The Best Part Of Pizza Is The Part Immediately Beneath The Crust And Also The Crust

A pizza post.

Sometimes friends will tell me that they have an idea for a post I should write, and then they tell me a very bad idea. “You should write about…when a glass breaks and you think you found all the pieces but you didn’t.” Oh my god. Is this what you think of me? “You should write about…how it’s cold in the morning but then gets warmer.” I do understand it is my fault for writing about topics like that almost exclusively but it’s still painful to see myself reflected back at me, and please don’t steal either of those ideas, they’re mine for the future.

Anyway on Saturday I saw my friend Leah — I’m not sure if you know her but she’s great, you would like her — and she gave me a very good idea for a post I should write, finally. She said, (drunk) (eating pizza), “KELLY I have an article idea for you…it’s how the best part of pizza is this [gestures around top part of pizza].” Wow. I said, (drunk) (eating pizza), “YES I’ll do it on Monday.”

Ernest Hemingway didn’t say “write drunk, edit sober,” but shouldn’t he have instead not said “idea drunk, pizza post”? Yes.

The best part of pizza is the part near the crust, and then also the crust. I guess the part to focus on is the part near the crust, since the crust is self-explanatory. It’s like a bread — crust. But why is the part beneath it the best part of pizza? I think you know, but I’ll tell you:

• Good cheese there
• Not a lot of floppy sauce
• Sturdy
• But not too sturdy. Doughy too
• Good taste
• Everything just right
• Can fold it over onto the crust

Agree? “If you’re right you’ll agree,” Fiona Apple said in the song “Better Version of Me,” and that’s just one more instance of Fiona Apple saying something in a song that I can apply directly to my life. In this case it’s about pizza, a subject on which I am admittedly not an expert although I did once take a pizza tour of Brooklyn with my parents.

While we talked about it, and everyone was drunk, there was discussion of how it is like an Elaine Benes “muffin top” opinion. I guess that’s true. But do I think they should sell just the tops of pizza? No. Should there be a store: “Top of the Pizza to You”? No. Do you feel like I’m sort of the Seinfeld of bloggers? Yes. I do, too. I guess that’s the real lesson in all of this.

But part of what makes the top part of pizza great is all of the work you have to do to get there. Right? And the contrast between the floppy part and the sturdier part. Divorced from the slice, the best part of the pizza is sort of just like a…well, I don’t know. Actually, it would probably be pretty good if you could buy just the top. You and I are both just figuring this out as we go along, and that’s what makes my writing so engaging. Or— OK, let’s say this. It’s nice when someone else doesn’t want it. We can at least say that for sure. Maybe you shouldn’t be able to buy it, but it would be nice to have a friend who specifically did not like that part. You could have hers, in that case. Should the whole slice be made out of that part? I don’t think so. You need the floppy part, probably.

As far as I can tell, no one has written about this online yet. I’m not sure why that would be, as I have clearly proven that it is an area rich with anything-to-say-about-it. I’ve googled a few phrases, “top of pizza best part,” etc., and I’m not really finding anything. There’s a post on reddit called “What’s the best part about pizza?” and it has a number of adorable answers from presumably horrific monsters, though in this thread they’re mostly behaving themselves. Like this person:

I actually recently asked a pizza chef, who has been making pizza for 13 years an was born and raised in Italy, what makes pizza “pizza.” He said, “The most important part of a pizza is the sauce. A good pizza sauce is made out of San Marzano tomatoes, which are tomatoes grown in fields in Naples under volcanic soil. To make the pizza authentic it must have this sauce, fresh mozzarella made by hand, and olive oil, cooked in a wood burning oven.”

So according to a pizza expert the best part about pizza is the sauce.

Oh my god. My heart is so full. (I checked that reddit user’s comment history quickly to make sure there weren’t any immediate bigoted comments and there weren’t, but he did suggest that Don’t Think Twice should have been nominated for multiple Oscars, which is similarly difficult.)

Another person said “You can eat it hot or cold.” Another, “The taste.” Another, “The soft crust pocket tucked underneath the rolled up edges of the crust. Dat texture.” Another, “When the cheese is stretchy when you detach the slice from the pizza. So.. good.”

Though it is nice to talk specifically about the parts you enjoy of the things you enjoy, nobody said the best part is the top part, so unfortunately everyone who participated was wrong.

That’s the pizza post.

I love you,

Kelly