Sunday, February 7, 2010

The Difference Between Here and Ocean City Maryland

When we were on vacation last August we saw this show on Discovery Health called "Just Cook This." This dude, Sam Zein, who hosts it is a pretty unlikely host of a cooking show. He kept burning himself and dropping food. It was funny enough to get me and Doc Hubby both on board. On one episode we watched, he made a Mixed Mushroom and Goat Cheese Pizza that looked amazing. So we decided to try it.

We spent the next day playing arcade games in Ocean City, MD and stopped at a Stop and Shop or Fresh Pride or some equally massive food store to get the ingredients--a tabernacle to grocery shopping. A palace. A temple. A ziggurat. I needed an uncooked pizza crust, parmesan cheese, garlic, goat cheese, mushrooms, and one of those packages of prewashed, organic if possible, spinach. I hit the produce section first. Not a bag. Not a shred. Not a leaf of baby spinach. Not to mention organic baby spinach. Some limp nasty looking watery salads in a bag (with those inane zigzag cut carrots and radishes) were the only small greens. I had to buy a bag of the big nasty bitter spinach leaves and spend fifteen minutes removing every stem. All other ingredients hastily found. Goat cheese. Check. Surprise really. Pizza crusts? Took a while to find them in the refrigerator section, but once located, several different options. Pizza created. Delicious.

Cut to today. Superbowl Sunday. One year anniversary of Bean walking. I want to make the pizza again. I send Doc Hubby out for the ingredients. I figure, this is New York, so we will have many options of goat cheese and they will call it chevre and you can even get it low fat. Spinach for days. Prewashed. Organic. Indeed all is found. All...but the pizza crusts.Really? I eye Doc Hubby really skeptically. This is New YORK! I say to Doc Hubby. We have everything. Did you really look? He assures me he did. On occasion he can't find his own feet, so I am skeptical. Even a bit disdainful. Did you ask the guy? No need to revisit this tired and really not that funny joke. He hands me a Boboli. I scoff.

So I get all bundled up. I storm out the door and say I'm going to the ultra fancy neighborhood store "to get a pizza crust." After all we won't be watching "Extreme Makeover Home Edition" tonight. I want a yummy damn pizza. I go directly to the fancy gourmet joint about half a mile away. I pass three other grocery stores along the way. I stand in shock and look at the mini tart shells, whole wheat pie crusts, and filo dough. No pizza crust. I go to the next closest grocery store. The "big" one that's cheaper and not so fancy. Confident. I ask the guy. Strike two. I pass by the medium fancy grocery store that's only five blocks from home. Doc Hubby said he scoured it before getting the Boboli. I am starting to believe him. He has also checked the grocery store in the first floor of our building. There he got a mound of frozen pizza dough. "What will we do with that?" I exclaim in disgust? Do I look like I have a pizza stone??? Have you seen our cabinets?

I am ready to slink in and apologize. I buy jello chocolate mousse and Applegate Farms Hot Dogs as a peace offering. And then I remember. This is New YORK. The Italian Market. The fancy specialty shop two blocks closer to home. Doc Hubby was just constrained by his non-NYCness. Of course you check the specialty shop when looking for what turns out to be a specialty items. When you ask the man for the uncooked pizza crusts he will surely...frown and shake his head and not even speak. Yup. Friendliest city in the world.

I slink home. Five grocery stores. In half a mile. Not a single uncooked pizza crust. Are they too big? Do they take up too much valuable grocery store real estate? Or does everyone figure it's New York. Why the heck would you make a pizza when you can get a slice at five joints in the same ten block radius as the grocery stores?

I am using the Boboli tonight. Go Saints.

So that's the difference between here and Ocean City Maryland. That and there is no skeeball in my apartment.

2 comments:

Bex said...

My sister buys her pizza crust from a pizza takeaway in Brooklyn. They sell it fresh in little balls for pennies. Maybe there's a pizza shop near you that sells it?

Bex said...

Easter Basket. I like that. Can you think of a Jewish equivalent?