A hot, tomato-and-cheese solution to anguish

Pizza!

There have been many paeans to a dish that garners almost universal enthusiasm, whether it’s as a respite from Friday night cooking, an affordable meal to eat on the fly, or a ready way to grease the skids of a dreaded business meeting. 

For me, I was unaware of pizza’s therapeutic value until I had kids. 

When my boys were still growing, most situations were easily addressed: If you don’t pick up your room, you can’t go out to play. But there were also moments when the solution wasn’t evident to me, and as a single parent, there was no other adult in the house to consult. 

I adopted my older son, Alyosha, in Russia when he was 7. We had a good start. But one day, when he was 8, something – I have long since forgotten what – didn’t go his way. He was still getting English under his belt, and, having not prevailed in the matter, he announced, “I go back Russia.”

I looked on as he walked out the door. Then I caught up and walked alongside him as he made his way down the street. 

“It’s far,” I told him.

Staring straight ahead, he replied, “I don’t care. I walk.”

We continued on, and I added, “There’s an ocean between here and Russia.”

Alyosha didn’t miss a beat. His response: “I take boat.”

I finally aimed for the heart: “I’ll miss you.”

Alyosha plodded on but replied, “I miss you too.”

Finally, after a long stretch, I suggested, “How about pizza?”

His response: “OK.”

And that was that. He never made it to Russia.

When my second son came along, adopted from a Ukrainian orphanage at the age of 5, the waters of his life with me were roiled in his sixth year, when he became enamored with a 5-year-old girl in a neighbor’s family. One cold, dark evening, he took to his heels, intent on visiting Diana against my wishes. I had quite a time locating him, but I eventually found him standing on a traffic island, tears coursing down his cheeks because he couldn’t figure out how to navigate the crossing. I threw a jacket around him and gathered him into my arms. 

“How about pizza?” He wiped his tears on his sleeve and sniffed, “OK.” 

A short while later the ardor of his love was being attenuated by the sweet taste of pepperoni nestled within a double-cheese crust.

Both of these adventures suggested the enduring value of what I call “the pizza cure.” Its beauty lies in its simplicity. I have observed that, confronted with a variety of exotic toppings – I recently noted kale, chard, and pineapple pizza with caramelized onions – most people will still choose a slice of plain cheese pizza. It is time-tested, familiar, unpretentious. And it has proved to be a balm for an assortment of maladies, beyond rescuing children from the perils of a trek to Russia or the devastation of unrequited love. By way of example, one of my students recently confided a minor personal crisis to me. Nothing I said could pull him out of his slough of despondency, and so I acted. I took him to a local pizza joint and watched as he tucked into a magazine-size slice of double cheese, double crust. Moments later the clouds had parted and the light of alleviation shone through. The world once again seemed manageable.

To appropriate a well-worked adage, a slice of pizza is sometimes worth a thousand words of consolation.