Oggy's Pizza Scale

I am old enough to start developing numerical scales for topics such as pizza. I also worked in a pizzeria recently and it was kind of dream being able to talk for several hours with two different pizza chefs about pizza. One chef wanted me to be a partner but I translated that into me losing a lot of money so I passed it up, but it got me thinking that I should start baking pizza. Cars and pizza could keep me intellectually entertained for a long, long time. I should say I've never had pizza in Europe (I don't count the British Islands) so the field is still open but this list covers my whole life in the Western Hemisphere.

So, instead of saying, "oh, the slice was good." I want to get specific and say, the slice placed at a 7.5 on the Oggy scale of pizza. But what is the scale and how do I define it? The other day, I had a slice of pizza and the crust was curled around a hot dog, which was baked together. It was about a 6 on the Oggy scale and I want to describe that scale so I can refer to it later and give my references depth and weight and legitimacy. This is not to judge pizza that was badly prepared or accidentally had white onions, which I hate. This is to judge pizza that was properly executed.

1. Pizza that gets a grade of 1 (one) is barely pizza. It's more like bread with some cheese. I remember long ago I had pizza at a cafeteria in Alaska and it was truly awful, watery because someone failed to thaw the cheese correctly, the crust disintegrated. If I squeezed it I could create a puddle. A bad recipe and approach all around. Ingredients frozen since the the last ice age. That gets a grade of 1.

2. The crust might be a little more firm, but this is a step above frozen pizza because the dough is not rolled right. No love. Ingredients are awful.

3) Cafeteria pizza of the high school variety. I grew up eating pizza every lunch for all 5 years of high school. Sometimes I would get two slices. I used ketchup and salt and drank a chocolate milk and if no one was looking then I slipped an ice cream cookie sandwich in my cargo pockets. 5 fucking years of pizza. The pizza was not watery because they brushed the sauce on and there were no ingredients. It was just simple cheese. It had no taste. We sat around and talked about sports. It was below average pizza. Most pizza in Central America and Mexico rank as a 3 or 4, thick bread, a sprinkle of cheese, no jamon, often cooked early in the day and a sheet of plastic is placed over it to keep the flies off and then they throw it in the microwave to heat it up. Pure survival pizza. Also, if a chef microwaves* a slice of pizza to rewarm it then it automatically gets a grade of 3.

4) When I walked home from school in 1986 our dinner would either be frozen pizza or Pizza Hut pizza, so you see where my love affair with pizza comes from. I had pizza sometimes for three meals a day. Cold pizza in the morning as I walked late to school, pizza for lunch, and pizza in the evening. Frozen Pizza is like Tony's or whatever generic brand you eat. It's totally edible but it's frozen and I usually over-baked it. Papa Johns, Dominoes and most factory pizza joints fall in this category. When I was growing up I thought Pizza Hut Pan pizza was a 10, but I think it is now a 4.

5) This is your average slice that I've had a million places. I just ate about 6 slices of average pizza in Paraiso, Costa Rica. They were totally average, cheesy, super cheesy, 'gigante', jamon/ham, salty, ok cheese. Edible. That's all I can say about it. I eat a slice of average pizza like breathing. It means nothing to me and there are thousands of chefs churning out average $2 slices.

6) Like I said, I had a slice the other day that had a lot of love given to it...Hot dog inside the crust, cleverly perforated, good cheese, lots of ingredients and salt. It was slightly above average, like Papa Ginos. There is a pizza joint called Imo's in St. Louis that has round pizzas but cuts the slices in squares. They use Provel cheese. Really good. I also make a pizza out of Matzo crackers and pasta sauce and cheddar cheese in a toaster oven that ranks as a 6.

7) Ah, this is usually the glass ceiling of pizza grades for Oggy. This is where you really have to put some effort into the slice. A grade at 7 or above separates quality from average. I will say that Arcata Pizza and Deli in California threw down a quality pesto sauce and riccota cheese pizza that was a 7. Considering they also had other cool items on their menu that is impressive. A good Greek Pizza joint I remember when I was growing up had quality grade 7 pizza with crust that was crispy and thin like a corn chip. A place on Route 1 in Mass also has grade 7 pizza. Chicago corn bread crust pizza is a grade 7.

8) Elite pizza. This is gourmet pizza and they usually have nothing but pizza on the menu. Kittery, Maine has a pizza shop with pizza in this grade. Home Slice in Austin has grade 8 pizza slice. The whole ensemble of a grade 8 pizza is outstanding, the ingredients, the presentation. I can only think of a few slices that rank as an 8. I go a long way to get a slice of 8.

9) I had a pizza in Quito, Ecuador that I've never had before or since that had crust made from pastry dough, lots of layers of pastry dough. Everything else was normal but it was basically Baklava with cheese and I thought I had died and gone to pizza heaven. Imagine a butter croissant as a pizza. It was in a Chinese restaurant so I don't think they knew what they were doing but they knew what tasted good and they had assembled something delicious and it looked like a pizza so I have to categorize it as pizza. For its rarity and taste I have always remembered that pizza and will probably never find another example. These pizzas are like pretty girls I've danced with and never spoken to again, war stories for my dusty days in convalescent home, the memory of grade 9 pizza actually is strong enough to sustain me through times when I have no food.

10) There can be only one: The best of the best, for me, is a place near Melbourne Beach, Florida on the inter-coastal waterway about ten feet from the beach. I had my first slice of pizza there in 1992, so it is probably gone. I forget the name (Later I remembered it's name is Bizarro Pizza) but I once was driving through the bible belt, somewhere in Indiana, on my way to Louisiana, and I took a 1400 mile detour to Florida to get a slice of that pizza. I still dream about the slice of white sauce, ricotta cheese and roasted garlic on a paper plate. It was twice as good the next morning because the garlic had infused everything. This was very traditional N.Y. style pizza, huge, floppy, and served on a white paper plate. All they made was pizza and the menu was on the wall. They had no paper menus. You simply picked the size, sauce and topping. I remember they had 4 or 5 slice offering ready to reheat. Unbelievably good pizza. I have had pizza slices in the sidewalk windows in Brooklyn, and Boston and Philadelphia and Denver and Los Angeles and Seattle and Chicago, which all rank around an 8 or 9, and it was basically the same but in Melbourne for some reason it was better. Until something dethrones that pizza in my memory it remains as the best slice in the Western Hemisphere.

*This is a pizza sin. Microwaves have no place in the life of a pizza. If it must be reheated then use a cast iron skillet.

Chicharrones

Humble Meal

I've written about Pastor tacos, Asada tacos, quesadillas Arabe and Arrachera tacos and also Carnitas tacos. I've even had pig meat cut from the pig laying in front of me on a platter. Asada is my least favorite preparation but maybe I haven't had the higher quality that is found somewhere in Mexico. Asada is a step above shoe leather, which I've also had. My most favorite meat* taco is hard to rate because the Arrachera tacos in La Paz are the best due to ambiance and condiments, they are basically prime rib cut into strips on a flour tortilla so the price is high, but the Carnitas plates in Puebla have more variety (7 different parts of the pig including uterus, snout, soul, etc...and the Arabe taco is only found in Puebla and is a rare, delicious taste with added cheese because I am decadent.

But further south along the Spanish-plundered Americas, the cooks dismiss all the fancy details and simply deep fry the pig fat/flesh and roast the meat. The skin is fried until it curls like rock candy and is called "Concha" The meat is simply Chicarrones. Since I have to eat the Concha and meat with my fingers there is a traditional simplicity that I like and the flavor is simple and salty, no fancy sauce or salsa like the Arabe and Pastor.

Skin and Meat

Most people seem to eat this directly out of the bag like I do, but I have seen this prepared in Mexico by chopping the Concha into smaller pieces and mixing it with chopped meat but the markets here have a meat deli with Concha and Meat by the Kilo, and this particular meal of one piece of meat and two Conchas cost about 600 colones, which is $1.30. The only down side is the skin often has bits of fried fur left on it which don't really taste like hair but the idea of eating fried pig hide fur is not appetizing. But I still like it, which says a lot about the appeal since what other meal can I say I repeatedly buy knowing it will include fried fur?

Some folks in Texas offered me a bag of these...

or others called 'pork cracklings' and these are an abomination, obviously. they have only a mild resemblance to the Concha but are infinitely harder, months old, processed to death, and have all kinds of additional ingredients that make them atrocious. But fresh Chicharrones are delicious.

 Everything in Costa Rica is more expensive. I think this is the place Americans go to when they don't want to move to Florida or already live in Flordia and don't want to move back to New Jersey. But Costa Rica is actually more expensive than Florida. I could buy a mobile home on the Space Coast for $8K and that wouldn't buy me anything in Costa Rica.

But travel wouldn't be travel if I knew what I was getting into when I left.

*Breaded and fried shrimp tacos in La Paz, purchased from a street vendor with fresh condiments are definitely in the all-time Oggy Food Hall of Fame. Fried fish tacos in La Paz are also good but a good shrimp taco with salsa is the best.

Saddle leather

Measure and trim pig shoulder for dashboard.

Swing

It's not just Freddie Green, but the whole arrangement is divine. Check out the Count Basie Orchestra for more. One person refers to this music as P.E....Pre-Elvis. Swing is the correct term.

Extreme Sports

I think when George Mallory was asked, "Why climb Everest?" and he replied "Because it's there." he was really referring to his Ego. 

He said, "I want to travel light and take the summit by surprise," and the translation of that is ,"We paid an army of poor sherpas from our oppressed colony to carry our shit for us, but we'll take all the credit in the end."

Mallory might've reached the summit but he took that secret with him when he died on the mountain and his body is up there still along with the corpses of many others.

I watched the movie Everest the other day. It is based on the true events of the bungled summit attempt by about 50 thrill seekers in 1996. There was probably a little bit of editorializing and exaggeration, but that's only because this unknown director didn't quite grasp there is no need to exaggerate anything that happens at 28,000 ft. Like there are no average days for a human in outer space. If you tape a cocktail straw between your lips and use only it to breath, while running a marathon, then you might get the idea of what it's like to operate at that altitude, but this grave effort is only brushed over along with ridiculous cinematic conventions such as removing ones goggles and mask in sub zero temps so the audience knows who is talking...but I can ignore that.

 I've been reflecting on this topic of extreme sports, considering opening a Los Angeles guide service that walks you through a month on Skid Row. Escorted heroin addiction. The complete package will include starting out living in a van that will be confiscated by the police in a midnight raid while you are suffering from food poisoning. The police will club you and mace your eyes while you plead for medical attention. You will wind up sharing a cardboard box with a lunatic, wearing unisex pajamas in 30 degree temps and rain. Why not? Driving the Pan American Highway is a breeze compared to living on the streets of Austin where I was a false move from either being gunned down in the street, wrongfully convicted of murder and executed, or mugged and killed, not to mention heat stroke. The stress was very high and there was no Embassy to call for relief, the chance of 'disaster' was also very high. And if someone paid me $65K for the chance to spend a month living in 125 degree heat, dodging pimps, meth heads and trigger happy cops you would be right to call them crazy. One day I lugged 200 pound sheets of masonite into a church attic for 10 hours, tore all the skin off my arm, ate a single uncooked Ramen noodle packet for my entire calorie consumption, and earned about $22, which all went in my gas tank, and then was interrogated by the police for an hour with guns aimed at my temple, while they tried to get me to do something suspicious so they could arrest or execute me. Believe me, after my work day there was no fight left in me. I sincerely didn't care if they executed me or not and the cops eventually went back to their bat cave. Only after I navigated all those dangers could I sleep in the 120 degree oven my van had become during the day. Yet, there are no guide services for this 'urban challenge sport' and equally crazy people who pay $65K to climb Everest get a movie made about them when they die. That makes no sense. I survived a hellish situation in Austin and Corpus Christi for 5 months and for a small fee I could lead you through a similar experience. If Everest is a Summit then why is it not popular to plunge to the depth of social decay and survive? Los Angeles just declared a state of emergency because of 25,000 homeless people dying on the streets. Don't you want a chance to be one of them? I don't get it, but I'm not conventional so I guess I'm biased. I also accept the fact that some adventures must surpass any rational limit, at some point we reach a do or die, safety limit and keep on going anyway. That seems to be the lesson of the movie: rarely is your goal easily achieved and sometimes you have to die to reach a summit. But you will die knowing you reached the summit and if it's that important to you then go ahead because you'll die eventually anyway. That's what Mallory thought.

The movie is interesting but they all chose to be there at 8000 meters and their choice puts many people at risk for their mistakes. They all depend on an army of locals. They leave behind trash and shit and frozen bodies in a wake of destruction following their summit attempt. What kind of person would do that? Nature lovers? No. The kind that would later claim to have "Climbed Mt. Everest" Sure, you climbed Mt. Everest like I built my car. Fortunately, the dead don't ask for sympathy, so I don't have to have any. I'm selfish, I cultivate my own private goals and hobbies, but at least I admit it. But I also try to limit the imposition on others. When I'm asked if I will drive to Chile in my van I respond, "The question isn't if I can make it; the question is how many Bolivian potato farmers I want to inconvenience along the way." The answer is zero. I think a Bolivian potato farmer has enough challenges without taking time out of his day to help me find a distributor cap or help me through a parasitic attack. And since a trip to Chile in my van will not only cost around $7K, it will also inconvenience dozens of innocent people unlucky enough to live along the route I choose, I think that kind of trip is not going to happen. Better to take a bus or motorcycle.

There was a time when the peak of Everest was free of conceited and selfish assholes, but it's safe to say that time has passed. This movie is both a fittingly garish/lavish tribute and commercialized memorial to those selfish, conceited assholes who now seem to be the only people capable of reaching the summit.

We were just minding our own business...