It’s that day when I sit around and do nothing except feast on carbs and watch football. The league has pitted teams I don’t care about. It seems like they do every year. This time around, it’s two teams with a losing record who suck. But because they’re teams in large markets, the league expects the largest audience to watch. Maybe they’re right, but it doesn’t make for watchable football. They should’ve known these teams would be bad before the season started.
Anyway, my parents understand I don’t like turkey because it’s bland. I’ve never liked turkey since I was a boy. The only time I might enjoy it is for leftovers when I can make a sandwich. My mother, who would keep pounds of turkey meat after Thanksgiving dinner, would have a dozen or so everything bagels to make turkey sandwiches. I used to eat them with lettuce, tomato, pickles, and mayonnaise, enough ingredients to mask the turkey. I would stick a sliver of meat into the sandwiches enough to make it non-vegetarian. But we won’t this year because we’re going out to eat at a restaurant that’ll serve a three-course meal, and it’ll offer several other options than turkey. Whatever I order will taste better.
I have different taste buds from my parents. When it comes to pizza, consider me a snob. I used to live in LA, where several pseudo-New York-style pizzerias coexisted. In case you don’t know already, New York style is thin crust, and they tend to burn the mozzarella enough to form brown spots all over it. My parents aren’t too familiar. They’ve lived in the suburbs for most of their adult lives. New York style is naturally more urban. I can tell when I drive through the suburbs where I live. Mostly corporate pizza chains are the options around here. Some such places try to mimic the style but don’t come close.
My parents wanted to order pizza a few months ago on Sunday when we watched football. There aren’t many places around here for quality pizza unless there’s a mom-and-pop that I don’t know about. I suggested my favorite corporate pizza chain.
My dad went to order from his iPad and struggled with the website. It took him close to a half hour to get to the order page. We had to help him out.
“Seventy dollars for two pizzas?” he said. “Are you kidding me?”
That was after all the delivery fees.
“No way,” he said. “We’re ordering from somewhere else.”
“Where?” I said.
“From our regular place. I’ll pick it up.”
Their regular place was a grocery store, not just any grocery store, but one that offered food at a cheaper price. I was skeptical but more peeved that they wanted to order from a place that wasn’t known for its pizza, let alone a grocery store. My pizza snobbery made me throw a fit, but I stayed polite and kept it internal. They ordered from there, and my dad went to pick it up.
He returned with a pizza without any pizza sauce but a garlic ranch sauce. The pizza wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t good either. I was on the fence about it and still wished we would’ve ordered from the corporate pizza chain. As corporate as it was, it still would’ve tasted better than the pizza from the grocery store. I don’t trust grocery stores when it comes to a deli or pizza in this case. But they continue to order from there and say it’s their favorite pizza. I just don’t understand.
But I gotta hand it to them. They reserved a table at a nice restaurant tonight. I’m sure it’ll be better than plain old turkey in which I would’ve smothered in gravy. It used to be all about everything but the turkey on Thanksgiving–the yams, the stuffing, the mashed potatoes, the pumpkin pie. I used to sit with my extended family, and we would play Trivial Pursuit later after we’d stuffed ourselves with tryptophan and pull our names out of a hat to see who would buy whom a Christmas present on a fifty-dollar budget. Those days are gone. My parents live hundreds of miles from the rest of that side of the family. Thanksgiving dinner isn’t the same with only three people, so we might as well go out to eat.
