Pizza Was Present

Charmed Slices

Illustration by Sang Pak

By Kitty

I looked down at the 14-karat gold pizza slice hanging from my necklace and wondered if it was just a millennial trope—a cliched conversation starter that was more cringe than I’d intended. I purchased the tiny, gleaming charm from one of my favorite jewelry brands. One that I feel an emotional connection to because my late mother and I shared some of their matching pieces. Not to mention their marketing team knows exactly how to razzle-dazzle me. I added it to my cart with confidence that it would become a coveted family heirloom…but a glance in the mirror at my snack-adorned decolletage made me second-guess. In this moment of panic, trying to determine whether I’d made pizza a personality trait, I was flooded with recollections of its meaning.

The first memory that surfaces was me and my mom hunched over a pepperoni and olive at a Papa Gino’s restaurant, where I sat and eavesdropped on the table next to me. There, the mother of a toddler was describing to her partner how pizza was a perfectly balanced meal, offering up not one, not two, but three food groups—grains (the dough), dairy (the cheese), and vegetables (the tomato sauce). Her reasoning was enough to raise my eyebrows and make me perk up. I’d never heard pizza described as a health food before. Could it be true? Whether or not her lecture was nutritionally sound is up for debate, but for my small ears, it was just another accolade to add to the list of pros for something I could get from plate to piehole so quickly. Fork and knife? Who needs ‘em?

In the early ‘90s, pizza was synonymous with my grade school success. Remember “BOOK IT!”? It was an elementary school reading program that provided pizza as an incentive for pages. My fellow third graders and I would sport buttons with blank circles that you’d fill in with a sticker each time you finished a book. Once you filled up your button, you’d march your ass into the local Pizza Hut and get what was owed to you. The high I felt sauntering past the salad bar and slinking into a red leather booth was unlike any other. I’d lock eyes with classmates across the dining room, devouring personal pan pepperonis in reward for our accomplishments, and smirk because I didn’t even like to read.

There’s a singular experience that really shook up the categories of pizza that had existed to me previously—pizzeria pies, homemade pizza, and frozen pizza. During my junior year of college, one of my roommates invited a few of our friends to her grandparents’ house for dinner and a movie. It must have been sometime in October because we decided it was the perfect night to watch Hocus Pocus—a wholesome bunch. Her grandfather was thrilled, and showed up to the table wielding square shaped pizzas with deliciously golden crusts and an array of seasonings. “What’s his recipe?!” we demanded. To which my roommate responded that he just doctors up slices of Ellio’s. Is it genius, or was I feeling particularly homesick in this instance, and the care shown to me by a friend’s family was enough to make me drool over an ice box staple? Either way, the option to alter a frozen slice that transcends pizza categories is a pretty cool party trick.

When the pandemic hit—a literal nightmare for a health-anxious catastrophizer like yours truly—I accepted the fact that the only way to see my friends’ faces was through a screen. I’m not sure I had real-life contact with anyone other than my husband for the first three months. I was terrified, but it was only a matter of time before that feeling shifted into stir-crazy. When the initial lockdown lifted and a wave of socially distanced, outdoor dining began, my friends and I made plans to see each other. I decided that for me, a belly laugh in the glow of the afternoon sun was worth the risk. At a high-top table on the patio of a local restaurant, I was reminded of how good it felt to be close to people. I made a mental note at that moment to never take a margarita pizza with the girls for granted.

I’m not sure you’d classify pizza as a comfort food, but it is quite clearly mine. I think it’s my husband’s, too. In our early years together, we’d most often end our nights grabbing slices of pizza from a takeout counter downtown—a buffalo chicken for him, and a chicken bacon ranch for me. We’d take them home, heat them up and indulge on the sofa, debriefing or recapping our day. After we got engaged, we decided we’d take photos for a Save the Date card. In our truest form, we asked the photographer to come with us to a pizza parlor where we sat on the sidewalk and ate a couple of loose slices in full glam. Maybe pizza is our love language. Grabbing each other’s favorites just another way to say “I’m thinking of you,” or “I’m here to listen”. While the pizza photos may not be in circulation, they serve as a sweet or savory reminder of one of the pillars of our relationship.

So, after writing my own warm, greasy version of Love, Loss and What I Wore in my head, I decided I’d don my little golden pizza slice with pride. Millennial trope it may be, but I also realized this charm was like a locket, clutching all of my past pizza highlights, from the mundane to the most formative. The pizza that tasted better after midnight during a teenage sleepover, the barbecue chicken slice I’d make my friends wait in line for after last call, the excessive number of artisan pies that hit the table on a cherished group vacation, and the delivery we ate in our wedding suite after all our guests were long gone. If you see me out in the wild, maybe you’ll clock my cheesy charm and wince—but that’s none of my business.

---

---

A special thank you to this week’s illustrator Sang Pak¹. See more of her work here.

1. Sang Pak is an illustrator born in Seoul, South Korea and raised in Philadelphia. She uses loose lines and vibrant colors to capture the energy of everyday moments, ranging from lifestyle scenes to food illustrations. She works primarily with traditional media, including colored pencil, oil pastel and watercolor. Her works have appeared in publications including the New York Magazine, The Philadelphia Inquirer and Madame Figaro.