A hot dog vendor confirms my distaste… for Calgary

What is becoming a common theme on this blog, it seems, we did something interesting when we were hungry.

We were walking through downtown Winnipeg and heading back to our hostel. We spotted a hot dog vendor and hit him up for two dogs, chips, and soda. He had put sample carpet tiles out on the nearby concrete wall for his customers to use.  So we sat there, underneath a tree and devoured our hot dogs with his homemade hot sauce and a smidgen of barbeque sauce. And it was good.

The vendor was a big man, half-muscle and full-bigness, and was most likely in his 40s. Whenever he spoke, it seemed as though he had a permanent smile on his face. Although, it wasn’t an affected smile, it seemed genuine; a smile that lets you know that deep down his is truly content and a happy individual. After a lull in customers, he came over and asked us where we were from.  After we told him about the road trip and the route we took, he started telling us about his travels.

His wife is a nurse and he, understandably, only vends during the warm weather.  Him and his wife travel a lot, mostly to the states, but he’s gone within Canada and he really wants to go to Europe. He actually owns another vending cart that he hires other people to work. He used to own five carts, but he said that it was too hard to staff.

“Especially by kids these days,” he said. “They just don’t know how to count. You need to give them a calculator.”

Yikes.

He then went on to tell us about someone who he knows who is sixteen years old. The teenager apparently has difficulty remember the order of the months.

“It’s the schools here, they just don’t care. Especially at the elementary level.”

Living in Chicago, you tend to think that our school system is so sub-standard, that it would be impossible to screw things up more than the educational system in the US. But alas, at least we aren’t alone.

The subject changed back to travel and we talked a bit about Vegas and his Disneyworld and Disneyland excursions. But then I asked him the big question, the one that I’ve been wanting to ask a Canadian for days.

“Is there anything remotely redeeming about Calgary?”

You see, as we drove through Calgary, we felt any life and joy being sucked out of us. It’s not a horrible town, it’s clean enough and seems overly safe. But it’s just that there is absolutely no energy, no vibe, no soul to the city.  Mind you, we believe in finding the redeeming qualities of struggling cities. We lived and thrived in Baltimore for crying out loud.

He gave an understanding nod and laughed aloud. “No, not really. It’s kind of like Saskatchewan, there’s just nothing there.” We both laughed and after a brief pause to think about it he said, “Well, there is the one strip where there is a bunch of bars. Western bars where they play country music and dancing and things like that. But that’s pretty much it.”

Just one strip with a tiny bit of a

And thus my case against Calgary rests.

On pizza.

When James was in college and working to fulfill the requirements for his second major, economics, he took an advanced microeconomics course about interest rates. As riveting as it sounds, the textbook for the course had a peculiar name. I can’t remember the author’s name, but the title was simply “On interest.”

In typical academic style, where your own reputation and research serves as your “brand,” I suppose that the author assumed all would be interested enough in his opinion on the subject of interest to simply name the book the way he did.

So, in that same vain vein, we’re going to assume all of you are interested in a much more important matter than what influences interest rates: pizza.

First some context. Marc and I grew out outside of New York City in the beautiful state of New Jersey (and yes it is beautiful). We feel that this has entitled us to a certain air of superiority when it comes to judging pizza. You see, while it does happen, it is relatively rare to find a bad pizzeria in the New York area.

So when we moved to Chicago, a city that is also famous for its pizza, we found it a struggle to recognize Chicago-style pizza as being… well… good.

And then we had an epiphany: it might not be fair to judge one style of pizza against another. It might be like comparing the positive or negative qualities of, say, a moose when compared to a giraffe. To some extent, you can fudge it and find ways to compare. But ask yourself, is that really fair to the giraffe?

We don’t think so.

After we compartmentalized Chicago versus New York pizza, it became easier to distinguish the good from the bad and not let the temptation of comparison to gather clouds of noise around our judgment. We now appreciate and value Chicago style pizza for the greatness that exists inside of it.

So we’re introducing the following genres of pizza, their characteristics and some of the better examples:

New York

• Crust – should be small in nature, approximately the thickness of an adult male’s pinky or perhaps middle finger. The crust at the edge of the slices as well as the crust underneath the topping are usually accentuated by a heavy use of semolina flour – one of the distinguishing factors of true New York style pizza versus its imitators.
• Sauce – the sauce should be salty with a slight tang to it.
• Toppings – The toppings are layered above the cheese to be put on full display for the eater.
• Cheese – a medium to heavy amount of cheese is usually placed on these pizzas. Mozzarella is the standard
• Style of eating – two primary methods: 1) Folding the triangular slice in half with one hand and, if necessary, using the second hand to hold up the inner corner of the triangle until such time as it is placed in your mouth.  2) Skip the folding and use one hand to support the entire edge of the crust and use a pinky finger to support the inner parts of the slice.
• Fine examples: Mr. Dinos (Montclair, NJ), Anthony’s Pizza (Rockaway, NJ), the various Ray’s establishments throughout NYC, Nolli’s (Chicago, IL – the owner used to work at Ray’s).

Chicago (deep dish)

• Crust – should be thick with a depth of approximately 1-2 inches.
• Sauce – sauce should be tangy and only noticeable if you set your mind to distinguish the taste.
• Toppings – toppings are usually cooked underneath the primary cheese layer
• Cheese – a heavy emphasis on cheese. Mozzarella is the standard
• Style of eating – no other way around it, you need a fork and a knife.
• Fine examples: Lou Malnati’s is the best pizza in Chicago, hands down. Other good examples include Giordano’s and the original Pizzeria Uno / Pizzeria Due. Gino’s East sucks.

Mediterranean

• Crust – the crust should be thin, about the size of a non-fashion magazine’s binding or non-existent at all
• Sauce – the sauce comes in a few different varieties, but the common theme is that it emphasizes the freshness of the tomatoes
• Toppings – The toppings typically take a front seat relative to the emphasis placed on the crust and cheese in the other two styles.
• Cheese – definitely lighter on this important topping and mozzarella can typically be eschewed for different varieties of cheese or a total absence thereof.
• Style of eating – If you use a knife and fork, you might be excused from looking ridiculous or pretentious, but it’s often best to dig in with your hands and imitate the feeding styles mentioned in New York.
• Fine examples: Francesca’s particularly the Napolitano: arugula, parmesan, and cherry tomatoes and we like to add Italian sausage. (Chicago, IL).  Crust (Chicago, IL) Or the pizzeria we went to in Missoula, MT whose name we forgot.

We bring this up because we came across a style of pizza while we were in Alberta that did not squarely fit into these three genres. We asked our server at the Prince of Wales Hotel where we could find good food in the town of Waterton. She named a few restaurants and said that she used to work at the Pizzeria of Waterton, which claimed to have the best pizza in North America. We told her that that was a very bold statement and we would have to investigate.

The pizza was very, very good. But it seemed to have combined aspects of all the different categories of pizza. For example, the crust was similar to a hybrid of Pizza Hut & Lou Malnati’s. The cheese to fresh toppings ratio was perfectly in balance and the sauce was like any good sauce should be: playing to the strengths of the other ingredients.

We decided to dodge the issue of whether it was really the best pizza in North America and agreed that the pizza was very, very good and worth a stop if you happen to be in town. After all it wouldn’t be fair to the other experts of their craft mentioned above, right?

It’s kind of like picking your favorite child.