I love chain pizza. In order of preference, my favorites for years have been Pizza Hut, Papa John’s, Donatos, Uno’s, and then Domino’s. I’m not embarrassed about it, nor do I think it indicates an inferior palate. In fact, my problem with pizza in New York City, which is held up as some sort of bastion of flavor and structure, is that it has neither. The sauce never has any spice*, the crust is always limp, the dough is either too moist or too dry, and the toppings are always sparse.

As a person who loves pizza–I mean really loves pizza–and could probably eat it for every meal every day , I was seriously disappointed when I moved here from Ohio and found that I actually preferred to eat chain pizza and that it’s very hard to find here and almost impossible to get delivered.

Luckily, there’s a Domino’s around the corner from my office, and luckily, all of my co-workers and I were curious about this new recipe they’ve been touting that supposedly includes:

• Buttery, garlic-herb crust
• A robust, spicy sauce
• Real cheese (hmm?)

So we had 20 medium two-toppings pizzas delivered last Friday, and here’s how mine looked:

That’s pepperoni and bacon, which I realize means there was no way this pizza could be bad, but I’m convinced this would have been a delicious pizza even plain. Let’s break it down:

• Buttery, garlic-herb crust? Check. The butter and herbs are actually visible on the crust and are evident in every bite. The crust wasn’t soggy, but it wasn’t so hard you had to rip it apart with your teeth. The garlic was very present, so I didn’t even need any of the dipping sauces it came with to give it a kick.

• Robust, spicy sauce? Definitely. Not spicy as in hot but spicy as in full of spices. And there was plenty of it, too, which is another complaint of mine when it comes to New York pizza.

• Real cheese? I didn’t notice a flavor change, to be honest, but there was definitely a lot more of it, and that’s important to me.

The toppings were abundant, the crust was thick on the end and thinner underneath as it should be, and . . . oh, yeah, did I mention it cost $5.99 for the whole medium pizza because we did the 3-for-$5.99-each deal? Like you’re going to resist that, no matter how you felt about Domino’s before.

I’d still probably list Pizza Hut as my favourite chain pizza, but Domino’s is certainly #2 for me now. If you can get past your elitist feelings about not dining at some local pizzeria that’s been serving the same flavorless crap for 150 years, I think you’ll like it, too. (Although you’ll note that I’m posting this on a Friday, when no one reads blogs, so fewer people will see how non-elitist I am.)

*Except for Two Boots, which was founded by people who love Cajun food and is therefore not normal.

On Friday night, my boyfriend and I had reservations at 21 Club. Despite the fact that their Restaurant Week menu was fairly hum-drum and of course didn’t include their $30 burger–which is really the whole point in going–we decided to give it a shot simply because it’s one of those classic New York City restaurants you always see in programs like “I Love Lucy” and in movies like Rear Window.

You’ll note that both of these examples are from the 50s and should have tipped us off as to what sort of attire would be required of us, yet neither of us thought a thing of it when Kamran donned a pair of perfectly-pressed dark blue jeans. Kamran’s a fashionable guy and is usually seen sporting anything from plain wool trousers to sensibly plaid slacks, so this departure into casual jeans was a welcome one.

As soon as we walked up to the door of 21 Club, I sensed that I didn’t belong. I’ve eaten plenty of expensive meals with Kamran at this point, but I still feel like an Ohio farmgirl, and I think it’s obvious where I come from with everything I say and do and wear. So when the coatcheck guy stopped us a foot inside the door, I wasn’t surprised. When he said Kamran was the reason we had to leave, I was shocked. Kamran asked if there were any exceptions to the no jeans rule, but he wasn’t holding any bribe money when he said it, so we were sent on our way.

Now, I’m all for restaurants that keep riffraff such as myself out for the enjoyment of other, richer patrons, but Kamran was lookin’ fiiiiiiiine that night in a navy-and-orange-checked button-down in honor of his Princeton alma mater and a navy sweater vest that I bought him as an early Valentine’s Day gift. If ever there was reason for exception, I think a navy blue sweater vest is that reason. You?

When I told my best friend, Tracey, the story of our sad restaurant rejection, she said, “Don’t they know who Kamran is?” No, no, they don’t.

I figured it was too late to post about my first bûche de Noël experience before I left NYC to spend the holidays with my family in Ohio, but since Blondie & Brownie revealed that Financier is still selling them, it looks like I’m good to go.

Being from the Midwest and being very much culturally sheltered, I had no idea what a bûche de Noël was until my office decided on a whim to order a couple of cakes from the downtown Financier Patisserie the week before Christmas. When I called at 3 p.m., the order-taker told me that they were down to a couple of roll cakes, one in white chocolate and one in Grand Marnier. I told her I’d take them, but she kept stressing that these were not normal cakes and kept asking if I was sure I wanted them. I was like, “Lady, cake is cake.”

But no! A traditional bûche de Noël is a French sponge cake rolled up with frosting to resemble a log, complete with buttercream bark, meringue mushrooms, and protruding branches (made of chocolate, in this case). The Grand Marnier version was entirely untraditional, but the mound of berry-flavored mousse was no less delicious.

I usually think Financier’s cakes are too light and fluffy to really count as a decadent dessert (because I’m a glutton), but the yule log was a total exception and one that I’ll look forward to next year. It seems like the woman at Financier shouldn’t have been warning me about the cake but should’ve been asking why I wasn’t buying all three.

Is this something normal, non-Midwestern people often eat for Christmas?

In the wake of Eating the Road’s unapologetically gluttonous fast food romp, the Big McSausage Egg Surf & Turf Mac, I feel confident that the Internet can handle my own Tower of Gorge:

click here for the full size, which is really, really enjoyable for a second until you think about it and puke

That’s two McDonald’s cheeseburgers, an everything bagel with garden vegetable cream cheese from Tim Horton’s, and a Pizza Hut personal pan pizza, topped off with extra pickles. The pumpkin pie milkshake that I followed it up with isn’t pictured but was heartily enjoyed. My total caloric intake for that meal alone and not including the Cheesecake Factory or Dairy Queen I no doubt had for dinner that night?

1631. And that’s based on the nutrition facts supplied by the various restaurants’ websites, which you know are severely underestimated.

You can’t really blame me, though. If NYC had more of the chain restaurants I love, I wouldn’t have to get all spastic every time I go home to Ohio for Thanksgiving. And Christmas. And the 4th of July. And my dad’s birthday. And my own birthday. And several random weekends throughout the year when I pretend to want to see my family and friends but really just want easy access to a Taco Bell.

I did just gulp a huge glass of water after writing this out of guilt, though, if that makes you feel any better.

I grew up ten minutes from Circleville, Ohio, and have such fond memories of going to the Circleville Pumpkin Show as a kid that flying home to Ohio from NYC every year for it just seems natural. And I’m not alone in my venture: millions of people come from all over to world simply to visit “the best free show on Earth”. My friends and I are pretty up front about the fact that there’s nothing to do at the Pumpkin Show but eat. Luckily, we don’t need another reason to go.

This year’s feast included:

Deep-fried Buckeyes. Buckeyes being Ohio’s state nut. Except that these are peanut butter balls dipped in chocolate and made to resemble the nut, then covered in batter, fried, drizzled in chocolate sauce, and sprinkled with powdered sugar.

The Bloomin’ Potato, which is such a favourite for my best friend, Tracey, that we walked around aimlessly in the cold for . . . at least ten whole minutes until we found it. It’s a spiral-cut potato fried into a chip-like state, covered in nacho cheese, bacon, and green onion. Because of the spiral cut, the chips are all stuck together, so if you share a plate with friends as I did, you can get away with taking a whole string of the most topping-laden chips.

A sprinkle-soaked candy apple. I had never had a candy apple in my life, believe it or not, because caramel apples have always appealed to me so much more. I was set on a caramel apple but got talked into a candy apple at the last moment by Tracey and didn’t regret it for a second. The red candy dripped all over our hands and fingers, and the sprinkles fell off all over my lap. I felt like a child.

Wisconsin cheddar, deep fried. It was hard to taste the cheese because there was so little of it and so much breading, but I’m not complaining.

Baby Simon was less than thrilled with Jeff’s offer of a taste of pumpkin whoopie pie, which was basically a sandwich made of two pumpkin muffin tops and a flavorful whipped cream. Tracey and I, however, consumed several of them and were delighted.

Frozen cheesecake, plopped on a stick and dunked in chocolate, is everything you imagine it to be.

This mess was a crepe with a creamy pumpkin pie filling, covered in praline sauce, topped with whipped cream and sprinkled with candy corn and candy pumpkins.

The famous pumpkin burger, which always has a line ten-people deep, even in the breakfast hours. It’s a sloppy joe with pumpkin and pumpkin-pie-related spices such as nutmeg added in. It honestly doesn’t taste much at all like pumpkin, but it tastes like sloppy joe, and that’s what I care about.

I’m of course leaving out all of the fried cheese on a stick, all of the apple cider slushies, all of the pumpkin milkshakes, and so on and so on, but I was too busy stuffing my face half of the time to remember to take photos. Which is how it should be.

On one hand, I hope the bacon craze stays alive and kickin’ for years to come. From thick slices in my salads to tiny chunks in my candy bars to the bacon t-shirt, what used to be regarded as fodder for only fatties is now everyone’s favourite food.

Thanks to the recent issue of New York magazine with a cover story about the swine flu that contained this photo

pigs have been on my mind a lot lately. I was raised on a farm full of them, grew up watching my dad castrate them, and took them to the county fair every year with my 4-H club. My boyfriend argues that they’re not cute, but they have the same sort of power over me that puppies and bunnies have over most other people. Their pink skin that sunburns just like ours does . . . the way they smell like babies after you wash them . . . their squeals and snorts . . . it’s all too much for me.

So you can imagine how delighted I am that my boyfriend linked me today to the MSNBC article about teacup pigs, which includes a video, Zimbio has a teacup wikizine that includes this photo

the NY Daily News had this article just today, and a co-worker randomly sent me this photo of Monster Pig (or Hogzilla, which I prefer) a couple of hours ago.

It just warms my little piggie-lovin’ heart. I’m still having bacon for dinner, though.

Ways in which I have been embarrassed by reservationists when calling restaurants:

Daniel

Reservationist: Thank you for calling dan-YELL.
Me: dan-YELL? That’s hilarious; I’ve been pronouncing it in my head as DAN-yule all this time.
Reservationist: [clears throat]

Degustation

Reservationist: Good afternoon. How may I help you?
Me: Do you have any reservations for two for tomorrow evening available?
Reservationist: At which restaurant?
Me: Day-gus-TAY-shun.
Reservationist: All I have is a 6 p.m. tomorrow.
Me: I’ll take it. [gives name and telephone number]
Reservationist: You’re confirmed for tomorrow night at 6 for two people at day-gus-TAH-see-OWN
Me: . . . thanks.

GOD. And it’s not like I don’t know that Daniel is French and Degustation is Spanish. I shouldn’t be allowed out in public.