I hopped on into to Pizza Cave on the upper west side the other day for a pre-date slice of pizza, the Jewish comfort food. I had my money all set up for two slices, and when it came time to pay I was informed that pizza had jumped to an unthinkable $3 a slice. I panicked, I had flashbacks to the days that gas went nuts on the day of Hurricane Katrina, I remember it went from $2 to like $2.75 in the manner of a few hours- I didn’t go nuts then, I just went biking.
Pizza is different, it is like the modern day Jewish soul food, it replaced Herring and Chopped liver about 30 years ago and has stuck as the ultimate Jewish food, I am sure that some sects of Jews even think Pizza is a Jewish food dating back to the time of the ancient Hebrews, the thin slices in fact may even be termed the bread of affliction- with toppings- although the non gebrokts crowd probably doesn’t think so.
I am standing there in shock, arguing with the rather skinny, tight pants Israeli about the price. I said that if flower went up in price, why aren’t you raising the prices of the rotting calzones that sit out all day, or the nasty looking bourekas or even the pita breads. Not a very good businessman obviously, he stated that “because we can biatch” well actually he said because they make the most pizza.
Freakin conglomerations, I am telling you that the Kosher Pizza industry is one big racket. In the Catskills they all raise the pizza the same amount every year. It used to be you could go to heimishe pizza places and get a deal, but now pizza is becoming a luxury food- so much that today I broke tradition and deemed it more worthy to buy a calzone (I did a cost basis analysis including pleasure from added cheese and veggies and a rough estimate of dough to cheese ratio.) In fact I am enjoying it right now- much better then any other calzones I have had in the area- (I will be doing a Monsey pizza store/Restaurant review sooner or later.
So I settled for one slice and tried to bankrupt pizza cave and their malicious pricing tactics by abusing my oregano and garlic shaking privileges. I then drank tap water to show them they have no control over me- though I doubt I made a dent on their budget.