So, dear pal
Vee said to me today that she had been enjoying my whipsawing between, as she put it, "posting every day and writing real essays." That being the case, I thought I would mix it up with a different sort of post: not quite a what-I-had-for-lunch or lazy-link-farm, but not quite a Johnbai polemic or a Yojimbo review. Sort of a mini-essay.
I try not to wax too nostalgic for the east coast; there are few things as annoying as an ex-New Yorker who can't stop telling you how much better everything was back in The City. Aside from still calling New York "The City" (with capital letters), these days I think I am, in most respects, a Pacific Northwesterner through and through.
Except for pizza.
Don't turn away; I'm not going to go off on the
there's-no-good-pizza-outside-New-York rant. That is demonstrably not true, and many cities have pizza traditions as long and as storied as the Big Apple's. In Seattle, I can quickly name Piecora's, New York Pizza, Pudge Brothers, Pizza Brava, and even Pagliacci's as good pies.
I'm not even going bring up the
real-pizza-doesn't-have-so-many-ingredients argument. I've long since gotten used to barbecued chicken pizza and other exotic toppings; trying to argue against them is like trying to limit what can go in a sandwich: it just doesn't make sense. And even the PNW has nothing on places like Japan and Australia when it comes to this practice: how about creamed corn or fried eggs?
I will say that a slice of plain cheese pizza, if made with the right ingredients, can have every bit as textured and complex a flavor as a pizza with several toppings, but hey, to each their own.
No, the diatribe I will allow myself about pizza is this one:
how come I can't get a slice?
Back in The City, pizza parlors were everywhere, and most of them had a walk-up window counter fronting the sidewalk. All of them had pizza warmers, in which there was always at least a cheese pizza or two, and maybe a pepperoni as well. The warmers didn't have to work all that hard - most pizzas never stayed too long without being sold, slice by slice, to hungry pedestrians. If the slice was a little cool, the pizza guy would toss it into the oven for a minute or so to warm it up. Most slices were eaten folded in half as the purchaser continued walking.
This is not so easy to do here in the Emerald City.
For example, I was at Antioch early tonight to do some prepping before my evening class and finished with about an hour to spare. I decided to walk out into the neighborhood to get a bite to eat; pizza sounded good, so I headed my feet over to the nearby Zeek's, the big one by the statue of Chief Sealth. I walked in to find an empty warmer - six racks, all naked. No slice for me there!
How can this happen? After 29 years in this part of the country, I'm still flabbergasted that a pizza place can run out of pizza.
Stepping outside, I spied Bambino's East Coast Pizza and thought I had hit paydirt. I walked in to see the mahogany tables and bar, the brass fittings, and the wood-fired stove, and I knew I was out of luck. They didn't even have a slice warmer.
Well, there was still Amore, back closer to the University, but I already knew they sold only individual gourmet pizzas. I was out of options, and this was in Belltown, the urbanest of urban areas.
Now, I know I might be accused of overgeneralizing, but this isn't the only time I have been thwarted. I had basically given up on Zeek's already because of the frequency with which they are sliceless; this episode served to confirm that decision. Even Pudge Brothers, which functions a lot like an old school pizza place, has let the cheese pizza well run dry on occasion. And it's more than just the lack of slices at particular places: it's also the lack of places to get a slice in the first place. There just aren't enough pizza parlors, as opposed to pizza restaurants.
Maybe this is only a small piece of a larger problem: the lack of a sidewalk culture in Seattle. Pizza parlors, newsstands, hot dog carts, falafel vendors - these operations lend a kind of vibrancy and timbre to life in the city that a few wrought iron chairs outside a Starbucks can't. Maybe it's not the pizza that I miss, it's the recognition that the sidewalks and streets are part of our lifescapes and should be rich environments that make us want to spend time there, or at least enjoy the time we do spend there.
Either way, I'd sure love to fold a cheese slice in half and eat it walking down the street.
So, now that that's out of the way:
Otis and I ate at the Varsity for lunch. They are open late now, and have free wi-fi, too!
Hospital update: Status quo.
