Welcome!
Bienvenidos!
Wilcommen!
Welcomb!
Benvenu!
Pizzabella!
(Some of these greetings may or may not have been made up...)
Welcome to The Jacksonville Pizza Blog. My name is Asia and I love pizza. I live in the glorious city of Jacksonville, Florida with my family and my handsome boyfriend, Austin. Well... I don't live with my handsome boyfriend. He lives 20 minutes away. Or 15ish if you drive real fast.
Lately, Austin and I have been going to different pizza places around Jacksonville, weighing their pros and cons, sampling their deliciousness. And I was thinking... Why don't we start a pizza blog and talk about all the places we go? The ideas started flowing through my brain. We could analyze different aspects like quality, value, cheese/sauce ratios! We could post once a week! At this suggestion, Austin was appalled. "That's a lot of pizza," he said, as if there was such a thing... "Ok," I responded, "Every other week?" This was a somewhat acceptable amount of pizza consumption. "I'm making that blog." I said in a semi-threatening manner. And thus, here we are.
You see, it's really quite brilliant that Austin and I should start a pizza blog because our Pizza Perspectives are so very different. You'll get a whole spectrum of pizza opinions. Allow me to explain:
Asia's Pizza Perspective:
My ideal pizza experience would go as follows: First someone would say, "Let's get pizza!" Then, I would order online, with family and friends gathered around the computer to give their two cents on pizza preferences. It's brought to my house (something about pizza delivery makes me feel all nostalgic about childhood). I would tip the delivery person. Then I would bring it into the house and we would eat it on the living room floor while watching Elf or Planet Earth. All surrounded by family and friends. I have many happy memories of this exact scenario and in order for it to go as planned, the pizza has to be simple and delicious. I don't like a ton of sauce (well... I just need a good sauce/cheese ratio), and the cheese shouldn't be too greasy. I like meat on my pizza and pretty much all the crust types: thin, pan, hand-tossed, stuffed. Fancy pizza seems silly to me. I can't appreciate a fancy expensive pizza as much as I can appreciate a good ol' pizza party pizza. But I'm not inflexible. If fancy pizza must be sampled for the integrity of the blog (and I believe it must, if we can be considered at all thorough), then bring it on.
Austin's Pizza Perspective:
Austin is a grown-up and thus prefers grown-up things. (We're not really very far apart in age, but our "pizza maturities" practically have decades between them.) He likes pizza to be wood-fired or have fancy dough. He likes lots of veggies and feta cheese, french bologna and banana peppers. He likes things to be "Artisan", "Organic" or "Chef's Specialties." He knows that no high-end restaurant with all the tricks and trimmings will ever make me as happy as eating Domino's and playing Scrabble. Perhaps, yes, on the floor. But he too is reasonable in his willingness to be thorough. And thus we make a great pizza sampling team.
I'll see if I can talk Austin into putting together a calendar of the places we want to go, but here are some ideas off the top of my head:
The Loop Pizza Grill
Picasso's
Pompei Coal Fire Pizza
Pele's
Brooklyn Pizza
Domino's
Pizza Hut
Little Caesar's
Al's Pizza
Chicago Pizza
Pizza Palace
Pizzalley's
Pizza Time
Mellow Mushroom
California Pizza Kitchen
Cici's Pizza
Hmm... That list was a bit longer than I intended. Well, it's a start! If you have any ideas for us, just let us know!
Love,
Asia
