Wordless Wednesday

Sculpture garden, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri, USA, March 2010

Low tech

I’ve been lamenting my current lack of kitchen equipment a lot lately, so I won’t bore you with that again. It may surprise you if I say that I actually don’t have an overwhelming amount, because I know how much damage I could do in a kitchen store given half a chance, and so I keep myself on a tight rein. One of the rules I have for myself is to think very carefully about buying anything that only does one job. I made it waaaay back when I was registering for wedding gifts, and I remember exactly why: because I really, really wanted a waffle iron.

When I got married, I didn’t have much experience with cooking, beyond a few basics. I loved eating waffles, but I had never made one. (I’m not sure I had even made pancakes at that point.) I argued myself out of registering for a waffle iron on the grounds that it would be a frivolous waste of money and cabinet space for someone to buy me a tool that only did one thing, and that one something I knew nothing about.

Pizza pizza

My pizza travails continue. I had no idea I was so picky about it, or (more to the point) that its construction was so location-specific.

You’ve heard of Chicago-style pizza? Perhaps eaten a pie at Pizzeria Uno, or the (in)famous Deep Pan Pizza chain in London?

I thought that kind of pizza was just a gimmick specific to a certain restaurant, or to a few restaurants in Chicago—an illusion perhaps influenced by a long-defunct Boston restaurant chain that purported to serve an “English pizza” (soft crust, topped with cheddar cheese) that I’ve never seen anywhere else. I didn’t realize Chicago-style (mainly the buttery biscuity crust, not necessarily the deep-dish part) is the way people prepare pizza in a significant portion of the United States. I didn’t understand, when I went to New Mexico to visit my brother-in-law seven years ago, why he insisted we eat at the New York-style pizzeria he had found. I thought he was just happy to have found a good local pizza place. I didn’t realize it was possibly the only New-York style pizzeria in greater Albuquerque.