“Pizza Pomodoro may I help you?”
Beads of sweat gathered on my forehead as I perused the menu, and before I could make it past the fourth option – which was stuffed prosciutto, chicken, eggplant tapenade, pressed virgin olive oil, vodka sauce pie – I panicked!
“This is Vincenzo, what do you want to order?”
23 minutes later I called back. This time I was ready and would be victorious.
“Pizza Pomodoro can I help you?”
I hung up after being bewildered by option 12b – garlic knots with Roma tomato gazpacho and a side of Yuca fries.
The voice inside my head told me I could order a pizza. A simple act, one which should require the bare minimum of effort. Yet, I found myself intimidated, almost defeated, by the 67-page take out menu, from this local establishment.
There in all its glossy glory, danced before me temptation. No longer comfortable in its anticipatory state, my stomach churned, groaned, moaned, and bellyached demanding to be fed. I was paralyzed incapable of saying, “yes, I’d like a large pie.”
Does anyone remember the no frills kind of meal, a reprieve from the blazing inferno of the stovetop? You know, the offbeat kind of day when mom said, “it’s Friday, we’re ordering in.”
The anticipation of the soft spoken, stringy mozzarella cheese, audacious red marinara sauce, and perfect crispy crust thrilled me.
I wish Raffaele Esposito, from Naples, had answered the phone and the only option was a magical meal made of a mere three ingredients.
This is not to say we are advocating the elimination of our dear friend pepperoni, to enhance pizza occasionally. However, when did we decide we needed 1,000 toppings on our pies? When did an empanada need to house anything more than ground beef? When did we decide a burger is considered naked unless dressed in caramelized onions, crumbled blue cheese, a thinly sliced avocado and inserted into a toasted, honey-glazed gluten free, steamed boa bun?
I never placed my order for a large pizza pie. Instead, I turned on the stove, boiled some water, and threw pasta into the bubbling cauldron. It was a simple recipe my neighbor Raffaele shared with me.
DID YOU KNOW? If you look on a popular coffee chains website, you will learn that there are 87,000 possible permutations, for selecting your java.