Alright Backpedaling fans, I confess! Occasionally, I get an urge for an anti-backpedaling pizza fix, and order a pie from a national chain’s outlet a few blocks from my home. You’ve heard of the place; it brags about being voted “best pizza chain” for the last several years. They make decent pizza, and I like the fact that you have to bake it yourself. That gives you the option of burning it to suit your own tastes, and not the tastes of the high-school kid who assembles it for you.
The chain offers pizzas in sizes “medium,” “large,” and “family.” But “mediums” aren’t on the posted menu, and somehow you just have to know mediums are available to order one. With a homemade green salad, a “medium” pizza provides my wife and me with two complete meals, thanks to refrigerators and microwave ovens. I always order a medium. And when I order, the smiling fresh-scrubbed high-schooler opposite the cash register always tells me I can get a large pizza “for only a dollar more.”
“No thanks,” I say, and stick with my medium. For as long as I can remember, I’ve seemed to be the only person carrying a middling “medium”-sized pizza out of that place.
For some reason, all pizzas carry a heavy caloric load. Our preference is the “gourmet vegetarian” because of the kick the artichoke hearts lend. And by ordering a meatless medium, we figure we keep the excess calories and fat to a minimum. And yes, we skip the “dessert pizzas” and other nonsense such as the two-liter plastic jugs of a diabetic’s nightmare. Now this chain has begun trumpeting its new “lite” crust pizzas for their lower calorie counts. Apparently, removing a “gh” and adding only an “e” to “light” knocks off a few calories.
Last night I decided to try one. “I’d like a medium gourmet vegetarian on a “lite” crust, please,” I asked high-schooler, expecting the “for only a dollar more” reply. Instead, she told me that the “lite” crusts come only with the large and family sizes. I was very polite and did not laugh outright in her face. But I’m sure she could see the cogs and sprockets begin to spin and whir inside my brain. Let’s see (spin, whir), lower calorie crust, but you have to get the larger size (spin, whir, spin, whir), equals, at best (spin, whir) more calories than a “regular” crust medium-sized. Still being polite, I decided to not walk out of the place and instead, ordered my usual medium gourmet.
But on the way home, I thought perhaps it’s time to do away with store-bought pizza, including the “organic” kinds in my local organic grocer’s freezer, and start making my own. A good friend’s wife is, if not a gourmet chef, at least one in training, and perhaps she can provide me with a great crust. The rest should be easy. I’ve done paella; pizza can’t be any harder.
A cousin reports that she can get a med. pizza on the lite crust in Portland. What gives? I’m sure we’ll have an update soon. Meanwhile, as wife of the writer, I’m looking forward to home made pizza!