Seven Days without Pizza Makes One Weak

I hardly ever eat pizza unless I make it at home. Not because I don't love it but I'm a girl on her own and a pizza would take me some time to plow through. I have to wait until friends come home for the holidays and need their wing-pizza-chicken finger sub fix or, in this case, a series of work-related events.

Last Thursday, we decided to have a staff lunch, just the five of us, very cozy. We haven't done this since adding two people to our staff, so I was excited becuase this time we got to order TWO pizzas and deviate from the usual Low-Cal Veggie. Devan had his heart set on Laura's Old Fashioned, which is extra-thick crust, ample sauce and topped liberally with cheese and thick-cut pepperoni. Bill favors the Low-Cal Chicken Veggie, with spinach and artichokes. It took Just Pizza forever to get here and when they did, I was irritated because Laura's Old Fashioned looked like regular old pepperoni with a fancy name and a higher price. Oh how I was wrong! I especially loved the thick slices of pepperoni that cradled lovely puddles of grease. You can wrinkle your nose in disgust but it was damn good. Low-Cal Chicken Veggie was tasty but unremarkable. Actually, I liked the veggies but could have done without chicken. If meat is going to be present on a pizza, please let it be in pepperoni or sausage form.

Yesterday, I had a long meeting here so I ordered lunch for the group. It amazes me how everyone wants regular old pepperoni when there are exciting choices, like Stuffed Banana Pepper pizza, which is topped with banana peppers, ricotta and sausage. Anyway, I got one of those and one of the old standby, cheese and pepperoni. Now the pizza was once again from Just Pizza and the difference between last week's Laura's Old Fashioned and this week's cheese and pepperoni was vast. The sauce was too sweet and the cheese kind of flavorless. It wasn't bad but it was unimpressive. The Banana Pepper on the other hand, mmmmm. The ricotta was very creamy, the sausage ample and the peppers adding the perfect amount of kick.

This is when the tale becomes a little embarassing. We ordered pizza at Tasty Tuesday last night. True, I had already eaten dinner (pizza leftovers) and didn't really partake. Actually, I wouldn't have eaten any had they not ordered the mysterious Mister Potato Pie from Mister Pizza. But I had to try this. Starch on top of starch? It reminded me of those glorious french fry po-boys with lots of gravy in New Orleans. The pizza included wedges of potatoes that were a cross between baked and fried and they were amazing. Of course, there was also bacon, chives, three cheeses and a side of sour cream. I just had a bite to satisfy my curiousity and now I can't wait to have it again. Suki and I were already emailing this morning to plan a slumber party as an excuse to order it.

Although I've had no chicken wings on my week-long pizza adventure, I was inspired this morning by an article by Calvin Trillin, that appeared in the New Yorker in 1980, entitled "An Attempt to Compile a Short History of the Buffalo Chicken Wing." It's an entertaining article but its pretty dated so I thought I'd make it my winter's work to update it. This will include sampling wings at all the old classics, as well as the newcomers. I'm going to need some assistance with this task, one can only eat so many wings, so drop me a line if you're interested.