We had some old friends over the other night for nearly appropriately socially-distanced cocktails to be followed by dinner. I say “nearly” because the minimal 6 foot recommended spacing was not being adhered to at all times and the snacks were initially semi-communal and subsequently possibly a bit radioactive once one of my friends stuck his unsanitized hand into the nut bowl while totally ignoring the spoon and plates being offered up in an attempt to give them comfort we weren’t trying to give anyone cooties or something worse.

But socially-distanced cocktails, especially with heavy pours, work the same as regular cocktails with heavy pours and as the second round started to take effect the slowing conversation turned to food, likely since it was nearing time to order dinner and the snacks’ effect on absorbing the alcohol was waning. We started to go through the circuit of international delicacies locally available and quickly nixed Greek and Chinese, with sushi still under consideration, when the conversation veered to Italian, and specifically pizza.

I’ve always maintained pizza is the perfect food…it can be eaten at any meal since it’s just bread, cheese and sauce supplemented by herbs and spices. Sure, there are variations and differences in quality, volume and underlying taste of each of those components, and there are many “styles” and add-ons/toppings, but I’ve also always maintained it’s really hard to fuck up pizza, especially if salt, garlic powder and red pepper are readily available for last-second alterations….even the frozen supermarket stuff is edible when cooked if the circumstances are dire enough. The only really terrible pizza I recall, and I’m not sure it can really even be called pizza, was the stuff served in school cafeterias….white bread topped with American cheese smothered in ketchup or cheap tomato sauce (if we were lucky).

And leftover pizza is easy to save for another day….

Which got one of my friends, who was inhaling his second cocktail like water, really going. Whereas I  treat pizza as a delicacy and carefully wrap leftover slices in parchment paper and aluminum foil before lovingly placing it in my freezer to preserve for another day, he deals with his in stages. It first goes in the refrigerator for potential consumption in the immediate future, but if after several days it’s still uneaten he then freezes it, not taking into account the idea it might have spoiled, thinking freezing it will make it come back to some level of freshness once defrosted and reheated, leaning on the theory of cryogenics to validate his thinking. We just stared at him and when I raised the question of what he did if after heating it up and it was stale or just didn’t taste right, he said he would often place cold cuts, condiments or some other pre-frozen leftovers from the fridge, all of which had no place to be eaten on top of, let alone with pizza, fresh or stale, on top and then reheat, at which point it was usually somewhat edible or at the very least didn’t make him throw up. We stared with incredulity and mild disgust as his wife just laughed and proceeded to tell us he does that sort of mad scientist stuff with other foods as well, which gave him the opening to convey more of his travails, mostly focusing on Italian food, causing more incredulity, disgust and the beginnings of nausea.

We finally heard enough, cut him off and opted for the sushi….