I miss Beef on Weck - I lived in Buffalo for one semester (Jan-May 1974). Proctor and Bergman made a joke when they performed at UB - “Do they serve it every day of the weck?”
I remember a radio commercial for some pizzeria that said “We make pizza the way Buffalonians like pizza,” so I never went there. I’ve always been a pizza snob - what am I missing?
CK I feel bad I missed this somehow. While I left long ago Bflo pizza is unique.Hearty sauce n toppings to the edge. My brother lives near the Amherst campus of UB. He shared a great story abt local pizza. There are virtually no chain pizzerias in Bflo except near UB. The out of towners I believe are as happy as if they had good sense 🤣. If not for them bad chain pizza would not exist in Bflo.
It is difficult to not enjoy the new. Welcome and thanks for commenting. I knew when I offered four options and Something Else it would be inadequate. The tavern cut works especially well with those little beer glasses if you enjoy it :)
That is an elegant approach to pizza! I like it. Enjoying the humor in this post, too!
I tried listening to podcasts and videos on 1.5x speed several times and always end up feeling like I'm listening to Daffy Duck or an old Micromachines commercial. It's hard to absorb anything! I figure if someone recorded a video and took time and care to do it, I'll watch it the way they intended. It means I watch fewer videos, but isn't that good in an age of information overload? I prefer to really absorb and internalize the stuff I choose to spend time with.
The person I anonymized is fabulous and a CE person also. She is passionate, has a definite accent and is a fast talker. When overclocked it is amazing. I am laughing about the micromachines. I love your takeaway on being present for the video the way it was intended. That was my silly lesson on shortening movies to fit the time allotted. Silly. I generally don't do books on tape as I find myself a bit too passive in paying attention. Better to read when I feel like it.
I loved the pizza video, but I love eating Roman pizza as they serve it in Rome, a big rectangular slice, folded in half (topping inside) and wrapped in paper. So I clicked E in your poll. If I'm making pizza at home, though, I make a near-perfect circle and then slice in 8 slices. Your post is making me crave homemade pizza, right down to the homemade base and homegrown herbs in the tomato sauce.
Thanks for reading and commenting. Melanie -- we had renters from Northern Italy about 60km from Venice. Little village. They were relocated to Minnesota (believe it or not) and rented from us for about 7 years. They were the most wonderful couple. They arrived with one child and left with two. Each time they would call with some small issue at the house (we were close by) I was always happy to go over and investigate. They would always offer food and drink and coffee just right. American pizza presented challenges for the Genorias. Your love and knowledge of Italian pizza must mean that you and I share the love of anchovies. We have a local chain that makes authentic Neapolitan in a 900F (~500C) woodfired oven. They are far and away the best local pizza. Have New Zealanders adopted the style or what is the pizza style in NZ?
You can get just about any kind of pizza in New Zealand. Woodfired pizza is reasonably popular, and some places do things the proper Italian way (there's a fabulous Italian place not far from me, although I don't eat much pizza because I tend to put on weight). There's a place which advertises the oxymoron of authentic New York pizza (I imagine Italians might object). There's cheap, American-style takeaways. There's slightly fancier "gourmet" pizzas with things like avocado or brie on them. There's a place that sells pizza where the toppings are all curry (I cannot imagine the monstrosity of that, even though I love both curry and pizza).
If you want to start an argument in New Zealand, ask whether pizza should have pineapple on it. That gets people very fired up.
Pineapple with Canadian bacon is a thing in the states most everywhere now. Seemed to bother folks in the early days as the option made it's way across the country. Started out as a Hawaii/California thing I think. Pizza seems the ultimate canvas -- you can invent your own it seems. I only put my foot down when someone says Buffalo chicken pizza. Everyone has a line in the sand. It is good to know that bad American low-ball pizza has made it to NZ. A long time ago I did a post about impossibly foolish food reviews. Domino's for pizza and McDonald's for burgers shouldn't be racking up the 5-star reviews.
I love the twists and turns this post takes. (As always!) But I was especially interested in the note taking segment. (I know, shocking that it wasn't the pizza.) I am a person who processes information through my eyes and my hands. I am terrible at taking it in through hearing. Thus, I must take notes in order to retain any information. Coming to terms with this (far later than I should have) was a game changer for me.
Thanks for commenting Charlotte! Yours is a kind way of saying I meander a bit :) I am excited that my writing is starting to settle a bit into a handful of repeatable patterns. I think that is the path to getting better. I always hope when my writing travels down a road (like today) the path makes sense on arrival. We all are prisoners of the way our minds navigate things and I think in notetaking we need to find our own way. I read Jillian Hess' Noted. She analyzes the Notes of famous people and presents her take on the person. It is quite good. I think your journey is the finest of all because we need to find what works for us. I am interested in the brain, how it seems to work and I let that intersect with my work career. I spent a fair amount of time and enjoyed making models of things (sometimes mathematical) but mostly diagramming. One of my favorite quotes attributed to George Box is "all models are wrong but some are useful". I think how we take notes is like that. When someone advocates for their approach, I mentally mumble "good for you". It sounds like you have arrived!!!
Love the pizza cut. Yes I get 8, I can't eat 12 slices either! Also, that's not the Who, it's the Miami CSI theme song. You know the show where Horatio goes into the evidence room with no gloves on and contaminates evidence with his good looking staff...Don't get me started.
Thanks for commenting Paul. This made me laugh and realize my age :) There are bands who transcend generations and they come to be associated with the most unusual of things like Miami CSI. I saw the Who when I was young and Keith Moon was still the drummer. I think a store that only sells socks would fail in Miami. I also imagine the washing machines have an extra detent for bright colors. I think the next time I get together with my scotch club I am going to bring a take and bake pizza and do the tessellate cut. It seems silly but all the slices the same size and no crust on half the slices. This could be a thing and the contrarians will get worked up!!!
The pizza video was interesting. When I was a kid, there was no other way I'd ever see a pizza cut beyond little squares. To this day, when I go home and we order pizza from a place that's essentially been around for decades, they still cut their pizza in squares. Definitely impacts the taste of the pizza :-) Only recently did I notice the ultimate size drink at Starbucks. I have been getting the Paradise Refresher and getting it in Venti. I have played around with the Trenta but that seems to be a slippery slope :-) I'll stay with my Venti a while longer. Good job.
I'm glad you enjoyed it. Somewhere else in this discussion I profiled the unique cut of the favored pizza of my youth Leonardi's -- will send you on the wild goose chase in the comments. I love Red Savoy's 'sota style and the cut in small squares. I think it is great to be able to choose or avoid the crust. I think the next time we order a half-baked I am going to cut it Leonardi style and see if it causes an uproar amongst the family. They closed after 47 years in business during the pandemic so their cut style only lives on in memory. Who knows maybe even try the tessellated style in the video and drive everyone CRAZY
reader engagement rides along with obsession :) -- how did you vote this time???
As I recall you voted for eat the last piece to avoid cleanup in my last pizza chat -- Did you ever have Leonardi's Pizza growing up in WNY -- kinda like a better Bocce Club -- they used to cut their pizza in a weird way. (1) Exactly in half (2) Spin 90 degrees (3) Four perpendicular cuts -- you end up with two VERY LONG pieces, four pieces with LOTS of crust and four pieces that are progressively smaller than the biggies -- In a household of three boys it was important to get your piece first HAHA -- Leonardi just liked to foment conflict.
Leonardi's on Bailey was awesome. A bit of a shady area. They would chop the pizza on a heavy duty block that rotated. The chopper was a weapon of war -- kind of an oversized cleaver..
Coffee and cold water. I agree cold water makes better coffee. I’ve tested it! But why? The water has to get hot eventually to brew the coffee so why does it need to start cold? Thinking about this makes me crazier than pizza makes me!
drink a small glass of cold water and then a small glass of warm water. Warm water is flat, has less oxygen and minerals in it (according to water experts I guess)
My brother in law also suggested that the cold water pipes are used more than the hot water pipes so they tend to be cleaner and not so full of nasties?
Your BIL is probably right as whenever there is a water crisis somewhere the solution is to run the water for a minute or so before you use any of it. As I recall you are an old-fashioned girl when it comes to coffee prep (percolator) and you have great tap water.I would bet big money you don't filter your tap water in a Brita at the Cafe. Whenever I see those PR coffee bricks in the grocery store I laugh. If I ever see a percolator at a garage (or estate) sale for $2, I may just give it a whirl. Near as I can tell it is a hybrid dark roast and espresso so probably similar to what jackasses are paying $9 for at Starbucks even if they skip the egg white feta surprise blob wrapped in cellophane in a kitchen and loaded in a van at 3AM -- fresh n tasty. My favorite part is the consumers are as happy as if they had good sense as they freely blog about it as if it is sensible and "good". The range of human behavior is one of the fuels of life and provides free smiles to the observers. I enjoyed writing this so much, I'm going to send it to Notes (if I can figure that out). Maybe the egg white feta crowd will smile and figure out how to viralize it into what about me :)
As for a theory why it tastes better, here is a guess -- I would guess the bit of air above the coffee in your cup makes it better and in a small cup the ratio of air to coffee is just a little higher -- that is a wild ass guess so don't hold me to it -- this is poetic justice for all the barrel coffee drinkers carrying around containers larger than a mason jar full of coffee and presumably a colostomy bag.-- this is why red wine and bourbon probably taste better in the large glass with lots of room to breath -- I feel like a snob now and this is just the sort of fake conjecture no one probably needs
Shout-out to my friend whose family works in the coffee biz -- why does the small size taste better ????? Save us AM
The Stabuck lovers are a drone army. I hope I haven't upset them. The teaspoon, tablespoon and cup. I think if we had stuck with the metric system, the revolt would have come from the kitchens and the makers of teaspoons, tablespooons and cups.
I've never been inside a Starbucks - one advantage to living in the hinterlands, I guess (and now you know one of my prejudices!). 😉 David Blake makes fun of Starbucks in his very silly, but amusing book series, "Space Police," where drinks of any type can be ordered as, "Big, bigger, biggest, or well-big." As you've probably guessed, a "big" glass of water is "... not so much a big glass of water, but more of a tiny, miniature sized one..."
30 miles, apparently, which is how far I am from Concord. There are THREE Starbucks in our State Capital - I guess they have to make up for the hinterlands... 😊
Northeasterners will give up their Dunkin' habit when you you pry their warm dead fingers off of those superheated cups. Where is the nearest Dunkin' Donuts? I just peeked and there are 16000 Starbucks in the US. A different one everyday for almost 44 years -- what a legacy for someone on Tik Tok to attempt -- NO I wanted a Venti half-cafe
I remember how ludicrous it became when Subway's were opening connected to gas stations. That lineup of gross squeeze bottles of eight different kinds of mayonnaise only turned me off I guess although I understand that once delivery services became omnipresent people realized there is no conceivable reason to order Subway delivered unless your punch card was full. Lots of Subways have closed since the pandemic.
There are three Dunkin' Donuts in neighboring towns within 10 miles of me! 😂 I love their chocolate glazed donuts, but only get one every couple of years.... not self control, just not enough time to go donut hunting.
I miss Beef on Weck - I lived in Buffalo for one semester (Jan-May 1974). Proctor and Bergman made a joke when they performed at UB - “Do they serve it every day of the weck?”
I remember a radio commercial for some pizzeria that said “We make pizza the way Buffalonians like pizza,” so I never went there. I’ve always been a pizza snob - what am I missing?
CK I feel bad I missed this somehow. While I left long ago Bflo pizza is unique.Hearty sauce n toppings to the edge. My brother lives near the Amherst campus of UB. He shared a great story abt local pizza. There are virtually no chain pizzerias in Bflo except near UB. The out of towners I believe are as happy as if they had good sense 🤣. If not for them bad chain pizza would not exist in Bflo.
As if Buffalo didn’t have enough excellent food, we also have top-notch chocolatiers like Watson’s and Fowler’s serving up sponge candy.
Thanks for commenting Geoffrey! Sponge candy and orange milk chocolate are still so great to me. Going to add Watson's to the list for my next trip!
I’d like the Tavern Cut, please…
It is difficult to not enjoy the new. Welcome and thanks for commenting. I knew when I offered four options and Something Else it would be inadequate. The tavern cut works especially well with those little beer glasses if you enjoy it :)
That is an elegant approach to pizza! I like it. Enjoying the humor in this post, too!
I tried listening to podcasts and videos on 1.5x speed several times and always end up feeling like I'm listening to Daffy Duck or an old Micromachines commercial. It's hard to absorb anything! I figure if someone recorded a video and took time and care to do it, I'll watch it the way they intended. It means I watch fewer videos, but isn't that good in an age of information overload? I prefer to really absorb and internalize the stuff I choose to spend time with.
The person I anonymized is fabulous and a CE person also. She is passionate, has a definite accent and is a fast talker. When overclocked it is amazing. I am laughing about the micromachines. I love your takeaway on being present for the video the way it was intended. That was my silly lesson on shortening movies to fit the time allotted. Silly. I generally don't do books on tape as I find myself a bit too passive in paying attention. Better to read when I feel like it.
I loved the pizza video, but I love eating Roman pizza as they serve it in Rome, a big rectangular slice, folded in half (topping inside) and wrapped in paper. So I clicked E in your poll. If I'm making pizza at home, though, I make a near-perfect circle and then slice in 8 slices. Your post is making me crave homemade pizza, right down to the homemade base and homegrown herbs in the tomato sauce.
Also Italian coffee.... mmm.
Thanks for reading and commenting. Melanie -- we had renters from Northern Italy about 60km from Venice. Little village. They were relocated to Minnesota (believe it or not) and rented from us for about 7 years. They were the most wonderful couple. They arrived with one child and left with two. Each time they would call with some small issue at the house (we were close by) I was always happy to go over and investigate. They would always offer food and drink and coffee just right. American pizza presented challenges for the Genorias. Your love and knowledge of Italian pizza must mean that you and I share the love of anchovies. We have a local chain that makes authentic Neapolitan in a 900F (~500C) woodfired oven. They are far and away the best local pizza. Have New Zealanders adopted the style or what is the pizza style in NZ?
You can get just about any kind of pizza in New Zealand. Woodfired pizza is reasonably popular, and some places do things the proper Italian way (there's a fabulous Italian place not far from me, although I don't eat much pizza because I tend to put on weight). There's a place which advertises the oxymoron of authentic New York pizza (I imagine Italians might object). There's cheap, American-style takeaways. There's slightly fancier "gourmet" pizzas with things like avocado or brie on them. There's a place that sells pizza where the toppings are all curry (I cannot imagine the monstrosity of that, even though I love both curry and pizza).
If you want to start an argument in New Zealand, ask whether pizza should have pineapple on it. That gets people very fired up.
Pineapple with Canadian bacon is a thing in the states most everywhere now. Seemed to bother folks in the early days as the option made it's way across the country. Started out as a Hawaii/California thing I think. Pizza seems the ultimate canvas -- you can invent your own it seems. I only put my foot down when someone says Buffalo chicken pizza. Everyone has a line in the sand. It is good to know that bad American low-ball pizza has made it to NZ. A long time ago I did a post about impossibly foolish food reviews. Domino's for pizza and McDonald's for burgers shouldn't be racking up the 5-star reviews.
I love the twists and turns this post takes. (As always!) But I was especially interested in the note taking segment. (I know, shocking that it wasn't the pizza.) I am a person who processes information through my eyes and my hands. I am terrible at taking it in through hearing. Thus, I must take notes in order to retain any information. Coming to terms with this (far later than I should have) was a game changer for me.
Thanks for commenting Charlotte! Yours is a kind way of saying I meander a bit :) I am excited that my writing is starting to settle a bit into a handful of repeatable patterns. I think that is the path to getting better. I always hope when my writing travels down a road (like today) the path makes sense on arrival. We all are prisoners of the way our minds navigate things and I think in notetaking we need to find our own way. I read Jillian Hess' Noted. She analyzes the Notes of famous people and presents her take on the person. It is quite good. I think your journey is the finest of all because we need to find what works for us. I am interested in the brain, how it seems to work and I let that intersect with my work career. I spent a fair amount of time and enjoyed making models of things (sometimes mathematical) but mostly diagramming. One of my favorite quotes attributed to George Box is "all models are wrong but some are useful". I think how we take notes is like that. When someone advocates for their approach, I mentally mumble "good for you". It sounds like you have arrived!!!
Meandering is an art form and not as appreciated as it should be these days! Love that George Bernard Shaw quote!
Love the pizza cut. Yes I get 8, I can't eat 12 slices either! Also, that's not the Who, it's the Miami CSI theme song. You know the show where Horatio goes into the evidence room with no gloves on and contaminates evidence with his good looking staff...Don't get me started.
Thanks for commenting Paul. This made me laugh and realize my age :) There are bands who transcend generations and they come to be associated with the most unusual of things like Miami CSI. I saw the Who when I was young and Keith Moon was still the drummer. I think a store that only sells socks would fail in Miami. I also imagine the washing machines have an extra detent for bright colors. I think the next time I get together with my scotch club I am going to bring a take and bake pizza and do the tessellate cut. It seems silly but all the slices the same size and no crust on half the slices. This could be a thing and the contrarians will get worked up!!!
The pizza video was interesting. When I was a kid, there was no other way I'd ever see a pizza cut beyond little squares. To this day, when I go home and we order pizza from a place that's essentially been around for decades, they still cut their pizza in squares. Definitely impacts the taste of the pizza :-) Only recently did I notice the ultimate size drink at Starbucks. I have been getting the Paradise Refresher and getting it in Venti. I have played around with the Trenta but that seems to be a slippery slope :-) I'll stay with my Venti a while longer. Good job.
I'm glad you enjoyed it. Somewhere else in this discussion I profiled the unique cut of the favored pizza of my youth Leonardi's -- will send you on the wild goose chase in the comments. I love Red Savoy's 'sota style and the cut in small squares. I think it is great to be able to choose or avoid the crust. I think the next time we order a half-baked I am going to cut it Leonardi style and see if it causes an uproar amongst the family. They closed after 47 years in business during the pandemic so their cut style only lives on in memory. Who knows maybe even try the tessellated style in the video and drive everyone CRAZY
Do we really need to make pizza more exciting? I already lose my mind every time I go near one. Ok, reading on...
Pizza is the most exciting food on earth. It's right up there with pasta! 🍕
There are few foods I covet as much as pizza and pasta
reader engagement rides along with obsession :) -- how did you vote this time???
As I recall you voted for eat the last piece to avoid cleanup in my last pizza chat -- Did you ever have Leonardi's Pizza growing up in WNY -- kinda like a better Bocce Club -- they used to cut their pizza in a weird way. (1) Exactly in half (2) Spin 90 degrees (3) Four perpendicular cuts -- you end up with two VERY LONG pieces, four pieces with LOTS of crust and four pieces that are progressively smaller than the biggies -- In a household of three boys it was important to get your piece first HAHA -- Leonardi just liked to foment conflict.
My vote was for equal slices! Do I look like an ANIMAL to you?
And yeah the Leonardi's strategy sounds pretty f'd up!
Leonardi's on Bailey was awesome. A bit of a shady area. They would chop the pizza on a heavy duty block that rotated. The chopper was a weapon of war -- kind of an oversized cleaver..
Coffee and cold water. I agree cold water makes better coffee. I’ve tested it! But why? The water has to get hot eventually to brew the coffee so why does it need to start cold? Thinking about this makes me crazier than pizza makes me!
drink a small glass of cold water and then a small glass of warm water. Warm water is flat, has less oxygen and minerals in it (according to water experts I guess)
Ah this makes a lot of sense!!! Thank you!
My brother in law also suggested that the cold water pipes are used more than the hot water pipes so they tend to be cleaner and not so full of nasties?
Your BIL is probably right as whenever there is a water crisis somewhere the solution is to run the water for a minute or so before you use any of it. As I recall you are an old-fashioned girl when it comes to coffee prep (percolator) and you have great tap water.I would bet big money you don't filter your tap water in a Brita at the Cafe. Whenever I see those PR coffee bricks in the grocery store I laugh. If I ever see a percolator at a garage (or estate) sale for $2, I may just give it a whirl. Near as I can tell it is a hybrid dark roast and espresso so probably similar to what jackasses are paying $9 for at Starbucks even if they skip the egg white feta surprise blob wrapped in cellophane in a kitchen and loaded in a van at 3AM -- fresh n tasty. My favorite part is the consumers are as happy as if they had good sense as they freely blog about it as if it is sensible and "good". The range of human behavior is one of the fuels of life and provides free smiles to the observers. I enjoyed writing this so much, I'm going to send it to Notes (if I can figure that out). Maybe the egg white feta crowd will smile and figure out how to viralize it into what about me :)
"Egg white feta surprise blob" LOL
Yep cold tap water straight into the percolator all the way!
I always order the “short” at Starbucks you know why it tastes better! Another mystery...
As for a theory why it tastes better, here is a guess -- I would guess the bit of air above the coffee in your cup makes it better and in a small cup the ratio of air to coffee is just a little higher -- that is a wild ass guess so don't hold me to it -- this is poetic justice for all the barrel coffee drinkers carrying around containers larger than a mason jar full of coffee and presumably a colostomy bag.-- this is why red wine and bourbon probably taste better in the large glass with lots of room to breath -- I feel like a snob now and this is just the sort of fake conjecture no one probably needs
Shout-out to my friend whose family works in the coffee biz -- why does the small size taste better ????? Save us AM
Silly Starbucks. Eight ounces equals one cup! 😁
The Stabuck lovers are a drone army. I hope I haven't upset them. The teaspoon, tablespoon and cup. I think if we had stuck with the metric system, the revolt would have come from the kitchens and the makers of teaspoons, tablespooons and cups.
I've never been inside a Starbucks - one advantage to living in the hinterlands, I guess (and now you know one of my prejudices!). 😉 David Blake makes fun of Starbucks in his very silly, but amusing book series, "Space Police," where drinks of any type can be ordered as, "Big, bigger, biggest, or well-big." As you've probably guessed, a "big" glass of water is "... not so much a big glass of water, but more of a tiny, miniature sized one..."
I wonder how far beyond a metro area you must go to see Starbuck's disappear. How interesting (and silly) -- I may check out "Space Police"
30 miles, apparently, which is how far I am from Concord. There are THREE Starbucks in our State Capital - I guess they have to make up for the hinterlands... 😊
Northeasterners will give up their Dunkin' habit when you you pry their warm dead fingers off of those superheated cups. Where is the nearest Dunkin' Donuts? I just peeked and there are 16000 Starbucks in the US. A different one everyday for almost 44 years -- what a legacy for someone on Tik Tok to attempt -- NO I wanted a Venti half-cafe
I remember how ludicrous it became when Subway's were opening connected to gas stations. That lineup of gross squeeze bottles of eight different kinds of mayonnaise only turned me off I guess although I understand that once delivery services became omnipresent people realized there is no conceivable reason to order Subway delivered unless your punch card was full. Lots of Subways have closed since the pandemic.
There are three Dunkin' Donuts in neighboring towns within 10 miles of me! 😂 I love their chocolate glazed donuts, but only get one every couple of years.... not self control, just not enough time to go donut hunting.