So, I was sitting around doing not a damn thing yesterday afternoon when Rob stumbled home from the casino--they'd sent him home early. I guess that's the big difference between full-time (me) and extra-board (Rob). I can choose to come home early, otherwise, I work a full 40 hours a week. He has no choice and only gets scheduled a few days a week, and they'll send him home at their pleasure.
I think that's why I'm so reluctant to go find a new job, as often as I talked about it. The casino industry here in Vegas is like no other in the real world. If you leave a job and take another one, 99% of the time you won't be hired for full time--you go back to being on the extra board, so you lose benefits and what-not, making it a huge pain in the ass, not to mention a hit to the wallet. All because you want a better job. They make it very hard to change jobs, unless you're quitting a really crummy paying one (like the Golden Gate) and moving up to a better paying place like where I'm at now.
Anyhow, once he got home, we parked ourselves in the living room to watch a couple of episodes of Jeopardy that we'd recorded, and once that finished up, I played another show I'd recorded from the Travel Channel, called Pizza Paradises. Yeah, we hadn't watched for more than five minutes or so before we both started thinking the same thing--FOOD PORN!
Watching them pull a fresh-made pizza from the oven on that huge TV, with a picture so brilliant that you could almost smell the toppings, it wasn't long before we'd talked ourselves into dinner at--wait for it--yes, Grimaldi's! But at least we managed to wait until the show was over before heading out to get our grub on.
So there we were, an hour later, sitting there at my favorite pizza joint in the known universe, marveling over the fact that we'd never seen their extensive wine list. But vino was not what we came for. We were there for the pie. And the hostess was kind enough to put us at the table closest to the display kitchen where we could watch the magic happen.
Instead of 16-inchers this time, we both went large and ordered 18-inchers. And years of experimentation has taught me that the perfect pizza topping consists of one meat and one vegetable. Rob concurs, and got his favorite, ham and onion. I stuck with old reliable--pepperoni and mushroom. For drinks, I was tempted to go with a beer, but just wasn't feeling it, so I had my favorite Arnold Palmer--half iced tea, half lemonade. Rob did The Dew.
The great thing about thin-crusted NY-style pies baked at uber-high temps means that you don't have to wait long for dinner to cook. No sitting there for an hour getting antsy like at a Chicago deep-dish joint. New Yorkers like to get things done, so they don't have time for dilly-dally, and just a few minutes later, our pies were delivered to our table, generating oohs and aaaahhs from other patrons in the dining room whose mouths watered while still waiting for their own pan full of happiness to arrive.
Again, perfection. No grease on the bottom, and a nice bubbly charred crust providing the base for quality toppings, the whole thing brought held together by a red sauce that would even make liver taste good. Conversation pretty much came to a stop as we lustily dove in. It was so good that after the first piece we totally forgot about the grated Parmesan. Didn't need it.
However, I now realize that I'm going to go back to 16-inchers instead of the large. Not that there is a thing wrong with more pizza--there isn't--more is better, especially when it's this good! But just like ordering a pint of beer instead of a 23 ounce schooner--unless you just pound the beer, it gets warm. If you want to enjoy it, the big glass is too much at once. The same thing goes for the 18 inch pizza--that thin crust, suspended in the air over the table on the serving rack, gets cool too quickly because you can't eat it fast enough unless you go totally Belushi on it. And this pizza is meant to be savored, not crammed down like a buffet with a time limit. So from now on, I think I'll stick to the 'medium' 16 inch pie and just make peace with the fact that there will be no leftovers.
On the other hand, enjoying three pieces this morning before I posted this was a lot like hooking up with the hottest girl in the club last night, and then waking up and going another round before heading home.
Oh yeah, it's that good.
So no, I never got around to making that Crab Rangoon I've been teasing you with these past couple of days. Sorry 'bout that.
Mikey
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