It's Friday night, you're burned out from a tough week at work, and dinner is an immediate necessity. Calling up your local pizzeria, you casually place an order for your favorite pie, never dreaming that the guy on the other end of the line is judging you by each item you choose.

How do I know these facts to be true? Have I walked the hallowed halls of Domino's? Have I kneaded the bread of the gods at Little Caesar's? Have I crouched for hours in a Pizza Hut?

I have done none of these things. I just know more than you, which is why I write this blog, and you read it.
So without further ado, I present to you
What Your Choice of Pizza Topping Says About You:

• CHEESE

Come on, just plain cheese? Are you four? Of all of the wonderful things on God's green earth, things that can be diced and sliced and baked into nummy cheese, and you pick- just. the. frickin'. cheese.
Cheese eaters not only would make a cool name for a band, but are more often than not afraid of change, afraid of challenge, and afraid of their own shadow. They tend to like partners as bland as their pizza, but secretly envy people who sky dive and aren't afraid to eat jalapeños. Cheese eaters will never get beyond careers as accountants, pencil counters, weed-pullers, and subway sweepers.

• PEPPERONI

Plain ol' pepperoni. A little spicy, a little greasy, a little run-of-the-mill. Just like you. Pepperoni eaters tend to be on 'default setting', often too preoccupied with inanities to break out of their box and choose a more interesting salvo. One thing that I have noticed in this lifetime is that you pepperoni-only eaters are not without hope! Things can be added, slowly and over time, to make your life more interesting. Next time, break out the big guns and have the pizza dudes throw on some, oh, I don't know- ONIONS!! Bwahahahahaah!

Sorry.

Next up,

• SAUSAGE

Sausage eaters are typically perverted, nasty little twerps. Why else would someone eat something that looks like giant rabbits pooped all over it? Sausage is greasy, feels like eating knuckles, and leaves you with heartburn for approximately two weeks. Therefore I must conclude that people who prefer a sausage-only pizza are stuck in dead-end jobs, wear thick glasses with scotch tape on them, and live in those apartments that us normal people pass up because of the funny smell inside. Not that you have no redeeming values, sausage eaters. Someone out there needs to keep making rainbow animated GIFs for their grandma's website. You know who I'm talking about.

• Supreme/Deluxe

Supreme or Deluxe, depending on where you live, generally features an eclectic smattering of meat, black olives, green pepper, onion, mushrooms, etc. Supreme fans are usually fairly well-rounded people, although cheap, with an eye towards variety and fun. They usually take a yearly vacation to somewhere like Mount Rushmore or Yosemite Park, and would be happy being married to the same person for many years, if only that person would content to stop sticking their dirty socks in the clean laundry bin. You, the Supreme pizza eater in your household, try not to wince as your ungrateful wretch of a ten year old picks his onions off of his overpriced pie. Those onions cost an extra $1.50, dagnabit. You eat your pizza, his onions, and then you swallow another Prilosec and guzzle down another root beer. Bowling night's gonna be tough this week.

• HAM

I'm going to go out on a limb here and hazard the guess that you're not Jewish. Or Muslim. Or, for that matter, Seventh Day Adventist.
You could very well be a Mormon, or you could be a Dago. I use the word Dago in the purest, least offensive form of the word, being one myself. There is something about ham that attracts certain Europeans: Italians, Greeks, Poles, Orinthologists. Ham eaters are generally high-stress, analytical, hypersensitive, and manic depressive. Oh wait, that's my family...
Ham eaters tend to be just a tiny bit more health conscious than pepperoni or sausage eaters, in the way that spiders are a tiny bit less scary than tarantulas. You like to trick yourself into thinking that your life is better than it is, that your skills are more than they actually are, that the only reason you've been passed over this time for that promotion is nepotism (it isn't). Ham eaters are destined to live a life of social unrest, due mainly to the fact that think they are better than others.

• MUSHROOM

Ah, the mushroom people. You are like a breath of fresh air. Intelligent, creative, articulate and passionate, you go through life inspiring and encouraging, redeeming and helping. No one could ever resent a mushroom eater, after all, they are cleansing the world of fungus! Wait- fungus? On pizza? What was I thinking!?!? I would have to say to mushroom eaters, besides all of the praising litany above, is that YOU ARE INSANE WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO EAT FUNGUS ON YOUR FOOD HOW DO YOU KNOW IT ISN'T STILL ALIVE AND WILL GROW MOLD INSIDE OF YOUR STOMACH AND THE WHITE FUZZ WILL OOZE OUT OF YOUR EYES AND THEN-

Mushrooms rock.

• MEAT LOVER'S

Well, for one thing, if you aren't morbidly obese, your cholesterol is through the roof. When I was a kid, one didn't see the disgusting love affair that we currently have with meat. Supreme, with pepperoni and sausage, was pushing the envelope. A pizza with only meat, and four or five kind of it, at that, shows that you are self-indulgent, greasy, and probably not kind to animals. Since you eat them all. On your pizza. With curdled cow's lactation on top. And smashed tomatoes.
You are probably also unwashed, stinky, and play too much WoW or some other MMORPG. Swilling down a 2-liter of Mountain Dew with that Meat Lover's also doesn't count as a square meal, in case you were wondering.

• HAWAIIAN

You sick, sick freak. You put what on your pie? A food that belongs on top of a banana split, that's what. I'll bet you can't even spell Hawaiian. Your kind tend to be weird- wearing clothes that went out of style fifty years ago, driving Gremlins, living in little hovels on the ground, voting Libertarian. You are as stubborn as the day is long, your hair is ratty, and your thighs have unequal mass. Find a new kind of pizza, and let the pineapple alone, for God's sake.

• 'WHITE' PIZZA
  

People who eat white pizza are either girls, or gay. Either way, you're high maintenance. If you find it in your heart to throw a bit of color on there, such as spinach or tomato, then I suppose you are salvageable. White pizza embodies all that is evil in today's fast food culture: white bread, white sauce, white cheese white toppings. It's almost racist. Is your entire house white, as well? How do you like your life now that you've finally stopped speaking to your mother and gotten that chin job you've always wanted? Guess what, white pizza lover? It's a dirty, dirty world out there and eating all-white food won't make it any cleaner.

• WEIRD CRAP, LIKE BUFFALO PIZZA

You, my friend, are just plain ignorant. There are things that go on pizza (e.g: tomatoes in some form of dessication, garlic, mozzarella cheese, onion, mushrooms...) and there are things that do NOT go on pizza. This would include anything with high fructose corn syrup as a main ingredient, anything deep fried, anything that should normally be eaten for breakfast (I'm talking to you, Japan!) and anything still breathing. You want Buffalo Pizza, with your Sweet Baby Ray's sauce and your thinly sliced buffalo wings, and your cheddar cheese- fine. It's good stuff. Just don't try blaming it on Italy. Just name it something appropriate, like Redneck Barbeque Cheese Chicken Bread.

Or not.

• ANCHOVIES

This one was almost too easy. Anyone who wants to eat a shriveled, salted, greasy, anonymous fish that probably was scraped off the bottom of a fisherman's shoe... well, fine. Go ahead and eat them, with their little slimy silver skins and their little salty brains and- and-
Seriously, what the hell? I'm not against seafood on pizza- I've enjoyed a nice crab and vegetable pie before- but how masochistic does one have to be to eat these things? Oh, I know, once you've tried them you'll understand, you have to develop a taste for them, whatever. I could also, I suppose, develop a taste for road salt, since thats about what they taste like. Or tumors, since that's what they feel like. Or- I'm going to stop now. Pizza truck is here.

Labels: anchovies, anchovy, cheese, eating, food, life, pepperoni, personality, pizza, sausage, tomato

Gatlinburg, Tennessee, 1989. I was twelve, just beginning to take an interest in life outside of fairy tale books.

At that time my dad owned a little floundering jewelry store on the sixth floor of the Mountain Mall. I would come to work most days with him, doing my best to help wait on the few customers, occasionally puttering with the wax that has since become my life. I had friend next door whose dad owned both the fur and carpet shops on our floor. We would play together, catching crawfish in the river out back or burying ourselves beneath Oriental rugs in the storeroom. A couple of floors down was a magic shop, and if I stopped by long enough I was guaranteed a demonstration of the latest novelty trick. Escalators connected all six floors, and my sisters and I would take turns racing the wrong way, courting scoldings from some of the other store proprietors. At the time, Gatlinburg residents got into most of the tourist traps for free, and I’d spend long happy hours inside Ripley’s Believe It Or Not and Fannie Farkle’s.

I had a lot of freedom back then, my dad was too preoccupied with life to be overly concerned with me. He’d often give me three bucks to get a Wendy’s salad down on the ground floor. That was back in the day of the legendary Superbar. Don’t you wish they’d bring that back? My thirty-year old GI tract probably couldn’t handle it now.

My favorite thing to do that summer was hit the salad section of the Superbar, loading that plastic plate high with lettuce, peas, mushrooms, red onions and croutons. I’d pop a few cherry tomatoes on the side, scatter sunflower seeds all over the place (once I picked the raisins out and carefully put them back. Man, I was a nasty kid) and ladle a generous amount of their lovely ranch dressing all over. I can still taste that salad in all its vernal perfection.

One sticky summer day I walked downstairs as usual, clutching my paltry three dollars in the pocket of my hot pink jumpsuit. (Don’t you love the 80s? Bad fashion and food for less than ten dollars…) I rounded the corner, carefully stepping on the parquetry flooring that ran parallel to the street, and came up short in front of Wendy’s.

The Superbar was closed for cleaning.

Being a hungry adolescent, I wasn’t about to wait forty minutes for the thing to be restocked and reopened. I needed food, and soon. My eyes cast around for another idea. I knew that the restaurants up the street were fairly expensive, and didn’t want to venture outside of the mall that day. The only other choice that presented itself to me was the Irish pub next door to the tobacconist’s. I’d never set foot inside, but I’d seen people eating at the long laminated bar. I stepped inside,

“Bit early in the day to start drinking, eh?” The voice came from a handsome man, dark hair setting off eyes that crinkled at the corners. He sounded different from the natives I’d grown accustomed to, a Yankee accent, like mine. I smiled shyly at him and was rewarded with further eye-crinkling.
“I-I just need lunch.” I stammered, embarrassed to be in this den of adulthood.
He jerked his thumb at a dry-erase board, still almost a novelty back then. The board hung on the wall behind the bar, between signs for Guinness and Budweiser, elixirs which I would remain innocent of for another several years. Scrawled on the board were prices for the standard bar burger, some sort of chili dog with too many toppings, and something called an Irish Taco.

It was exactly $3.00.

“I’ll take that, please.” I pointed at the bottom line on the whiteboard and spread my bedraggled dollars on the bar. The handsome face grinned, told me to have a seat, and ducked under the bar for a carryout container.
I clambered up on the tall stool and sat watching his back. He moved with an easy grace, one that I’ve since come to know as congruous with that of an experienced bartender. He opened a foil packet of Fritos, dumped them into the black plastic dish, and tossed the bag in the trash without looking. In the little food prep station, there was a chafing dish on simmer. He flipped the lid open, winked at me in the mirror, and poured a heaping ladle of chili all over the Fritos.
“You like spicy stuff?” he asked. I nodded dumbly. I didn’t notice it particularly then, but now I remember that he never called me ‘kid’, ‘squirt’, or any of the other demeaning nicknames grownups often tag children with.

Maybe that’s why I fell in love with him.

Or maybe it was the beautiful way he handled things, like he gloried in the simple pure contact with everyday things. I had often watched my mom chop tomatoes- chop, chop chop! I had even done it myself, but never had I seen someone bend his head over the cutting board and carefully, almost tenderly, cut a razor-thin perfect round slice of the red fruit. To this day I cannot slice a tomato like that, it always has one edge thicker or angled off.

He threw a dollop of sour cream on top of the chili, then threw those perfect tomato slices all over, not caring in the least for his masterpiece of shaving.

I had never been interested in an older man until that point. Looking back now, in order to have worked in a liquor establishment, he must have been at least 21, but he seemed young to my twelve year old eyes. He had a solid and lovely chest under the ratty tee shirt, and his white apron draped easily on well-proportioned hips.
“Want a beer, too?” his light mocking caught me off-guard.
“No thank you.” I replied, blissfully unaware of the fact that I wouldn’t have even been able to order one.
“Then how about green onions, on top of the taco? It comes with it, but most people don’t want them.”
Green onions have always been a weakness of mine.
“Oh, of course!”
“Good!” he smiled, and his eyes crinkled again, “It’s the only way to eat it.” Whereupon he proceeded to sprinkle finely minced green all over my lunch.

With that same rapid grace, he flipped a lid onto the mess, slid it across the bar towards me, and punched keys on the register. It came to $3.12
“Oh!” I flushed, panic setting in, “I only have the three d-“
“Don’t worry about it!” he cut me off, waving away my protestations, “I’ve got it. Enjoy your lunch.”

I don’t remember getting back to the store, five flights of stairs with that hot dish in my hands. My heart was hammering as I scrambled onto the stool near my dad’s repair bench. Opening the box, I could almost feel myself salivating, and I can taste that first bite to this very day.

Every respectable bar has at least one dish that they cook well. For some, it’s a burger, others- wings. In South Bend, there’s an Irish pub that makes a divine stew, liberally seasoned with Guinness Stout. For this bar, whatever its name was, the dish was chili. Meaty, spicy, rich and warm, their chili was perfect. Coupled with the salty corn chips, cool sour cream, and the fresh tomato and green onion, it was a dish I would be happy to eat at any elegant restaurant.

Irish Tacos soon trumped Wendy’s Superbar for lunch. Not only did they taste better, but no one at Wendy’s flirted gently with me, or gave me free New York Seltzer Chocolate Seltzers, or cut their tomatoes with such a craftsman’s hand. I made sure to always bring four or five dollars after that, leaving the change in a little pile on the bar top for my Chili Knight. We moved away late that summer and I have never been back, not in all of these eighteen years since. I’ve encountered the same dish since, called anything from Walking Tacos to Chili Pie, but no one (not even me!) has ever made it taste quite as good.

So wherever you are, man that cuts tomatoes nicely and is friendly to shy children, thank you.

Labels: bar, bar food, childhood, chili, corn chips, first crush, first love, food, fritos, gatlinburg, lunch, summer, superbar, taco, tennessee, tomato, tomatoes, wendy's