N.Y. vs. Chgo – Pizza Wars?

It was earlier this summer that we got a dose of good ol’ fashioned Chicago vs. New York brawling when Mayor Rahm Emanuel dared to suggest that Noo Yawkers could learn a lesson or two about mass transit from our very own elevated train system.

A real pizza cut

 

Now, we’re getting another dose of the alleged Big Apple getting all touchy about the Second City – for someone suggesting that Chicago-area variations on pizza are superior to any of those overly greasy slices you buy in New York and that the locals think it’s a big deal that you fold them in half before eating them.

THE LATEST HISSY fit came about when New York Mayor Bill de Blasio’s press secretary insisted on using his Twitter account to post missives proclaiming the superiority of Chicago takes on pizza – specifically the pepperoni pies served at Pequod’s Pizza.

“This is the best pizza in the United States and it’s not close,” the press secretary said this weekend.

Now personally, I’ve never had pizza from Pequod’s. I don’t have a clue whether it’s any good. This may be an instance of a press flack telling the truth (or exaggerating its merits).

The latter being something that political press people often have to do.

BUT THE NEW York Post – the newspaper that once famously felt the need to report that Donald Trump gave his mistress “the best sex (she) ever had – got itself all up-in-arms about this claim, saying of Pequod’s that it was “an amorphous pile of pepperoni and sauce that is purportedly a pie.”

 

1932 may have had a historic baseball moment ...

So now, Chicago and New York and quibble over where one finds the best pizza.

My own opinion is that the concepts of stuffed pizza or deep dish pizza (which aren’t technically the same thing, even though many people erroneously believe they are) are a completely different dish from various types of thin-crust pizza.

Trying to compare them and say which is best is like trying to compare a plate of lasagna with corned beef and cabbage. Differing concepts altogether.

A ‘PAN’ PIZZA is a meal. Yes, you eat it with a knife and fork (only uncivilized types would think otherwise). Thin-crust is junk food. It can be a snack. But thinking of it as a meal is like someone thinking they’re getting significant nutritional value from McDonald’s.

...but 1917 had better Chicago outcome

It just ain’t so.

Now if we want to compare differing types of thin pizza, that’s a whole ‘nuther issue. Although when it comes to comparing thin-crust pizza, the real question is whether it should be cut into triangular slices, or the so-called “party style” cut of squares that supposedly is a Chicago creation from its origins as bar food you eat while the tavern owner sells you as many over-priced beers or other alcoholic beverages as he can before your wallet is cleared out of cash.

On that ground, I argue for the squares.

IT’S JUST SO much easier to handle, and I’ll admit to always finding it somewhat amusing to get one of those dinky corner pieces that is all crust. I usually snatch one up before getting into the more substantive pieces.

And yes, it is a total violation of pizza-eating etiquette to be one of those piggish people who refuses to take any slices with crust and eat up all the middle pieces with toppings.

Is the fold really more appetizing?

Those people who insist on triangular slices and claim there’s a knack to folding your slice properly to avoid it turning into a dripping mess strike me as people more interested in playing with their food, than eating it! For that reason alone, we ought to claim Chicago superiority when it comes to pizza.

Although I have to admit one bit of hesitation to supporting de Blasio’s press secretary on this issue – he’s a Wisconsin native and a Green Bay Packers fan. Which means he took pleasure in their beating the Bears this weekend. Could this be an effort by an adopted New Yorker to sabotage the Chicago image from within?

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What a difference, a year makes

I couldn’t help but get my Sunday chuckle from the New York Post, which gave a subdued, if straightforward, attempt at portraying the Chicago Cubs’ National League championship (a first in 71 years) on its front page.

Particularly since I remember how over-the-top the paper was a year ago in making it clear the Cubs were meant to be walloped in the playoffs. Of course, then, the opposition was the hometown New York Mets.

SO MY QUESTION from a year ago remains – does this make Mr. Met the equivalent of a giant, smelly gorilla? With the Cubs being the equivalent of the fair Fay Wray (Jessica Lange or Naomi Watts, if you’re of younger generations)?

Or does this year’s play of the story mean that the Cubs’ win is acceptable because it came against the lowly Los Angeles Dodgers – for whom some aging Noo Yawkers have never forgiven for leaving their real home in Brooklyn?

The World Series begins Tuesday in Cleveland, and comes to Wrigley Field Friday through Sunday.

No weekend sporting conflict there, as the Chicago Bears don’t play again until Halloween (against the Minnesota Vikings), which will be a travel day with the teams returning to Cleveland for games six and seven – unless somebody actually manages to wrap this series up in under five games.

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EDITOR'S NOTE: What should we make of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, which on Sunday published a story telling how Hollywood would turn the Indians' 2016 season into a film with a truly-Hollywood ending -- the Indians beat the Cubs in the World Series, four games to two. Somebody somewhere is going to be seriously disappointed with the outcome a week or so from now.

We’re evolving, but not quite there yet

I can remember having a conversation about a decade ago with a fellow reporter-type person, albeit one who is about 20 years older than myself.

EMANUEL: Making the most of Pride parade

The topic of discussion was the political perception of issues that in any way involved gay people. He had noticed the change during his time as a reporter, and a part of me wondered if he was passing along this tidbit to me so I could better comprehend the evolution of the issue in future years.

FOR AS HE recalled it, his early years as a reporter in the early 1970s were a time when politicians would eagerly vote against anything that hinted at sympathy to gay people.

Political debate on such bills would be filled with raunchy rhetoric about sodomy and people who “consumed human waste.”

But by the time he told me this story in the late 1990s, such bills would come up for consideration and would be filled with debate from people who expressed concern about human rights issues. The opposition, by and large, was just as disgusted as their counterparts of two decades earlier were.

But they kept their mouths shut, because they knew any attempt to speak out would not only be perceived as homophobia – it WOULD be homophobia. One wrong word on their part, and they’d ensure the fact that their eventual obituaries would contain the word “bigot” in the lede.

AND NOW, WE’RE at a stage where such bills can actually get majority support.

It was earlier this month in Illinois that we got the concept of civil unions, making it possible for gay couples to participate in something with legal standing that recognizes their life partnership and entitles them to the same legal rights as a more traditional (as in heterosexual) married couple.

New York managed to one-up us. Their state Legislature went so far last week as to approve a bill that lets gay couples get married, just like any other couple.

Maybe they won’t be able to walk into a Catholic church and have a priest officiate at the ceremony. But they’ll be able to show up at City Hall like any other couple, and I’m not convinced that many gay couples are all that interested in the traditional church wedding.

IT’S JUST A matter of time before this happens everywhere, although I’m sure there are going to be some states that are going to persist in holding out against this issue – making themselves look ridiculous in the process.

Which state will become the “gay marriage” equivalent of the Boston Red Sox, the last major league ballclub willing to have a black ballplayer on the roster – only 12 years after the Brooklyn Dodgers became the first?

Of course, there are those who are determined to be miserable at the thought of people being treated equally regardless of orientation (and anybody who’s thinking of sending me e-mail messages about how these political acts will lead to the denigration of our society by allowing people to marry their cocker spaniels, I’d respond that you’re completely missing the point).

Then again, you’re probably the grand-son of one of those crackpots of the past who was obsessed with human waste.

YOU MAY WELL be one of the people who thinks the New York Post did something admirable on Saturday. While other New York newspapers were playing up the story big and treating it as an act of history, the Post (which likes to think it has the most dramatic newspaper front page graphics in the business) buried the story with a single line at the bottom of the page – totally obscured by their lede story.

Get out the magnifying glass



The cop who stopped a woman from committing suicide.

Cute, but not exactly earth-shattering – especially since the front-page art was largely a photograph of a brick building that could have existed anywhere.

But such news judgment did play in into the way the ideologues of the world would like to think. Some people are just determined to live in the year 1952. Ignore the issue, and maybe it will go away.

BUT IT DIDN’T. Just like the annual Pride Parade in Chicago (which has been taking place for 42 years now, literally since the days of politicians who talked incessantly of “human waste”) didn’t go away on Sunday, just because someone tried slashing the tires of several of the floats that participated in the event.

I have to admire the parade organizers who managed to arrange for quickie repairs Sunday morning. The Chicago Tribune reported that they managed to have the overwhelming majority of the floats up and ready to ride in the parade by its scheduled noon time.

The parade float order may have been switched a bit – meaning that somebody was probably denied a chance to be at the head of the parade and had to ride in the middle somewhere.

But I’d argue that such a shift would be a good thing. Because this parade had at its head Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who behaved like a typical politician at such an event.

EXCESSIVE HAND-SHAKING AND waving, and even a couple of baby-kissings sighted.

Letting oneself get too close to a politician. Now that is a potentially dangerous condition. When was the last time a gay person hit you up for a campaign contribution?

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