A New Trick! Candle Under The Pizza Plate

Candle under pizza plate = perpetually warm pizza!

I’ve been going to Homeslice for some time now, so you’d think I would’ve discovered all the pizza secrets there are to know.  Nope!  I learned a new one a few nights ago.

Place the red candle beneath the pizza holder when the pizza comes to your table.  It’s metal, so it won’t burn, but it does heat up nicely, keeping your second, third and fourth slices hot by the time you get around to them!  As Slicey would say, heck yeah!

When I discovered this, I excitedly told Mark, who’s been our waiter the last few times.  He seemed surprised I hadn’t already figured it out.

Mark is kinda like the little devil on my shoulder, balancing out the non-existent angel.  He always encourages me to get interesting variations on toppings that I know will be more work for the kitchen staff.  Chopped anchovies instead of regular anchovies.  Pears.  Gorgonzola.  That kinda thing.  It all sounds great, but I feel guilty screwing up the cook’s workflow at busy times.

This time, Mark totally came through in a legit way.  I ordered anchovies, as I always do unless more than half the table objects.  Usually I get about two anchovies per slice.  Each one is long, but I end up getting three bites in a row with anchovies and then none for the next eight or nine bites.  This time though, my half had a TON of anchovies.  I counted seven on one slice alone!

Folks often ask me if I’m making Homeslice go broke by eating so much free pizza.  I usually reply that I don’t know, but when a place buys flour in the volume that Homeslice must, an extra few pizzas a week can’t affect the bottom line too much.  I generally think that’s true, and when I come with friends, I make them buy lots of profit margin-rich beer, so Homey wins there.  The one exception is anchovies.  At the trusty HEB (or not so trusty as it turns out.  “Dairy Drink”?  really?), a tin of eight anchovies is like three bucks.  I got that on one slice.  So if Homeslice goes broke and shutter before my year of the pizza ends, it’s not because I eat too much free pizza, it’s because I like anchovies too much.

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The next morning, I heated up the leftovers for breakfast for Erin and I (yeah, we’re hardcore).  I started eating one of the non-anchovy slices before realizing that as it had no anchovies, it was Erin’s and not mine.  When she realized that I’d eaten half her slice, she was a little annoyed, and asked why I keep doing this.  I don’t try to, it’s a simple mistake.  I told her that I was sorry, but didn’t have much sympathy, as overall I’m responsible for her having quite a net gain of free pizza.  She smiled, rolled her eyes, and gave me a hug.  Checkmate!