When I was little, I wouldn’t eat the “point” off of a slice of pizza. My first memory is of my parents biting it off for me at my third birthday party. Of course, that was probably a waste of time and pizza anyway, as the slice was quickly abandoned in favor of a pink-frosted cake decorated with a ballerina. Nonetheless, my mom dutifully ate the point for me, my grandma commenting that such maternal behavior was necessary—her little granddaughter “ate like a bird”—my father looking on a little disdainfully and a little lovingly. When I was in elementary school, before my parents discovered exactly what the cafeteria was serving us, I would eat pizza for lunch every day. Except it wasn’t the slim, New York style pizza my dad had brought me up on (he hails from Brooklyn). And it wasn’t the deep-dish kind that Chicago-folks swear by. No—it was what I would describe as reconstituted space pizza, in a personal-sized tin trays. But it was pizza. And I was an easily pleased second grader, who didn’t think past the fact that a boy would soon try to knock me off the monkey bars onto spiky tanbark during recess.
When I was thirteen, my dad and my brother Jay went on a road-trip with Jay’s all-star little-league baseball team. My mom doesn’t know how to cook (there was the particularly memorable night when she tried to make “three-cheese” pasta, which ended up congealed at the bottom of the pot and licked by our cat who had a penchant for cheddar), so instead she ordered a large pizza with artichoke hearts from Pizza-A-Go-Go. I hadn’t seen Shakespeare in Love (rated R!) in theaters because I was under 17, so she rented it from Blockbuster and we munched on stone-fired dough while watching Joseph Fiennes woo the pre-pregnancy Gwyneth Paltrow, climbing up to her window and unraveling her strange linen corset. The next morning, my mom and I slept in until 10:00 a.m. After we had both meandered down to the kitchen, we decided that it would be a shame to let what was left of the pizza to go to waste. We located the other rental (Never Been Kissed—when you live in a family with two men, the movie of choice is generally not a chick-flick, so my mom and I were determined to take advantage of the guys’ absence) and resettled on the couch for what began as a lazy morning and turned into a lazy day. Cold pizza for breakfast it was, and since then I can legitimately say that I would almost rather have a cold slice than a warm one.
Last Saturday, I was offered a piece of pizza from a vegan friend. It didn’t have cheese on it. But who was I to judge? And actually, it was pretty delicious. Not as good as a true pie, the kind with added fat and protein, but the vegan version was still damn tasty. Last week, I went to Cambridge 1, ordered the flatbread with mushrooms, inhaled my half, and then started in on my date’s. I can’t say I am a frequenter of ’Noch’s, but I have had my days (and nights) when nothing satisfies me like a square of tomato-basil deep-dish pizza.
What’s the point you ask (point meaning moral, lesson, end, etc, not pizza-point)? Well, honestly, there isn’t much of one. I guess you could say that I’m illustrating the fact that simple, material things, tracked through life can jog memories—something that I imagine is lectured on in pysch classes or “The Human Mind.” But usually these material things are more substantial—a grandmother’s pearl earrings, for example. It may be pathetic that I can trace good moments through pizza. But hell, a good moment is better than a bad one, or none at all, and if I can enjoy it with a slice garnished with artichokes and mushrooms, I am more than content. What can I say? I <3 pizza.
—Nicola C. Perlman ’09 is a History of Art and Architecture concentrator in Eliot House. Two minutes ago, she ordered two large pizzas.
