When something is a constant in your life, in memory, you’ve got to recognize it as such. Perhaps it is part of your character, good or bad. I’ve loved pizza as long as I can remember caring about what the next meal might be or when. I like a lot of toppings on mine and I want each one of those toppings to be tasty and complement each other. We’ve all got our preferences.
Outside of making our own, either in the oven or over the open flame of a grill (I don’t have a pizza oven, but those are fantastic), I enjoy a hunk or two of Hunt’s Bros. pizza. I like a great jalapeno, bacon and beef combo. Breakfast pizza really hits the spot; Denver Omelet is great as well. Anytime you get banana pepper on there, I’m in. Buffalo chicken is tangy, spicy and scrumptious. It helps when you work right across from the local Cenex.
Part of this, I partake in to fulfill my hunger and my quest for my favorite food. I do think pizza ranks number one for me, with Chinese food and tacos a close second and third. Cheeseburgers, sandwiches, Thai, Vietnamese and Southern cuisine round out most of my top 10 list.’
The other part has to do with my Nostalgisist side and some pizza that wasn’t even that great according to most grade schoolers at the time. For me though, it rose above all the rest and in order to explain why, I’ll share something I wrote this week at the Farmer’s Market:
Melamine
Almost every day around lunchtime
or before
I dream of rectangles
of school cafeteria pizza
in pools of orange grease.
Hot in their space
on blue or green or puce
Melamine trays.
Pepperoni sliced thin enough
for the edges to curl
and more grease to pool in each one.
Tots, corn kernels and applesauce.
Chocolate or white milk.
These were the decisions of those days
made for us while we waited in line.
Nothing has ever tasted the same,
since.
©Timothy James Stouffer 06233036 All Rights Reserved
#elystreetpoet
I’m gonna be 57 years old this autumn and that’ll make a half century exactly that I’ve felt this way. Seven was the age I would’ve eaten my first hot lunch at school in first grade at Nash, I think and sometimes it still feels as if the orange grease were running down my wrist and the slice was folding up in my fingers for the first time.
The picture is of Simon in Rome. We were sharing pizza in Italy. It didn’t come on a lunch tray.
I don’t usually go in for everything fitting in its own little square or rectangle but I can very much appreciate the old trays and the ability to keep my different foods from touching. I feel the need for grease.
Thoughts flood my mind as I share this, but the most predominant one is that life is very enjoyable when you embrace the simple things that make you most happy.
A cool evening in the backyard accompanied by cat friends and my dog. Flowers blooming but not quite ready to escape to their fullest from their green potential. A sunset masked by dusky clouds whispering of rain to come. Ravens hollering from their nests.
Creative ideas punching up through the warm soil like the seeds of our garden… sometimes in random wanderings and sometimes in neat little rows. A good slice of heaven, er… pizza.
