Bundles vs. A La Carte: Cutting the Cord and the Pies

After numerous years of just being lazy about dumping our cable TV, one more cable bill increase last month provided the necessary momentum. Not only did it lessen our bills, the change has also added a ton of things we've never even had the chance to watch. It has also added the dilemma of the so-called "Paradox of Choice", where the number of options makes it difficult to choose just one.

One show we've delved into initially is Netflix's "Ugly Delicious", featuring Chef David Chang of Momofuku fame. Built around a general food theme (pizza, fried chicken, etc.), the show proves unafraid to branch off on numerous tangents during any particular episode. One notion Chang attempts to relay is that authenticity in food should not be the ultimate be-all end-all goal.

Chang states authenticity is fine, but not at the cost of creativity nor if it restricts future generations from adding their own authenticity to create something entirely novel.  Here, the Cajun-influenced Vietnamese dishes of Houston provide the ultimate example of this, and Chang bemoans the fact that the authenticity factor has prevented it from moving to places like New Orleans.

Columbus Pizza-politan Adventures: Well, It Got Better...

I swear my pizza tasted like a newt! A newt?! 
Well, it got better... (all credit to the Graham Chapman & Monty Python)

If you're like most pizza lovers, you've had your share of dreadful pie in your lifetime, and like many, your experiences were dictated by economics. Some recent reminiscing brought me back to my college days and one of my most memorable (in a bad way) go-to cheap delivery pizzas. These pizzas, which came laden with a thin, tinny tomato sauce, grayish sausage, and slivers of something resembling pepperoni, were so soggy and floppy that you had to roll the slices up or risk planting that motley collection of toppings all over your chest.

In the spirit of that reminiscing, I decided last month that I would go back to some of those bad pizza pie roots, but with a twist: my choices would be two chain places that had earned a reputation as some of the worst mass-consumed pie options around, but reversed their downturn in fortune by essentially exchanging each other's menu focus.