Thank Heavens for Vic's Pizza

It's Friday night and my daughter wants pizza. Vic's Pizza to be exact.

Vic is apparently the pizzeria's resident shepherd dog. I don't know how a dog learned to make pizza, but the thin, crispy crust and zingy sauce set it apart from all other local options. Only Hot Lips--down the road a hundred miles in Portland--could even begin to compare.

Vic's and Hot Lips are small shops in college towns; both sell by the slice or by the pie. Both make it possible for carnivores, omnivores, vegetarians and vegans to embibe in the world's Most Essential Food. Perhaps that's what makes them great. But the convenience doesn't hurt either.

Call ahead and voila...pizza! There goes my daughter now...

As the tail lights fade into the distance, I begin to wonder what makes pizza so indescribably close to perfection? Do I want to preserve this treasure for eternity? What, exactly would it take to bring pizza making along for the Ice Age?

If we were living the Neanderthal life, we would definitely need one of those solar foil ovens we learned to make in Girl Scouts a zillion years ago.

Admittedly, sitting around the foil oven doesn't have the same ring as sitting around the campfire. But nevertheless, I can imagine my InnerNeanderthal baking up a Friday night storm, bending low over the foil oven, evoking oooo's and aaaaah's from those who never could cook.

Perhaps you can smell the yeasty dough...I can. And yet, this is where my vision begins to get cloudy. Pizza is remarkably simple: cheese, sauce, dough (and maybe a topping or two, if something interesting is hanging around).

But the cheese...Exactly where do you get cheese when there's no deli drawer in the refrigerator?

I know it involves a cow, or a goat, or possibly some other mammal. Perhaps Vic will be bringing along a herd for us to milk.

And perhaps Vic knows what happens next, because I sure don't. It's something involving cultures and cheese cloth and the intestines of a calf.

Okay, maybe I imagined that last part. But wild berries and barbequed snake on a stick are beginning to sound a little more practical.

Lucky for me, my daughter is back and she has one ginormous pizza box in hand!