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The real pizza

If pizza was a food group, that would be my dad's favorite. With my parents in town from North Carolina for the spring break holiday, they get their pick of the litter for food options. For the last three meals, we've had sausage pizza. The final 'za was, according to my dad determined to be "real pizza" while as the others were merely looked at by him as not-a-pizza. 

As we sat at the table with the open pizza box - grabbing in after our own slices, I wondered if this act alone meant that the pizza was more real. 

"Okay," I said. "Everybody share. What's your version of real pizza?"

The kind you can fold; the kind with sauce to crust flavor ratio: the kind that has crunch; the kind that has ground sausage (not sliced!); the kind that has red sauce...

The list went on. No conclusion could be made on a definition of "real pizza."

"I always liked pizza based on the taste of pizza I had when I was a kid," my sister said.

And as the pizza memory lane continued, we all realized that our likings today may or may not have been rooted in our first taste at pizza, but whatever one made us coming back for more.

Lou Malnati's for me. What's yours?

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