Pizza

I was at a friend's house in Maine the other day. He lives in what's considered a rural area. However, there's rural and there's rural. His house is near a busy cross roads that, for whatever reason, has attracted a number of businesses. Within five minutes of his house, there's four places that make decent pizza.

It's funny the things you miss living out in the country. When I moved to my rural area there was nobody that made pizza. We are just far enough out of town that a pizza is guaranteed to be stone cold on arrival. I love pizza,but it has to be fresh.

One person in town missed pizza so much that bought a commercial pizza oven for his home. While I didn't go that far, I learned how to make a pretty good pizza -fresh dough crust and everything. You've got to start with fresh dough, or it's a waste of toppings. I can make pizza in everything from a woodstove to a toaster oven. I can even make it in a cast iron frying pan while camping.

Since then, there a two places in opposite sides of my town that sell pizza. One has your basic gas station pizza. It will keep you alive but tastes like . . . something from a gas station. On the other side of town is a gas station/grocery store/restaurant that makes good pizza. It's close enough that the pizza gets home still warm, as long as there's no snow on the roads. The place always seems to be for sale and on the verge of closing. It's been like that for years now, but continues to crank out pretty darn good pizza.

I used to say that civilization is hot showers and cold beer. To that I've got to add pizza. When you think about it, there's a lot of stuff that has to come together to make a decent pizza. There are long distribution lines for the ingredients. Conditions have to be right for a business to bring everything together and deliver the product to the customer.

If pizza ever becomes a rare thing, I'll know that collapse is well advanced.

-Sixbears