my kitchen, drinking scotch and sampling the production of noshes and nibbles. Our Quality Assurance team, I suppose. People start arriving around 7 pm. At midnight there are poppers and honkers, party hats and industrial-size sparklers. We play "Auld Lang Syne" (Jimi Hendrix, Fillmore East 1970) extra loud. Injuries are tended to (those sparklers looked like welding torches), the hardest-core gamers get back to their tables, coffee is served. The last guest typically leaves around 2 am. We try to keep people supplied with food this whole time, lest they revolt and burn down our house with a sparkler. What to serve for this situation? There are usually a couple trays of SWMBO's holiday almond roca and peanut brittle. As it is in part a neighborhood gathering, several dishes always get walked over, this year some yummy bacon cheese wraps and deviled eggs. I made some BBQ buffalo wings. SWMBO made an artichoke dip and her gorgonzola garlic cheesecake. All fine and well, but after sitting out for three hours, those initial dishes aren't so appetizing. Let's not even mention what ceviche looks like after a couple hours on display. That need for continuing food is where the pizza worked nicely. All the real pizza work was done ahead. The dough, the sauce, the slicing and dicing and mincing and sprinkling. When guests started arriving, the oven was pre-heated. About an hour into the evening, I finished off my second Caipirinha and started making mini-pizzas. It was a leisurely process. Stretch out a small rectangular crust, top, slide into oven. Wander around, kibitz at the game tables, refresh my drink, cut and serve the pizza, make another pizza, repeat. My first-effort pizzas were nothing to write home about. But they were eaten all the same. We had pepperoni and mushroom pizza, olives and onion pizza, clams and olives pizza, crabmeat and scallops pizza, and for Miss Vegetarian, who wasn't wearing a turban tonight, roast brussels sprouts and egg white pizza. I ended up not making a bunch of other stuff. About halfway through the afternoon prep, the weight of three weeks' non-stop house guests, too many holiday dinner parties, too much in-law time, and work that never let up until the last couple days of the year - it all came down. I suddenly got really tired, slumping tired, aching feet tired. So all the fun and frivolous dishes got thrown overboard. I have a refrigerator full of those fixins' that I've got to repurpose over the next few days. (What to do with a dozen oysters, a dozen frozen egg yolks, chicken strips marinated in sugar, etc?) I did have fun during the party, but it was also a little bit about survival. I drank a quart of water for every cocktail. Ate mostly microwaved egg whites. Snuck upstairs for a couple of 5 minute lay downs. And now it is the New Year. I don't have a crystal ball, but I know one thing about the coming year. There's not going to be any damned dinner parties or house guests for at least a month!

I don't know if this helps but, I have cherry cabinets and I have BM Flowering Herbs in my kitchen which is a nice sage green and BM Baby Turtle in adjacent FM one shade darker on paint strip not quite an olive but definitely darker.