ICE CREAM AND PIZZA
Ice cream and pizza are universally popular foods. However, that’s hard to understand if, according to a recent study, approximately two-thirds of the world’s population is lactose-intolerant.
“Lactose-intolerance” is the state of being unable to digest the sugar in dairy products. One key ingredients of both ice cream and pizza is usually dairy milk.
There’re certainly alternative milk products and dairy substitutes available. But the taste of these isn’t something I’d want to have in my ice cream or pizza.
Ice cream made from camel or goat milk doesn’t conjure up a pleasant image. And I challenge anyone to find an Italian pizzeria that would serve a soy ‘n tofu pizza, except perhaps in California.
That means there’s either a lot of lactose-intolerant Americans avoiding ice cream and pizza, or a lot of them eating these foods anyway. My money’s on the latter. And what does “pizzeria” rhyme with? (Hint: the word starts with a “dia”…)
While we’re on the subject of ice cream and pizza, who decided we need to have variety? If I were a conspiracy theorist I’d blame it on “capitalist entrepreneurs rabidly driving ever more product differentiation so they can sock-it to the common man, woman, and child in the form of higher unit prices”. Amen.
Too many times I’ve waited on line at the ice-cream parlor while some decisionally-challenged person pondered their choices. Usually it’s a large family, mostly children. Johnny just can’t decide between the Rainbow or Clown ice cream.
If it was my kid I’d grab him by the scruff of his waffling neck and say, “Hey buddy, either you make a choice, now, or we go home and you get to have the leftover liver.” That’d do it.
It’d be easier for everyone if we could turn back the clock to the days when there were just three flavor varieties; vanilla, chocolate and strawberry. Most other flavors are a combination of those anyway, except for regional varieties like Yorktown Yum-Yum or Saginaw Sludge.
Some people like to personalize their ice cream. And I have a solution. You want hot fudge, sprinkles or a candy-bar drizzled on your ice cream? Go home and do it.
With regard to pizza, I’m perfectly happy with a cheese or pepperoni pizza, and you can be, too. It’s a simple choice. You don’t have to spend an hour wading through a list of toppings or types of dough.
Nor do you risk getting an order wrong because you can’t remember all your choices. And there’s a big difference between a pizza with banana peppers and one with habaneros, as I discovered.
Personally, I think they should ban sardines altogether as a pizza topping as it turns my stomach to see hairy, dead fish swimming in tomato sauce. Also in that same category are ingredients that constitute meals other than lunch and dinner, such as eggs or frozen peanut butter.
A pizza slice loaded with toppings is just unnatural. It’s too heavy to lift. You have to eat it with a fork and knife, which can take up precious time. If I wanted a sit-down meal, I’d have lasagna or pot roast.
Pizza was meant to be consumed, not just “eaten”. A proper cheese-pizza slice is picked up, folded, stuffed into the mouth, and finished in three (max, four) bites.
You can’t do that with a Sicilian slice, heavy on the dough, or a broccoli-cheddar-clam-meatball-pesto one.
So, to those who keep adding stuff and choices to our pizza I say, “Leave it my way.”
To those who continue to mess with our ice cream I say, “Let my ice cream go!”
If you're enjoying this over coffee, tea, or whatever, please consider buying me a cup!SOMETHING STUPID
It’s okay that you did something stupid. Really. Everyone has.
Ummm, I guess since I’ve done so many stupid things in my life, that was rather arrogant of me to assume that everyone has done something stupid. For all those of you who have never done anything stupid in your lives, PLEASE STOP READING NOW.
Oh, good, we didn’t lose anybody!
Like I said, everyone has done something stupid in their lives. Most of us have done more than one — lots more!
Why do we do it? Hmmm, well there are lots of hypotheses, reasons, and meticulously crafted justifications to explain each and every one. But, I think, the cause behind all of them is selfishness. We just want something for ourselves so much, that we intentionally disregard the consequences to appease that single burning desire.
Do any of these sound familiar?
• We’re so excited about fondling the new electronic gizmo we just bought that we can’t even wait the 45 seconds it would take to go get some scissors. Instead we use our dull pocket knife to cut through that hard plastic packaging sealed around it. We poke our knife through the plastic. Start to slice through it. The blade slips out of the groove. Then the next thing we’re doing is racing through red lights with a rag tightly tied around our hand, trying to staunch the blood long enough to get a couple stitches at the emergency room.
• We’re listening to a story being told by a friend at a dinner party and we’re chomping at the bit to interject some witty line that just popped into our head. The need to impress others with our cleverness is so great that we don’t even consider how biting our words really are. We blurt them out and the caustic splash of our facetious remark literally melts the smile off our friend’s face, as a hush falls over the rest of the group.
• We’re so committed to “fitting in” with our peers that we go out and party to the point that we can’t even stand up any more. We get high night after night until we become addicted. Then we spend the next several years in recovery; desperately trying to overcome our addiction to whatever poisons we’d chosen to bombard our bodies with.
We’re . . .<INSERT YOUR STORY HERE>
I’ll bet you’re glad to get that off your chest. It’s liberating to admit that we’re human, isn’t it? Being human — now that the real reason why we do stupid things. Yes, the cause of it may be selfishness, some desire to get what we want without really putting in the effort it truly requires. But the real reason is our humanness. We just sometimes do things that make no sense. Usually we don’t, but sometimes we do.
Since we all do it, then we can all forgive each other for doing stupid things. If we can forgive each other, and truly mean it, then we can also forgive ourselves. Forgiving ourselves is paramount if we wish to get back on track to enjoying our lives.
So, it’s okay that you did something stupid. I forgive you. Now you just have to forgive yourself.
If you're enjoying this over coffee, tea, or whatever, please consider buying me a cup!
