it’s been a while since i’ve obsessed over the pointlessness of the pizza hut p’zone.
why do i obsess over the pizza hut p’zone?
because it is a steaming, processed-cheesy example of all that i find wrong with america’s lackadaisical attitude toward product development, and soft-minded surrender to marketing gimmicks.
because there are a lot of things that need improving in this world, but we seem to have put paramount importance on the advancement of the three things mankind perfected centuries ago: face shaving, beer drinking, and discovering new permutations of meat, cheese, sauce, bread.
because, the p’zone is supposed to fill the void that exists somewhere between pizza and calzone, and there is no void between pizza and calzone.
once you fold a pizza in half, it’s a calzone.
halfway between pizza and calzone is a pizza with one half folded up at a right angle, and all the toppings shuffled down into the crease.
that’s what a p’zone should be, and that’s not cuisine. that’s garbage (not to suggest that the actual p’zone isn’t garbage).
in the words of dennis hopper’s character in apocalypse now, “one through nine, no maybes, no supposes, no fractions. you can’t travel in space, you can’t go out into space, you know, without, like, you know, uh, with fractions, okay? what are you going to land on – one-quarter, three-eighths? what are you going to do when you go from here to venus or something?”
you have to deal in the realities of things, people.
enter birrz.
birrz is the “non-alcoholic” version of t’ej.
today thomas invited me over to his house for that international holiday tradition: leftovers.
this of course was served with leftover birrz, as it was lunchtime… on a monday, and nobody should be getting drunk at lunchtime… on a monday.
the thing is this:
t’ej starts off as honey, spices, and water.
that’s not birrz.
it isn’t birrz until it’s begun to ferment, and it gets that fizzy, tingly taste.
fermenting sugar = alcohol, every time.
once fermentation begins, it’s about three days to birrz, and from there you have three days of t’ej before it becomes paint thinner.
well, the birrz needed to be ready by sunday morning for the breaking of the fast, and it was now monday afternoon, which meant we were right in the heart of t’ej territory. which probably explains why, after sharing a pitcher of it with thomas over lunch, i walked outside and immediately thought “oh, wow. it’s bright out here. whoops! slippery sand. hehe.”
jesus christ, i’m drunk.
at lunchtime.
on a monday.
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is it birrz? is it t'ej?... is it a calzone? is it a p'zone? ... it's all the same!
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stay tuned for our next episode:
speaking of fermented.
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easy listening: the kooks : matchbox
