Cold Pizza and Spam

So here I am again, guilty of not posting in a while. And I know you were all (all three of you readers, that is) crying into your dinners at night, going into Funny Withdrawal because hey, I bring the Wit, right?* And the Wit was M.I.A. Just when you needed an injection. *(Actually, that's a joke; the Irreverent sis is more simultaneously funny AND irreverent than I am irreverent AND funny. I am not irreverent, I am Saltine Crackers, but she can be funny.)

Anyway, there were many/several/some scattered very good reasons that kept me away from the keyboard...none of which I can actually remember at this moment, but hey, last time I checked YOU weren't my MOM. So get over it. Ha. I guess I told you.

I don't really have much new to write about -- kids are fine, hubby's fine, Christmas has passed but we're still listening to the CDs and watching "How the Grinch Stole Christmas." That's just the kind of happenin' family we are. I'm just sitting here on a friday afternoon, killing time before I go meet the bus, eating cold Domino's pizza dipped in their garlic dipping sauce (does Domino's have that in the U.S.? They should, lemme tell ya) and blogging.

Cold pizza is actually my favorite way to eat pizza. I guess it reminds me of being a teenager: we'd have pizza for dinner Friday nights and I'd eat a couple of leftover slices for breakfast Saturday morning, cold. I think it tastes best cold the next day, actually. (You'll remember, last night, Thursday, was pizza night here.)

Writing about pizza reminds me of something I've been wanting to amuse you all with: the pizza peculiarities of Korea. Garlic dipping sauce aside, you think, pizza is pizza; how "peculiar" can it really get? Haha, ye novices. Kinda funky, I tell ya.

For one thing, every pizza comes with a small container of sweet pickle slices. Some chains send sweet relish instead. One is supposed to eat these along with the pizza. Yeah.

Sure they do expectable things like have a cheese crust option and toppings like pepperoni, mushroom, "Hawaiian," etc., but how about sweet potato? No, not as in sweet potato slices on top, as in a thick ring of mashed sweet potato piped just inside the crust edge. That's a really big thing here. There's steak and broccoli, too (with sour cream), which I can't imagine on a pizza. Of course there's also the obligatory bulgogi pizza. I guess we should just be glad they don't offer kimchi pizza anymore (but there was a time).

But the funniest thing by far about ordering a Domino's pizza here is the delivery box. Witness: (those are the containers of sweet pickles) See the motto thing? It's some kind of picture of a swiss chalet-lookin' place and it says "Enjoy Cheese! Enjoy Domino's!" Whaaaa? I laughed so hard the first time I saw this -- it's as if cheese = Domino's pizza! As if no OTHER pizza chain offers cheese. In my mind, there can be no way Domino's HQ in the U.S. knows about this. It just about belongs on The Irreverent One's favorite site, engrish.com.

(In other news, I just figured out how to upload an image onto this blog! Woohoo! Dire events may soon follow.)

So, I'm off to call hubby and see if he's not getting home early today. This Sunday is Lunar New Year, which is Asia's equivalent of Christmas in the U.S. (even in largely Christian countries like South Korea) because this is when they do all the gift shopping, make the pilgrimage to the in-laws' house and make the gigantic holiday belt-loosener of a meal. Except that here, an acceptable Lunar New Year's gift for your aunty might be a luxurious Spam gift set. I'm serious. How much easier would Christmas shopping be in the U.S. if we could give Spam, or several bottles of canola oil, or a prepackaged set of housecleaning products?

Sweet pickles aside, there is much to learn from Asia, young grasshopper.