from the deep pizza archive: earth wind & pizza

Life is so full of things that are not even pizza. I guess you can focus on material gain and professional advancement. Some people breed exotic cats. But where is the dignity in any of that? The plain old fashioned basic human dignity to which each of us is entitled by virtue of being born? The only way is to get back to pizza.

I don't even remember how long ago this meeting of the Pizza Club was, probably like May or April or something. Someone on the internet suggested that we go to Earth Wood & Pizza, which is up Falls Road past Mt. Washington and Robert E. Lee park, where there's that place that sells frozen yogurt, and a crepe shop, I think. Mark Twain says this about the spring time: “It's spring fever. That is what the name of it is. And when you've got it, you want—oh, you don't quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!” 

We exited our parked car in the icy suburban breeze; we wanted pizza. The place had a "furniture store vibe," the makings of a franchise perhaps. Apparently they coal-fire their pizza in a thing called a Josper. Why is it called "Earth Wood & Fire" if there's no wood in the fire? What is a Jasper?

We felt that this pizza suffered from some overcooking of crust. This might be a risk of using a Josper, which I think is a bit like a grill. Some people like those burned bits of grilled food, but it is problematic with pizza because it can stiffen the crust too much. They also offer a whole wheat crust, which was pretty respectable for a "healthy option" but got even drier and crunchier than the regular crust as a result of the Josperization process.
 The broccoli-topped pie that we ordered had its broccoli cut into perfectly-sized florets, so they didn't burn in the Jasper. The other vegetable toppings were also good.  The real question in everyone's mind was, how was this pizza made? If a Josper is so great, why does the pizza taste mediocre? Is a Josper a fancy kitchen gadget popular among people who fill their kitchens with vintage espresso machines? 

 If you tried to dig a hole through the center of the earth, would you encounter a Josper?

A Josper is actually a sub-genre of Gothic fiction. Fortuitously, we brought along an English PhD who was able to identify the telltale Gothic themes: abandoned castles, lightening, the hollow earth, marrying your cousin, marrying your boss, hysterical blindness.

This pizza wasn't really good. We gave it 5.5 out of 8 slices. When we got there we were really hungry and looking forward to pizza; we left with our stomachs full, but we did not feel spiritually full.