My Official, Abridged Statement on, and Personal History with, Pizza
My introduction to pizza began with the book Pizza Pat by Rita Golden Gelman. Pat looked like the friendliest pizza chef in the world, with love being his secret ingredient. My first real experiences with pizza were on Friday evenings as a child at my mother’s house. She was quite strict with what we ate, so on a Friday evening when she would break out the jar of Ragu sauce and bag of off-brand shredded yellow cheese, I knew I was in for a treat. She would buy a stick of pepperoni and slice it herself, and would cut it extremely thick.
This is a habit of hers that she has not outgrown in thirty years. When it comes to cured meats, I welcome the thickness. However, the last time I visited home, she made veggie burgers topped with lettuce and tomato, which she cut herself. The tomato occupied about 50% of the real estate of the sandwich, sliced about as thick as the New Testament. “Did I cut the tomato too thick? she asked. My stepdad and I shook our heads, before biting into the all-new Hothouse Tomato Burger®.
The thickly cut pepperoni was all the rage to my brainwaves, which danced like seagrass at the sight of the steaming pizza pie coming out of the oven after an implausible wait. We would fold out the brown wooden TV trays that were topped with detailed paintings of geese flying over marshlands, scenes that made me think of Fly Away Home. As she turned the TV on to 20/20, she’d plead, “You HAVE to wait for it to cool off.” It never worked. A week of flavorless chicken, crackers, and undercooked vegetables left me feral for pizza, so I lunged at the steaming pie, instantly searing the roof of my mouth off of my cranium.
In the following years, I became an aficionado at English muffin pizzas, which I would bake in the toaster oven – always with pepperoni. Pepperoni is objectively the best pizza topping and always has been. In my twenties, it would be pepperoni that broke my two years of militant veganism. When I was still a kid and we started going to my stepdad’s family’s pizza nights every Friday night, there was a night that I locked myself in their bathroom and refused to come out because they said they only ordered veggie pizza (they were joking.) Also, I’m not big on the trendy cupping pepperoni. What are we trying to cup?
When I briefly lived at my dad’s, a man who simply isn’t interested in the idea of health (perhaps he’s disillusioned with the material realm like his son?), I started delving into the world of frozen pizza: Celeste, Ellio’s (a rectangle of cardboard with red painted on it), Red Baron (the deep dish being my favorite), Bagel Bites, Hot Pockets, pizza rolls, and much more. I was never a Digiorno fan, though they did save my life once. I was walking down the street in NY years ago when shots rang out from a passing car. Thankfully, I was wearing a backpack that had a stack of four Digiorno pizzas in it, which stopped the bullets. It’s not Kevlar, it’s Digiorno! Bagel Bites were a close second for me, though the little cubes of cheese on them were unsettling. When I was vegan, I really liked Daiya frozen pizzas. Hard to find them these days. Instead you have Wicked brand vegan pizzas, a brand that brings shame to the world of highly processed vegan food.
Several years later, pizza and I took a break from each other, as I was tired of spending hours in the restroom after eating it and walking around with knots in my stomach.. We revisit each other on special occasions, though. In Galway, Ireland I went to a place called Four Star Pizza with my then-girlfriend. This restaurant name doesn’t make any sense. If they’re saying it’s four out of five star pizza, they’re admitting it’s not perfect, and if they’re saying it’s four out of four stars, they’re inventing their own rating system. I think the name is only accurate if it means four out of ten star pizza. All of us drunks gobbled it up anyway, then gallivanted down cobblestone streets while croaking out folk songs under billions of stars sprinkled across the night like parmesan cheese.
Some brief thoughts on Colorado pizza places: First mention is The Garlic Knot, which ironically had the worst garlic knots I’ve ever had. The night I tried their food for the first time, I came down with COVID-19 and had the worst chills of my life. I see that this place is now permanently closed, probably due to serving up COVID knots.
I lived across the street from Tony P’s for a while, which, after trying their pizza, I believe the full name is Tony Piss – an insane man obsessed with olive oil who responds to all his Google reviews.
Hops & Pie as well as Homegrown Tap & Dough have solid pizzas. I don’t know about you, but I like a saucy pizza. NY style pizza doesn’t have enough sauce on it! It is neat how you can wad it into a greasy ball and shove it down your gullet, but I like my sauce! These two aforementioned places get the sauce/cheese ratio almost perfect.
Ever been to Redeemer Pizza in RiNo? WAY too much cheese!! The one time I had it, I stopped at Safeway down Federal fifteen minutes later to check out what oddities would be there that night, when I was suddenly hit with an immense shift in my organs that left me sprinting out the door and peeling out towards the nearest restroom.
Jet’s and Blue Pan are pretty good. I like hard-edged, rectangular pizza.
I had Walter’s303 one time, which was actually quite good. Lots of customization. Green chile and pepperoni are a match made in heaven. I had it delivered one night, for a little solo pizza and movie date. Five minutes into Amelie and 3/4 of a slice in, I was hit with immense cosmic dread and despair. I clapped my laptop closed, threw the pizza out, and went for a walk. I left a voice note for my girlfriend at the time who was in Europe, explaining the unexplainable situation: “I can’t do pizza and a movie anymore, good god…” and stumbled around in tears for all the raccoons to witness. We got pizza from Parisi the night before our breakup, which involved a long line and bickering about whether to wait or go somewhere else, but it wasn’t about the pizza, it was that we didn’t dig each other’s existential styles.
And then there’s Fat Sully’s on Tennyson. These pizzas are HUGE. I swear they get bigger every week! Last time I was there, when they were bringing out this couple’s pizza, they had to ask everyone else to leave just to fit the pizza in the building. Ten men carried it out like a funeral procession while we all watched from outside the glass. When the couple ordered the pizza, you could tell the cooks didn’t want to make it. Every time someone orders at Fat Sully’s the cooks are looking on from the kitchen going, “Please don’t let it be pizza, for the love of god, I have a family.” They actually have a second building now that’s just an oven. I went to Fat Sully’s with my friend Jeff last year and he accidentally walked into the oven and got cooked. They cured him into pepperoni, though, and put it on my pizza, which they brought out on a forklift. I actually got a stromboli there a couple months ago the size of an airstream. I lived in it for three weeks until I got hit with an eviction notice. It was a half-bath but I had a great setup in there, a sectional, 80” TV, kitchenette, running water, everything one needs.
Though I rarely have it, I love it. Thank you, pizza.
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