About Pizza

I love pizza. No other baked good satisfies and nourishes me like pizza. If historians or religious scholars were able to actually look back in time, surely they would find that the “Manna Machine” (the Ancient of Days) that sustained the Semites in the desert was really just a pizza oven. What other item that spews both fire and food is so worthy of worship?

I try to eat pizza every day. At high points in my life this has been a complete and not even difficult to achieve reality. Now, I find myself trapped in a land where all the pizza is horrible. Every crust tastes the same, like preservatives, and the most popular alternate sauce is some sort of ranch-garlic-butter amalgamation that makes me feel like I'm eating a mayo Frostie. The horror.

In one of my early attempts at finding good pizza in Redding, I went on Yelp and read other people's reviews and opinions (I actually did this for all sorts of food, some with more luck). This lead me to a pizza place attached to a gas station, which had gotten the best reviews on Yelp. Don't get me wrong, you can get some really good food at a place attached to a gas station - hotdogs, sausages, pretzels, clam rolls (slightly more risky than the others), and probably some other local specialties - but you cannot get a good slice of pizza from any place that even shares a parking lot with one. Something about the combination of rising dough, 800 degree ovens, and a constant flow of auto fumes just doesn't work.

Of course I can always make pizzas. Recently I have discovered Chinese cooking secrets that have brought my pizzas to a whole new level of fluffiness and flavor. However, me making pizza also involves making a HUGE mess. Now, when one lives with a person who cleans with the speed, stealth, and precision of a highly trained ninja, said mess is almost unnoticeable. Unfortunately, I not only moved away from at least palatable pizza, but also left the aforementioned ninja far behind. My predicament is therefore quite troublesome and complex.

At this point, I'd even take a CPK. Sure it's a chain, but at least all the specials don't have ranch in them. If you can help, please leave a comment......

Signed,

Matt Lax, so hopelessly lost with his love so far away.

Oh My A New Blog! And All About Food Nonetheless...

I Love Good Food

This is my new blog exclusively about food. It will me mirrored on my website mattlax.com and possibly some other places if I see them fit. Food is a huge passion of mine, and the only thing I think about regularly enough to have a blog devoted to it.

I will write about food I grow, cook, eat, or do anything else with (no I don't get naughty with food, there are certain lines that even I don't cross). This will include everything from restaurant reviews to recipes to philosophical waxings on foodways.

Restaurant Reviews, Tasty Imagery, Recipies, and Food Source Issues

Let me tell you a little about myself. I was born in September of 1982, and grew up in the state of Vermont, USA. I am a male human of jewish blood, but not particularly practice. My mother is a Culinary Institute of America (that's CIA brotha) train chef. I am an avid cook and eater, and make many attempts at growing my own food, although I am quite bad at it still.

I am a full omnivore, and will eat anything non-toxic at least once. Lately I have been consuming a increasingly vegetarian diet. This is not to say that I have stopped eating meat, but simply that I am make a very solid attempt to reduce the amount of meat I eat. This is for a number of reasons:

1. I just plain feel healthier when I eat meat no more than once a day.
2. I feel the consumption of meat is an unsustainable practice, and that by exercising the privilege of doing so one forces others around the into starvation, as well as horribly damaging the planet.
3. Much meat available to consumers has been processed or grown in ways that disgust me (hormones, preservatives, dyes, etc.).
4. Cooking in a meatless kitchen is a joy. It is so nice not having to constantly worry about whether something is cooked "enough" (enough with meat means that it wont make people sick, enough without meat simply means the right texture/consistency). Furthermore, cleanup in a meatless kitchen is a breeze!

The heart of it is number two. I just know that there are way to many people on this planet for us all to eat hamburgers; which means every time you do someone else loses out in a big way (read: starves).

Anyway, now that you have at least some sense of where I'm coming from, subscribe to this blog and I promise I'll keep you drooling AND entertained.