I made the grave mistake of ordering Pizza Hut online once, about eight months ago. I had a craving, I read about the online ordering, and I went for it.
...Big mistake. First, it was way too expensive. Second, I happen to live in one of those delivery netherworlds - between the boundaries of one delivery area and another - where the delivery dude refuses to visit. This, however, was not made clear to me on the website - I was easily able to enter my address, and the system informed me that my food would arrive shortly.
Two hours later, no pizza. I wearily called up my local Pizza Hut branch, and a pissed-off sounding teen answered. "...Yea? Pizza Hut?"
"Um...I ordered online, and it still hasn't arrived. Do you happen to know...?"
"Oh. Yea," she said, snapping her gum. "We don't deliver there." (This, mind you, was about .75 miles away). "You can come pick it up."
After 15 years of entering the contest, Maryland's Carolyn Gurtz finally wowed the judges.
How'd she do it? With...pre-made refrigerated peanut butter cookie dough.
Nope, I'm not kidding: she wrapped little balls of peanut butter and sugar with the pre-made dough, and - poof! - the Double-Delight Peanut Butter Cookies were born.
I know using a Pillsbury product in your recipe was the point, but isn't this taking it a little far? She didn't even make her own dough! 1957's winner, Freda Smith, made her own dough for her Peanut Blossoms cookies!
I know, I know - I get that the contest has to appeal to today's working woman with no time to make their own cookie dough, or whatever. That's fine - we all take shortcuts in the kitchen occasionally, and I'm sure Miz Gurtz's But does it deserve a million dollars?
Food styling has always been a field that I would love to go into, but I lack the skills and have no clue how I would proceed even if I did. So instead, I just read my boyfriend's digital food photography books and think about the tricks that one might use in the profession. Sometimes I consider using them for my personal blog, but I believe it constitutes cheating. Anyway, I thought I'd share some interesting ones just in case anyone needs to make their food more beautiful (though in some cases, it will result in it being inedible!):
1) To make your coffee appear bubbly and hot, add a teaspoon of soapy water. 2) For an extra cheesy-looking slice of pizza, cook the pizza halfway, then cut out one slice and add extra cheese around the edge of the cut. Finish cooking the pizza, then photograph the extra cheesy piece as you lift it out. 3) Use food-colored mashed potatoes for ice cream. I would actually never do this because my likelihood of forgetting and eating mashed potatoes with chocolate sauce is way too high.
Any others, perhaps ones that don't render the food inedible?
Pizza, that inexpensive, staple food of students and late night revelers, is about to get a little more expensive. Pizza shops and other businesses that use a lot of flour are feeling the pinch of rising prices and are starting to pass those costs along to the consumers. According to a report on Philadelphia's NBC10, in addition to being effected by rising fuel costs, flour prices are also going up as farmers plant corn in place of wheat in order to meet the demands of alternative fuel manufacturers.
Pizza will still remain relatively inexpensive, with slice prices going up in $.25 and $.50 increments. Whole pie might run you a buck or two more than they did in the past.
I'm getting old, Slashfood friends. I'm not quite old yet, but I'm getting old, and I can see the signs of it on my face. I am beginning to see fine lines that will eventually turn into -- it makes me sigh -- wrinkles.
But maybe I don't need to worry because aside from all the $500-an-ounce skin serums out there, I just came across a pizza that supposedly reverses the aging process. The pizza, out of Italy, claims "anti-aging" because there is three times more fiber, higher magnesium and iron, and has specially chosen ingredients with anti-oxidant properties that reverse the aging process (tomatoes, spinach, zucchini, basil, mushrooms, carrots). Granted, the "formula" for this pizza was created by a nutritionist and a restaurant owner, so obviously there is a marketing angle to this.
However, I would propose that the thicker the fat layer under your skin, the shallower wrinkles will stay, so simply put, just eat more pizza.
Everyone always says that the pizza they make at home is better than what they can get delivered on at the supermarket. Now's your chance to prove it.
Bolla Wine is having a "Taste of Your Town" Pizza Recipe Contest. They're looking for the best regional pizzas in the country. And not just any ingredients, either. They want recipes that use ingredients and toppings that are local to you. They also want you to tell them which Bolla wine would go with your pizza. Five first-place winners will get a handful of prizes, including a Delonghi Pizza Oven. The Grand Prize winner gets a trip to Europe and a tour of the Bolla winery.
Here's a quick poll. How many of you are planning to order pizza on Sunday? Pizza is one of the most popular Super Bowl foods and pizza delivery places are known to get swamped on this particular day of the year. Don't you wish there was a way to keep track of your order? A way to take some of the anxiety out of waiting on your order to arrive.
If you ordered a Domino's pizza, there may soon be a way. The pizza chain is currently testing a phone tracking system in 3,200 of it's 8,500 U.S. stores. You would call the system, enter your phone number, and be informed of the whereabouts of your pizza to within 40 seconds.
There's one area of the order cycle that Domino's won't inform you about. Domino's did consider a GPS tracker for drivers. But for safety reasons, the tracking system won't tell you where the actual delivery person is en route to your location. You'll just have to be content knowing when your pie left the store. Even without knowing where the deliverer is, it's nice to be able to know where your pizza is the rest of the time.
In our annual food showdown inspired by opposing team cities in the Super Bowl (now dubbed the Slashfood Bowl), Marisa has gone to pizza. I knew she would, and knew that I would have to come up with something. Now I know that arguing that there might be something better than New York-style pizza (which happens to be my favorite kind) is just asking for it, so since I have to rep-ra-zent for the New England Patriots, I am merely going to say that Boston-style pizza simply exists, because really, I can't say that it's better. I just can't.
The cool pizza blog Slice has a definitive (maybe) list of all of the different types of pizza that you can find in the United States.
Now, they go beyond just thin crust and thick crust and really get into regional differences, including New York Style, New York-Neopolitan, New Haven Style, Chicago Thin Crust, and many others. Not sure about some of the choices though. I mean, is "bar pizza" a definite style, even if it was invented in a certain place? And what exactly is Midwest Style, when that probably means a lot of different sizes and cooking methods and tastes?
And as someone says in the comments on that page, New England isn't represented at all! Still, it's a good list.
It's pretty stiff competition out there now in the pizza chain delivery business. First there was online ordering so you wouldn't even have to break your stride while working away at your computer. Then came Papa John's ordering via text message. Driving home from work and don't want to stop somewhere to pick up dinner? Just send a text message with your order. Not soon after we saw Papa John's implement pizza ordering via text message, Pizza Hut is offering the same service.
It may not sound like a big deal -- people stealing a pizza here and there every day -- but this was an armed robbery by an 11-year-old boy.
An order was placed via cell phone, and when the delivery person arrived, the boy took the entire order. When the driver protested, the boy pulled out a handgun then took off with the $35 takeout dinner of pizzas, Buffalo wings and cheesy bread.
Seems a waste that he's made himself a felon for only $35, but then again, he also tried to take off with the $250 bag that keeps the orders warm.
Some time, maybe last year, maybe it was the year before that, we mentioned a curious way to make and eat pizza -- in a cone. We saw it first in Seoul, South Korea, and then saw that Crispy Cones was opening franchise location in the US.
Since pizza and pasta are never far from each other, it certainly makes sense that we'd see pasta in a cone!
Okay, it doesn't make sense at all, even if the pitch is that the cones makes eating pasta more convenient and portable. Pizza makes sense because the pizza cone is essentially a more formalized version of the way many people eat large slices of thin crust pizza -- folded up. Why on Earth would one put pasta in a waffle cone?!?! Even if it is technically portable, we can't imagine that all of the ingredients, particularly long strands of spaghetti come tumbling out of the cone once you take a bite.
I'm beginning to think that fast food companies are in some sort of secret competition to create the highest-calorie, most artery clogging food ever. You'd think that in these times where obesity and the health-risks associated with poor eating that someone would stand up and say enough already.
Apparently, today is not that day, as Pizza Hut has just released a pizza called the Double Deep Meat Lover's Pizza and a single slice of that pizza contains 580 calories (330 of those are from fat). This pizza claims to have so many toppings that Pizza Hut had to invent a new style of crust (it folds over the toppings) in order to get it all on the pie. As my mother would say, it is something of a coronary on a plate.
Have you ever stashed a Coke in the freezer, hoping to chill it quickly, then forgotten all about it, only to have it explode all over your frozen peas?
I made the grave mistake of ordering Pizza Hut online once, about eight months ago. I had a craving, I read about the online ordering, and I went for it.
After 15 years of entering the contest, Maryland's Carolyn Gurtz finally wowed the judges. 
Food styling has always been a field that I would love to go into, but I lack the skills and have no clue how I would proceed even if I did. So instead, I just read my boyfriend's digital food photography books and think about the tricks that one might use in the profession. Sometimes I consider using them for my personal blog, but I believe it constitutes cheating. Anyway, I thought I'd share some interesting ones just in case anyone needs to make their food more beautiful (though in some cases, it will result in it being inedible!):
Everyone always says that the pizza they make at home is better than what they can get delivered on at the supermarket. Now's your chance to prove it.
Here's a quick poll. How many of you are planning to order pizza on Sunday? Pizza is one of the most popular Super Bowl foods and pizza delivery places are known to get swamped on this particular day of the year. Don't you wish there was a way to keep track of your order? A way to take some of the anxiety out of waiting on your order to arrive.
The cool pizza blog Slice has a definitive (maybe) list of all of the different types of pizza that you can find in the United States.
It may not sound like a big deal -- people stealing a pizza here and there every day -- but this was an armed robbery by an 11-year-old boy. 
A fraking amazing Battlestar Galactica cake
Iced Tea 101
Pierogies + cheese + onions + kraut = Parmageddon!
