#and he would totally have a bunch of nostalgic feelings about some food item & decide not to eat it out of loyalty

[silverwhittlingknife]

Hey I was stalking ur page just now and tripped over the “dick and tim and food” posts and it made me think of how, during the “Robin in keystone city” arc, pizza is brought up at least twice, and both times tim specified that he doesn’t want pineapple on the pizza. BUT iirc tim normally enjoys or at the very least tolerates pineapple on pizza, and I wanted to know if you thought maybe tim was avoiding pineapple pizza bc it’s a tim and dick thing for him and he’d miss his brother or something

Or maybe I’m just being weird or something idk

HEADCANON ACCEPTED I LOVE THIS

(the context of the panel is that dick ordered pizza, and alfred told him that he could've made food, so dick is saying "uh huh but i bet you wouldn't willingly make anoudille and pineapple pizza though" and alfred is all "no i would NOT and i can barely tolerate that you're eating it in front of me")

anyway so YES clearly tim can't eat andouille or pineapple pizza without Dick!! it'd be lonely

[news-mashable-yahoopartner-blog]

Pizza Hut vs. Domino's vs. Papa John's: Trash Pizza, ranked

You can learn a lot about a person based on where they fall in life's big debates: Coke vs. Pepsi, Triscuit vs. Wheat Thins, Taylor Swift vs. Katy Perry.

But there is one question that is perhaps the most decisive, the most controversial, the most revealing of what type of person you are: What is your favorite Trash Pizza?

SEE ALSO: This baby trying pizza for the first time is the essence of joy

Let's get this out of the way — pizza is a gotdamn national treasure.

If I had a Personal Brand™, it would be pizza. I frequently wear a pizza sweater, which matches my pizza bow tie, which matches my "pizza fund" change jar on my desk at work, which one time, I cashed out and got $71 for pizza.  Every year for Christmas I ask for "pizza and/or pizza related items," which is how I now have a pizza-shaped phone charger. And I used to have a Friday night ritual where I would grab a bottle of wine, a book, and eat a whole pizza by myself in bed while reading. (Helpful tips for how you too can live your best pizza life here.)

But the beauty of pizza is that there are so many types of pizza. There are good pizzas for when you want to feed your body and Trash Pizzas — that cheap, greasy goodness — for when you want to feed your soul. And the Trash Pizzas are the best.

But with so many types of Trash Pizzas out there, which one reigns supreme? Domino's? Pizza Hut? Papa John's? 

Let's settle the score. Here are your favorite Trash Pizzas, ranked.

8. Last place, the worst Trash Pizza: Little Caesars

Story time, folks. One time, when I was in college, I went to my friend's St. Patrick's Day party, which was probably bad idea #1 given that, overall, I didn't drink very much when I was in college. Because this was a college party where the name of the game was get the most alcohol for the cheapest price, people were drinking this concoction where you put a whole bunch of beer in a bucket, spike that with liquor, and then throw in edible glitter so it sparkles. (Bad idea #2)

I wish I could say I looked into that bucket and said "lol there's no way I'm putting that into my body," but, dear reader, I did not say that. I drank that drink, which in hindsight, might have been literal poison. Somehow, in a very surprisingly, totally unforeseeable turn of events based on the safe and mature choices I was making, I got drunk. Like incredibly drunk. Like so drunk out of my mind that I decided it would be a good idea for me to pick up Little Caesars on the way home.

And let me tell you, friends, that was NOT a good choice. I have a very distinct memory of sitting down at home, pulling up the first episode of Lost on Netflix, taking a bite of that Little Caesars pizza and thinking "Wow, this shit is not edible."

That's how bad Little Caesars is. It's the clear loser of the Trash Pizzas.

7. Those heat lamp pizzas they have at gas stations sometimes

Public service announcement: Gas station pizzas are a trap! 

In my wayward youth, I have been ensnared by the weird allure of gas station pizza. Why? Because they look so much better than everything else in a gas station. They're like a prize to be won. After you pass the register, go through aisles of motor oil and other car goods, skip over the combos, there, shining under a bright heat lamp, perhaps rotating gently, is the gas station pizza.

But it's all a ruse, like those beautiful outdoor lamps that attract insects and electrocutes them. A gas station pizza will ruin your life. Unless you want to soon be spending 20-30 minutes in a gas station bathroom, avoid the gas station pizza. 

(They're still better than Little Caesars tho.)

6. Hot Pocket Pizzas

Lol! Nope!

Jim Gaffigan has said everything you need to know about hot pockets.

5. The little pizzas that come in Lunchables

Let's be clear from the start: those pizzas that come in Lunchables are not good. They're tiny so they aren't filling, the "cheese" only tastes like salt, and literally what is that tomato paste they put in a pouch and call pizza sauce?

And yet those gross lil' Lunchables pizzas have a fond place in my heart. They feel like a nostalgic relic from my childhood, a rite of passage that made me the person I am today. And if you rolled up to lunch in your first grade cafeteria with a Mega Deep Dish Lunchable pizza, you were basically a god for the day. God bless Lunchable pizzas.

4. DiGiorno

DiGiorno pizza is solidly middle of the pack. It's not the worst. It's not the best. It just is. But here's the thing about DiGiorno pizza: it's work. 

DiGiorno's whole pitch is it's there when you want it. "It's not delivery. It's DiGiorno." But if you read between the lines, what they're really saying is "make the gotdamn pizza yourself." So then you have to pre-heat the oven, bake your pizza for 20 minutes, sometimes the cheese drips and you have to clean your oven grill, then you have to grab dishes, and then you eat your pizza and it's not even good. AND WHO WANTS TO DO THAT WORK FOR BAD PIZZA? Literally no one.

The Venn diagram of when I want Trash Pizza and when I want to pre-heat an oven feature completely separate circles. Those two feelings never intersect.

I don't want to have to work for my Trash Pizza. I want someone to hand me a box and say "stuff this in your face."

3rd Place: Domino's

It might be controversial that Domino's appears in the middle of this list since, according to a very scientific study featuring 45 votes and conducted by my friend and colleague Damon Beres, Domino's is the best pizza.

Which is better

— Damon Beres ✨ (@dlberes) February 15, 2018

But everyone is wrong. Domino's is trash. And not in the good way. In terms of flavor, Domino's is fine. It's not great and not the worst, it's just fine. To be totally honest, it tastes mostly like grease, like all proper Trash Pizzas should.

However, we need to talk about that crust.

The default Domino's pizza crust is their "hand-tossed" pizza crust, which is "garlic-seasoned, with a rich, buttery taste." No, I'm not buying it. What they've really done is taken a gross pizza and then made it bougie. (Don't start actin' all brand new, Domino's.)

The major crime with the crust is that their garlic "seasoning" is grainy and falls off everywhere, which makes a huge mess.  It's the Hansel and Gretel of pizza — it leaves a trail of crumbs wherever it goes, WHICH IS NOT HOW A PIZZA SHOULD WORK. Domino's has taken the concept of pizza, which is a handheld affair, and transformed it into a more complicated endeavor.

That's some bull -ish, Domino's.

2nd Place: Papa John's

Papa John's used to be my favorite Trash Pizza, which may be surprising because Papa John's is objectively bad pizza. I openly acknowledge that. In fact, when I did eat it, I called it "pizza product" or "imitation pizza." But the thing about Papa John's is that it is the perfect vehicle for grease and of course, their butter garlic sauce. And that butter garlic sauce is magic. (Side note, have you noticed that the sauce comes in two different consistencies, a creamy sauce and an oily sauce? It's so wildly inconsistent which makes the garlic sauce feel like a game every time you order.)

It's some type of alchemy. The butter garlic sauce is bad. The pizza is bad. But put them together and they are the best damn trash pizza experience you can find. Whenever I ate a Papa John's pizza, I felt like I could physically feel my heart slowing in my body. It was fucking great.

But I stopped ordering Papa John's because papa John is a bad man. And though he is no longer the CEO of Papa John's, his business cannot have my dollars anymore. 

The Winner, the best Trash Pizza: Pizza Hut

Everybody sleeps on Pizza Hut and it's absolutely tragic. 

Pizza Hut gave us stuffed crust pizza, arguably the greatest innovation in pizza history. You take a pizza and its crust and then YOU PUT MORE CHEESE IN IT. Tbh, I am surprised that whoever thought of that idea didn't win a Nobel Prize.

And who can forget Pizza Hut's BOOK IT! program, which gave children free pizzas in exchange for reading books. 

Listen, I get it. Pizza Hut pizza is NOT great. Nobody says, "you know what I want right now. A Pizza Hut pizza." And Pizza Hut knows that, so they leaned into that brand. Why else would you stuff hotdogs onto the end of a pizza. Why else would you partner with Taco Bell to create the promised land of trash food, the combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell. 

Pizza Hut knows it's trash so it turned everything surrounding the pizza great so that you can have the best possible Trash Pizza experience for as little money as possible. And for that reason, Pizza Hut is top of the list.

WATCH: These smart sneakers can order pizza and pause TV

[preganziolitaly2017]

7/07/17 - 7/08/17

I have a lot to cover from the last four days! This past weekend I decided to go to the Cinque Terre (the five lands) and I had the best experience here in Italy, so far. Because it is very late and I am exhausted and my back is killing me, I will cover the first two days tonight and the rest tomorrow morning. 

7/07/17

Friday, after a very busy morning of watching the kids, I was ready to relax and head out to La Spezia! although it’s not one of the five seaside villages that make up the Cinque Terre, it’s still right next to the beach (it’s actually a port city) and the mountains! Getting there was a bit stressful for me, because I am still getting used to taking the trains and four separate trains were taking me there! It needed up working fine, though.

The first worry was catching the earlier one going from the town to the main station. I had about four minutes to spare, after buying that ticket and rushing on foot to the station. Then the next worry was when the train attendant found out I was sitting in a nicer coach than I was supposed to sit in (totally unintentionally, I swear); but she just kindly asked me to leave. The final worry was when my train from Florence to Pisa was about 10 minutes late! Previously it had been relatively easy to find out which bin my train was scheduled to leave at (numbered 1-10 usually). There are these big electronic screens stating the train number, which I can never see on my ticket for some reason, and the time of departure. EVERY TIME prior to this one time my train was running late, all the trains had different departure times so I was using that to figure out which train to get on and where it was. Of course, this time, after getting off the very delayed train and then only having about six minutes to get on the other train in a fairly bigger station than I was used to, there were two trains departing at exactly the same time. Either from bin 5, or bin 11. I tried asking one of the train conductors, but of course he misunderstood me and I had to rush off in the middle of our conversation. I stared at the screen hopefully for some miracle, and then I realized that it was scrolling through each of the stops! The second I saw Pisa appear, I ran to bin #5 and literally got on the train just before it left. The journey by train in itself was very peaceful! I really prefer it as a way to travel. I have to talk about the snacks they offered me, as they were far different (and better) than anything complimentary I had received before! The first one, which I will post in a picture, was a delicious orange-flavored pastry. It tasted like something I would buy at home for $3.00. The second snack I had on a different train were these rosemary infused baked crackers. I absolutely love the taste of rosemary in food items, so I really enjoyed the crackers. And they didn’t seem all that bad for you. At about 7:15 I got off the train in La Spezia! First impressions: the location in between the mountains and sea really made me nostalgic for California, there was a busier street with tons of people which made me feel joyful and energetic, the wind was nice and refreshing, and the apartments were the same, typical, Italian structures I had seen previously. Colorful and tall, decorated with potted flowers and hanging laundry. As I arrived I felt this wave of excitement and adventure. A new beginning in a new place.

I headed out to catch the owner of the Air B&B before she had to leave. She was extremely nice and helpful, throughout my entire stay. I already was texting her via What’s App before arriving, so I could tell she would be easy to communicate with. She showed me to my room and then gave me a bunch of brochures, offering to help me book activities if I wanted to! Once I settled in to my room and looked up places to eat, I headed out to dinner. Instead of having Italian food for the umpteenth time, my dearest mother found a cool little Irish/English themed pub nearby. The environment was awesome— little wooden tables with real candles placed on top, stone walls, and Irish music in the background. It felt like a cavern in Ireland. Or Scotland. Or England.. haha. Then there was my beer.. which was actually bigger than the long candlestick. I’m realizing that I actually really enjoy Italian beer. My dinner ended up being pasta (LOL) but it was a pancake-like type specific to the region. It was v delish. After dinner I walked back and decided to take a shower and shave (sorry if this is too much info). Let me just say, I really want to install a bidet in my bathroom when I get home.. for some reason though, there were about 5 packets of soap, and two bottles of body wash but NO shampoo. So I was left not knowing if I should buy some or use the soap. After reading something online I decided I would try just using the soap for my hair and it actually made my hair feel and look way better! Sometimes when I use hotel shampoos the oiliness of my hair is left in a little, even after the rinse, but the soap seemed to really to wash it out well. Then I went to sleep, ready to have a good start to my day!

7/08/17

This day was a bit of fail, but still really nice and relaxing! I actually started out planning for next weekend when I will be visiting Jessica in England for her birthday!! I’m realizing how important it is to plan in advance, before everything gets super expensive. Once I had booked everything, I headed down to get breakfast and check out the sea! The only thing I had planned to do for this day was a kayaking sunset tour, which I was really looking forward to. So I went to a nearby cafe and had a pastry filled with cream and a cappuccino. I’m really starting to prefer them over lattes now! Then I decided to just walk along the main stretch until I reached the water. It took just about ten minutes to reach the pier! It was soooo picturesque. TONS of sailboats were on the docks, the sun was shining, and the water was glistening. Palm trees lined the roads and there were flowers everywhere. Looking back towards the main road, the view was of the many, colorful apartments of La Spezia; some at sea level and some resting on the mountains. It was truly gorgeous.

I walked along a new bridge for fun and saw a few octopi! One was a large white one and the other, a smaller purple one. Later on I learned that the purple one was fairly dangerous. After taking my time walking the strip of the dock and realizing that it was not for unauthorized personnel, I ate at a fast-food seafood place that the Air B&B owner told me about. When you got to the front of the line, you just requested what you wanted and they served it on a tray. I had calamari and stuffed mussels with marinara sauce. Everything was amazing. I also bought red wine to drink with the fish, which warranted me a funny look from the cashier. I now realize white wine is the only kind of wine suitable with fish! Then I came back to the room to charge my phone (this is getting very annoying) only to be met with the disappointing notice that my sunset kayaking trip would be cancelled :((( I was super bummed out, but I didn’t want to let the news get me down too much. I tried looking for activities to do later on that day, but nothing was available. I ended up just relaxing in my room and reading my book until the late afternoon.

When I got back out, I was going to head straight to dinner but got distracted by clothes, which rarely happens. There is this popular store called Tally Weijl (something like that) and for some reason they had exactly the type of jeans I have always wanted to wear, along with a lot of cute other clothes. So I shopped a bit before heading out to dinner! At about seven was when I got to the seafood restaurant, and literally I was the only one there. Everyone eats so late! I had amazing linguini with a variety of seafood and then headed back to my place.

-Tess