A Love Letter to Pizza

Dear Pizza,

You know I love you. I always have. But I need you to sit down and listen to me for a moment. I have a confession.

I saw Pad Thai tonight.

We’ve been meeting for years and I love her too. Please don’t hate me.

Of course you’ve always known that I’ve been with other food. But you’ve known that my time with them has been purely physical. Your willingness to allow me the space to have that kind of open relationship with you is just one of the things I love about you. You have been confident enough to know that in my heart there was only room for you.

Until now.

I don’t know how it happened. When I look back at my life, you have always been there. I grew up as a fat kid. I lost weight, then gained it back. I’ve been through several cycles like that. When the footprints in the sand went from two sets to one, I’m not sure if it was those times that you carried me or if I had just eaten all the leftovers. It doesn’t matter – you were with me in one way or another.

You, more than anyone else, know about my complicated relationship with food. Food is my enemy, my friend, my ticket to a guilt trip, and my muse. And you have stood by me through it all.

You know how much I love free food in the break room at work. How it appeals to two of my greatest strengths: being cheap and having no self-control.

You remember when I got that refrigerator for my office so that I could stock it with food and drinks. The goal was to save money by not having to buy lunch every day. What I learned was that if I am ever in a bomb shelter, I will consume all provisions within 24 hours.

And then there was that time I ate a pack of cupcakes from the vending machine for lunch. The entire transaction was tinged in shame. I was too embarrassed to be seen taking them back to my office so I ate them quickly before leaving the break room. If it had been a date I would have picked a dark restaurant in the next town to avoid being seen by friends.

You know how much I love the Food Network – even though I am still traumatized by that episode of Paula Deen in which she said “Don’t forget to rub your meat y'all.”

You remember my self-consciousness when I ordered a club sandwich from my favorite deli and then wondered if the ridiculous pile of bacon was a new thing or whether I was just starting to look like someone who would demand that much bacon.

But we can’t just remember the bad times. Remember when I wanted to put parmesan cheese on a slice of you but I accidentally used a shaker of garlic salt instead? How I joked that I didn’t have to worry about vampire attacks that month? Or when I saw a segment on the Food Network about a restaurant in New York City that serves fried slices of you, and I said that I didn’t know that they were allowed to serve that outside of HEAVEN. Good times … good times.

So please believe me when I tell you that I wasn’t looking for anything serious when I first met Pad Thai. I was just going out with some friends. Someone asked if I’d ever tried Thai food before and the next thing I knew I was in a dark restaurant nervously eyeing the tables around me. One of my friends knew Pad Thai and thought I might like her.

And then there she was.

She was exotic and spicy, but sweet and a little nutty. She thought it was charming that I eat pasta like I’m carbo-loading for a race that never comes. We were perfect together.

But I just can’t keep sneaking around anymore. Can you forgive me?

And while we’re at it, I should probably mention this other lovely lady I’ve recently met named Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Chunk and Almond cookies.

I know … I thought I was a savory guy too.