Usually when I work late, so does she, or she has dinner with a friend. Sometimes we leave a car for her at the train station, or she takes a cab home; in good weather, she walks. Good weather still seems distant.
I wasn’t expecting to learn that she was on a late train, but I offered to collect her at the train. And to pick up pizza on the way.
Or Chinese, she replied. Or a cow.
It was that sort of day, apparently.
There was a pizza place on my route. We don’t order take-out pizza very often, and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been to this place, but it seemed worth a try. (We don’t have a reliable Chinese-food vendor, and I had no idea where to source livestock, much less butcher it.) The small pie looked too small; the large looked too big, but better to err on the side of leftovers. Pepperoni, mushroom, and–since I doubted either one of us would feel like a salad–spinach.
In the time it took the pizza to bake and be boxed, I did most of my post-rehearsal homework. I vented the box a little so the crust wouldn’t get soggy, and made it to the station before she did, narrowly resisting the temptation to eat a slice before the train got in.
We, and our intact pie, made it back to the Country House and tucked in. We got out plates, but didn’t use them. We didn’t go to the table. This was an evening of pizza from the box. It felt like college.
She’s a fan of thick-crust pizza. I like it well enough, though I prefer thin. This place serves a sort of pan-pizza variant that has a medium-thick, crunchy crust. There was plenty of cheese, and a nice thick sauce. The pepperoni was especially spicy. The mushrooms were canned rather than fresh-sliced, but one can’t have everything. The spinach, though, that was the real surprise. It was chopped finely and pre-cooked. I guess that makes sense, lest the spinach release too much moisture during baking. It was also spiced, and slightly sweet. Was that nutmeg?
Of course it was. This place serves pizza, but also Greek food. The spinach came, no doubt, from the same supply they use to make spanakopita.
We probably could have done with a small pizza, but we made quite a dent in this large one, with leftovers for dinner tonight–which, since we’re both working late again, won’t be early. I’m hoping we don’t both have rough days again, but I wouldn’t bet against it. Since we work in such different fields, it’s hard to compare. And even if it were easy, we don’t keep score about such things; we just take care of each other. Which, so far, is not an incomprehensible language. Most days, it’s easy as pie.
Sure, the photo is a little blurry. So were we.
Dinner at the Country House 