The Passions of the Pizza

Most everyone knows about the passions of the Christ and the Stations of the Cross. Few know of the passions of the pizza pans, the sufferings of Sandy, high priestess of the church of Pizza-ism. This past Friday, she alone prepared Pizza-ism’s Last Supper. This that the souls and stomachs of our two most loyal apostles might, one last time, join us in celebration of the Faith.

Aside from a little help from our acolyte, my home health aide, Francis, who mixed the dough under DOKE (Dep’t of Kitchen Efficiency) supervision, Sandy, saintlike, singlehandedly endured her least favorite task besides cleaning toilets–cooking. She had no choice, for Lo, it was ordained that we should enact the crowning glory of our creed by feeding said apostles, ardent pizza consumers but pizza preparation novices, Dan and Jenise, pizza perfection. Pizza-ism’s holy text will ever refer to this blessed event as “The Last Pizza Supper.”

I had awoken Monday feeling only half-past dead, my body weak but my spirit strong, filled up by an inspiration. (Or maybe just craving pizza.) Who knew how I’d feel by Friday? But the pizza god had called. Who were we to deny him (her, them, it, whatever?)

Sandy and I have always enjoyed entertaining friends and we’ve served many a savory dish, but the cognoscente clamor for our pizza. We have often transported pies to their homes, ready to be baked in their ovens. This, I suppose, was our ministry; spreading the good news of the holy pizza among the heathen masses, those formerly faithless souls who had ever known pizza only as through a pizza parlor or delivery darkly.

It is a great misfortune that pizza did not exist at the time of Jesus. Had that been the case, there is no doubt that Pizza-ism would now be the world’s dominant religion. Jesus would have been a baker, not a carpenter. The Romans would have embraced him, not tormented him, since we know how much they love pizza. He never would have had to go through his mortal sufferings and the world would surely have been a much kinder, gentler and tastier place than it is today.

To his credit, he did provide for the masses loaves and fishes. I guess if the fish happened to be anchovies and he threw on some garlic, olive oil and cheese, he would’ve, sort of, been providing a rudimentary form of pizza. But Pizza-ism is much more complicated than even he could have imagined. As with all great truths there is a simplicity on its face that conceals its deeper mysteries.

Unlike the Judeo-Christian religions, there is but one commandment of Pizza-ism. That is that pizza must never be ordered out or consumed in a restaurant, or, blasphemy of blasphemies, purchased frozen at the supermarket, but must be prepared from scratch, preferably on Sabbath evening. ( although, may the Pizza gods forgive me, I, myself, have often strayed from Pizza-ism’s perilously narrow path.) The true believer must struggle and suffer to achieve the ever elusive mastery of the art. Our Last Pizza Supper was the culmination of more than a half century of improvisation and sacred recipe book interpretation.

Pizza-ism enlightens us to the fact that Heaven is not some mythological place in the clouds. It is the heavenly experience of biting into a truly well-made, homemade, from scratch, pizza. Like life, it is but a fleeting pleasure, and so, like life, each morsel should be cherished. To learn more about our holiest of holy religion, refer to my blog “Pizza-ism.” To appreciate the passions endured by my wife the other night it would also be worthwhile to read the blog “I Didn’t Marry Her For Her Cooking.”

Now, with the high priest unable to cook, the full burden fell upon the high priestess who martyred herself to the creation of the most perfect offering to the pizza gods ever produced in our temple of pizza. The crust was crispy, yet, tender, the sauce was subtly seasoned and reduced to a sublime consistency, the toppings were not merely strewn upon the pies but were placed, as is expected of an artist, in the most beautiful abstract patterns. She deftly rotated the two pans between two oven shelves to create identical, perfectly finished, pies. The final suffering of her stations of the pizza pans was to cut the slices into precisely equal sizes.

Unfortunately, I could not turn water to wine, but in my dwindling wine closet, miraculously there appeared a bottle of a very pizza friendly Sicilian red that had aged into a complex and satisfying accompaniment befitting of The Last Pizza Supper.

Of course, Sandy moaned in agony through the course of her labors –to the point that I kept my distance from her chef’s knife. Why would she not, given the full burden of her cross to bear? That night, exhausted, (and slightly tipsy?) she slept the sleep of the dead. I, myself, slept with one eye open. But, yea, upon the morning, she rose again and renewed the most important tenet of Pizza-ism, forgiveness. So did we both arise, uplifted by the awareness that she had produced, perhaps, the best pizza ever experienced by mere mortals.

That having been accomplished, we proclaim hallelujah because, if Sandy has her way, the process will not soon, if ever, be repeated.

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