Party Pizza

I was shopping one day last week and didn't have alot of money to spend. It was one of those quick shopping trips that are designed to pick up a few things, in a hurry and just want to get home and eat a bite. I had my daughters with me and there was nothing but outdated milk and some marinated artichokes in the fridge. So we plan a surgical strike, get in and get out, plan what we are going to buy before hand, no dawdling. We started off well, deciding to eat cheese burgers for dinner. Lettuce, tomatoes, an onion and some buns. We are doing really well now, got a box of cereal and a bottle of ketchup on sale, moving into the meat aisle, I spy a good looking package of ground chuck from 10 yards away and whisk it into my cart. So far so good, then unexpectedly while on my way to the cheese cooler, I espied a display of frozen pizza. There were bags of pizza, frozen in little squares, and my daughter exclaimed "Look daddy! School pizza!" Well I was intrigued and stopped to look at them. They were packaged in an industrial manner, just crammed into a generic plastic bag with some initials on them. They were indeed square little shit shingles, just like I remember pizza being back in the day. The rectangular blobs of dough, covered with cheese substitute and pools of grease. We used to put ketchup on them back in school. I decided they weren't indeed the "real" school pizza and we left them. However, now frozen pizza was on the mind. After grabbing some cheese for my burgers I stopped by the frozen food aisle and priced frozen pie. Totinos Party Pizza was only a buck a piece. That is not too bad for a frozen pie. However, right next to them were Jeno's and Tony's frozen pizza. One was $.99 and the other was only $.89 cents. What a deal, so I compared ingredients, none of them had real cheese, you know, that swirly symbol on the corner of your favorite food packages that indicates "Real" cheese? Then I got to wondering about the meat, the sausage looked pretty suspect and the pepperonis were just little cubes. I ended up getting the higher priced Totinos becuase I liked them once long ago, like Ramen noodles they were a cheap staple back in the day when cheap nourishment was a priority.
Back home the next day, I thought I would go ahead and make a couple of them for dinner. In they went, to a 450 degree oven. 7-9 minutes later they came out steaming and crispy. However when the light hit the top of the pie it appeared to still have the plastic wrap on them. I looked around and saw where I had indeed taken the inner wrapper off. It turns out the "cheese" had a glossy sheen to it that is not found in nature. Of course we ate the pizza anyway, and actually enjoyed our laminated pizza like food. Although mine was really a delivery mechanism for the tobasco sauce I dumped all over each slice.
Here is to "Party" pizza, because I am certain it tastes better after one has been partying.
slf 02-07