My first conscious memory of loving pizza was at Pizza Hut, the restaurant. Remember when they had sit-down tables and a salad bar? I remember the greasy crust and thick, gooey marbled cheese. Even at age 8, at the nation-wide chain restaurant that serves pizza that some food critics might not even acknowledge as food, I knew I met true love. If I don't eat it every day, I surely dream of it. I salivate even at the thought of the perfect dough/sauce/topping combination, of which there are thousands.
Last week I professed to my best friend's husband to be a "pizza whore." What I meant was I LOVE PIZZA. I could eat it all the time. I am always in the mood for it. So why did I use the word "whore?" Would I sell my body for a slice? Is there something raunchy about my obsession? It is true that my adoration for pizza is less principled than my taste and criticism for other food, so I feel less than prude when I crave the grease. Still, I've been somewhat conflicted about labeling myself a whore of any kind. Does it work to say that I have multiple pizza partners? Maybe. But then dictionary.com's word history saved my self-proclaimed title. The Germanic root of the word is "horaz," which means "one who desires," and the Sanskrit derivative "kamah" means "love." Ladies and gentleman, this is the kind of pizza whore I am! I love and desire Pizza!
I hope you'll join me here, in blogger land, on my pizza whoring adventures!
See? Now I want a pizza. I LOVE pizza too, but it has to be pepperoni, or forget it. And I'm certain I could eat it every day. I could marry it, but I don't think I could have sex with it, so I'm not sure where I measure up on the pizza spectrum compared to you.
ReplyDeleteI confess that I, too, am enamored with pizza. My mom's homemade started it all ... hand made dough nice and crispy, with all the toppings my young carnivorous heart could desire: piles of pepperoni, Italian sausage and onions smothered in cheese ... oh man. When my sister and I were old enough to take out to dinner we discovered the two existing pizza places within a reasonable drive of our secluded Minnesota home. One flat and thin, extra crispy and swimming in grease cut into two inch squares, the other thin crust as well but soft, with a huge roll like a built in bread stick around the outer rim and a spicy sauce that still tweaks my memory fifteen years later. In college it became chain restaurants, for lack of a better option. Pizza Hut for thick, almost deep fried crust, Dominoes for a pizza (or pizza like substance anyway) crispy top and bottom but chewy in the middle. Sunday night was five dollar one topping Little Caesar's night, delivered to the dorms. Always mushroom, always with a side of X-Files and The Simpsons. A stint on the east coast introduced me to NY Style pizzas, of which my favorite was a white pizza with broccoli and daubs of goat cheese from a local chain.
ReplyDeleteAnd now? Now I have fetched up in Portland, land of great beer and good pizza. So many options, and almost all of them better than any pie ever served to me in a restaurant anywhere else. I'm partial to Mississippi Pizza as well, not as the best pizza in town, but for the ease with which you can order a pie the size of your table and a high scarfability factor. (Normal food rating terms are so inadequate.) I'd have to say that Ken's Artisan is my vote for best pizza yet tasted, but there are several front runners in that competition that remain untried.
Reading this blog actually inspired a trip to Whole Foods downtown last night, and a For the Love of Vegans pizza came home with me. Of course, take out pizza can never really compare to something eaten straight from the oven, but I have to say that Whole Foods hit on something special when they decided to use a slightly spicy red pepper hummus as the sauce on their vegan pizza. I've never had another vegan pie that satisfies the pizza craving in quite the same way. The hummus gives the same soft and fulfilling sensation in your mouth that the cheese/sauce combination does, and the rest of the toppings fill out the flavor quite nicely. The crust is chewy and satisfying, but nothing special,(at least in this town). However, the ability to eat half a pizza, feel like my cravings are satiated, and not wake up with a cheese hangover the next day makes this pie a definite entry on my top ten.
I'll be looking forward to more entries, and if you ever need another pizza partner, you know where to find me!
Apizza Gigolo