El Bulli chef wants a piece of the pizza pie – Los Angeles Times.
This I’ve got to see. Just because he isn’t Italian doesn’t mean he can’t hit it out of the park.
Why can I never get a decent order of onion rings? So easy to make, so delicious. But for the past few years, whenever I order them, they are usually limp, overcooked, or undercooked. Today I made up a batch since I just purchased a 3000 pound bag of Texas Sweet 1015′s from Costco. Slice, double coated with a dip in buttermilk and dredged in seasoned flour and corn meal. Fried just until golden. Sprinkled with sea salt. Eaten immediately.
So while waiting for my pizza to arrive, I decided to make good use of the time by wallowing in a pool of self-pity, much like the glass of my ice-cold Orange Crush surrounded itself in an ever-growing puddle of condensation from the hot, humid air. My new school sucked; most of my classes were covering topics I had learned the previous year. It was hard to make friends since I was attending school in the Canal Zone, but lived in Panama City. I didn’t speak any Spanish. There didn’t seem to be any sources of cultural stimulation or just plain fun. My future looked dismal. I felt totally disconnected, disillusioned, disappointed, and disaffected.
And then the pizza arrived at my table. It is said of crack cocaine that the first dose produces such overpowering pleasure that your life becomes consumed with the quest to relive it. I was not expecting anything special and what I got was something quite extraordinary. Topped with freshly caught shrimp from Panama Bay, it looked much like the one pictured in the first post of this series. And the aroma and flavor? Suffice it to say that I have spent many years and time and effort to relive that first hit of pizza napoletana.
By the time I had finished the pizza, the rain had stopped and my negative feelings had been replaced with a sense that everything was going to be all right. And it really did turn out that way. Once I had recovered from that non-fatal case of culture shock, I discovered how rich Panama was in so many ways. I will never forget my many adventures in the towns, cities, interior, jungles, islands, and oceans of that magnificent country filled with such beautiful people. Of course I was still tormented by all the battles of adolescence, but a regular fix of shrimp pizza from the Napoli never failed to raise my spirits.
It is possible, that the pizza had nothing to do with the sudden turnaround of my attitude that afternoon. But four years later, another pizza played a similar role.
To be continued.
I was blessed with an unusually privileged life-style growing up in a suburb of Washington, D.C. My father worked on Capitol Hill for the State Department; my mother worked for the Vice President. I attended the best public schools in the country with other children of JFK’s “best and brightest”. It was a life full of culture, museums, galleries, concerts, and great expectations …. until one day at age 13 it all suddenly changed. My father transferred to the Foreign Service and, before I knew it, I was in the Republic of Panama, clueless about what the future held for me.
It could have been worse. Panama was not a third-world backwater, especially with the massive U.S. presence in the Canal Zone. But the change for me was pretty terrifying, added on top of the normal soul-scarring traumas that are a part and parcel of adolescence.
Shortly after arriving in Panama, on a particularly stressful day trying to adjust – new school, new friends, new everything – I got off the bus on my way home just as the sky opened up with a massive tropical downpour. The streets turned to rivers. You could barely see a few feet in front of your face. I ran for cover underneath the awning of some businesses adjacent to the bus stop.
And then I saw it. It was a restaurant. There was a brick oven with a wood fire burning. It was called “Napoli”. I was hungry. I had a little money in my pocket. The rain was not letting up. Sitting down at a table outside underneath the awning near the brick oven, I perused the menu, having no idea how this meal was going to change my life.
To be continued.
This bothers me:
Jim L. and Jim S. were first reunited at age 39. They were genetically identical twins, reared apart since infancy by different adoptive families in Ohio and unaware of each other’s existence. As children, each twin had had a dog named Toy. Each bit his fingernails and, since age 18, had suffered from mixed headache syndrome, a combined tension and migraine headache. Each had been married twice, first to a Linda and then to a Betty. One twin had named his son James Alan, and the other, James Allen. Each had put a circular bench around a tree in his garden. Each had worked at a gas station and later part-time in law enforcement as a sheriff. Each chain-smoked Salems and preferred an occasional Miller Lite beer. Each scattered love notes to his wife around the house. Every summer, unbeknownst to the other, each had driven his family in a light blue Chevrolet from Ohio to the Pas-Grille Beach in St. Petersburg, Florida, for their summer vacation. They had similar voices, hand gestures, and mannerisms. Link to more examples of similarities in identical twins separated at birth
Coincidence? I could accept that. Highly improbable sequences of events happen all the time. But what if it isn’t? And what about the preferences and decisions in my own life? Short of finding my long-lost twin who turns out to be as strange as I am, I’ll have to settle for ignorant bliss. I like what I like and it doesn’t really matter why, does it?
Still, I have been examining lately why I like pizza so much, so very very very much. The first time I considered this, a clear and vivid answer came to me, far more complex than the obvious “pizza tastes good“. In particular, I recalled two pizzas of my youth. There is absolutely no question in my mind that these two pizzas had a profound influence on me at the time. Did my love of pizza develop as result of these experiences or is there a deeper connection with pizza that made these events inevitable?
First there was the Tropical Storm Pizza. And a few years later there was the Blizzard Pizza. I’ll describe each in future blog posts.