Good Thursday morning. One more sleep until Friday. And for those of you who are about this sort of thing, three more sleeps until Super Bowl Sunday is upon us.
For my fellow non-football followers, Super Bowl Sunday is all about three things: The half-time show, the ads, and, most importantly, the food. Overall, more food is consumed on this day than on any other day of the year – except Thanksgiving.
The trifecta of Super Bowl munchies is usually some combination of chicken wings, beer, and, of course, pizza.
It used to be that Americans consumed more pizza on Super Bowl Sunday than any other day of the year. But a few years back, it was bumped from that position by Halloween.
(Makes sense, since almost no one with kids is sitting down to a formal dinner that night, but everyone still needs sustenance to fuel their trick-or-treating. Even the young cannot subsist on sugar alone, no matter what they might tell you).
But Super Bowl Sunday runs a close second when it comes to pizza consumption – to the tune of somewhere between 12.5 and 13 million pies, about 11 million slices of which are sold by Dominos alone. Wings are more popular; some 1.33 BILLION of those get eaten sometime between kickoff and the post-game analysis.
The average American eats about 46 slices of pizza a year. About 93% order pizza at least once a month – more than 40% at least once a week. That all adds up to 3 billion pizza pies a year.
And THAT, my friends, explains why NASA tested a 3D printer to see if it’s possible to make pizza for astronauts in space.
Again, I am not pulling my weight here. I think I can count on one hand the number of commercially made slices I’ve consumed in the past FIVE years, let alone one.
I know I’ve written about pizza’s origin story before. Suffice it to say that the whole putting stuff on top of flattened bread thing was actually something a lot of ancient cultures did – including the Egyptians, Romans and Greeks, who were partial to a version that included herbs and oil, which is basically focaccia, and still exists (more or less) today.
The modern birthplace of pizza is believed to be the southwestern Campania region in Italy, which is home to the city of Naples.
Pizza has lasted the test of time and grown in popularity over the years because it is 1), delicious, 2) relatively easy to make (I mean, whether you make it WELL is another matter entirely), and 3) pretty cheap to produce and also to procure.
I have to confess that every time I do purchase pizza, I wince a little bit. The markup – even for the tried and true slice-and-soda combo – is pretty high when you consider all we’re talking about in terms of base ingredients is flour, yeast, oil, salt and water….and alchemy, of course. The wood-fired taste is indeed magic. But I have also thought about investing in one of these.
The key to making good pizza at home, and why so many fail at it, is getting the oven super hot. You can do a not bad version in a cast iron skillet, and also on the grill, but it’s not quite the same. Also, there are about as many versions as there are topping variations – pita, English Muffin, tortilla, Naan. You name it.
So you do you. But please, no pineapple and ham, OK? I’m sorry, I just can’t. Anchovies? Yes. Peppers and onions and sausage? Yes. Clams and garlic? Definitely yes. Even buffalo or BBQ chicken, in a pinch. But I have to draw the line somewhere.
And cold pizza for breakfast, as I know we’ve socialized here in the past, is THE BOMB. Full stop.
It’s National Pizza Day. So if you don’t have any leftover ‘za handy for breakfast this morning, consider taking advantage of one – or more – of a number of promotions and deals out there today and stock up. A freezer without some emergency pizza in it is a sad thing.
Today isn’t looking so hot, weather-wise, with “some mixed winter precipitation possible” (boo, hiss), even though temperatures will be in the low-40s. I don’t fully understand the science behind that, but I’ll trust in the weather gurus for today.
In the headlines…
President Joe Biden shifted some blame for his document-related troubles to the people who packed his offices when asked about the discovery of classified materials in his possession.
“One of the things that happened is that what was not done well is, as they packed up my offices to move them, they didn’t do the kind of job that should have been done to go thoroughly through every single piece of literature that’s there,” he said.
The House Oversight Committee held its first hearing investigating the president and his family, where former Twitter executives faced questions about media coverage of Hunter Biden’s laptop.
The Oversight Committee called the session to scrutinize whether the social media platform has censored the right, but it yielded new revelations about the company’s permissive approach.
Thousands of Twitter users were impacted by what appeared to be a widespread outage yesterday that prohibited them from posting tweets.
Twitter users around the world reported that they could no longer post messages or send messages to one another – the latest in a series of glitches at the social media service owned by Elon Musk.
Many Twitter users were unable to post on the site for about 90 minutes, receiving a message that read, “You are over the daily limit for sending Tweets.” The service was mostly back up by a few minutes after 6 p.m.
Potential Chinese influence over what Americans view on TikTok is an increasing concern among U.S. policy makers—and one that could defy a simple solution.
A lawyer for Hunter Biden is warning those involved in promulgating assertions about his infamous laptop computer that they could face unspecified litigation over their claims.
Fresh off his State of the Union speech, President Biden arrived in Wisconsin yesterday to press an economic message he hopes appeals to blue-collar workers in the Badger State who have in recent years diverted their support to Republican candidates.
The president used his stop in the battleground state to drive home the themes from his national address, primarily his optimism about his economic plan. Biden will keep hitting the road as he prepares to launch an expected reelection bid.
“Fighting for the sake of fighting gets us nowhere,” Biden said at a training facility run by the Laborers’ International Union of North America. “We’re getting things done.”
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy admitted that Republicans “took the bait” by allowing Biden to turn GOP heckling at his State of the Union address into political gold.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez weighed in on Biden’s second State of the Union address, praising the commander in chief and criticizing Republicans for their outbursts during the speech.
The run-in at the SOTU between Sen. Mitt Romney, an institutionalist who prizes decorum, and the newly elected, embattled congressman from New York, George Santos, encapsulated the tension inside the Republican Party.
Santos told reporters that it “wasn’t very Mormon” of Romney to criticize him. “It’s not the first time in history that I’ve been told to shut up and go to the back of the room, especially by people who come from a privileged background.”
Santos is a “sociopath” who thrives on negative attention, according to the Long Island congressman’s fellow New York Republican, Rep. Nick LaLota.
Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley’s campaign said that, after next week’s announcement speech in Charleston, she will hold town hall-style events in New Hampshire, which is also expected to host an early 2024 primary.
Haley pulled key support from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in a hypothetical GOP 2024 presidential primary, putting former President Donald Trump ahead in a three-way race, according to a new poll.
Foreign visitors would be allowed into the country even without proof they are vaccinated against COVID under a bill advanced by the House of Representatives.
The acting director of the NIH pushed back on GOP assertions that a lab leak stemming from taxpayer-funded research may have caused the pandemic, saying viruses being studied at a lab in Wuhan, China, bore no resemblance to the one that set off the crisis.
The legislation passed on a mostly party-line vote of 227-201. Seven Democrats joined all Republicans voting in favor.
Singapore is set to allow non-fully vaccinated travelers to enter the country without a negative pre-departure test from next week, health authorities announced.
A new drug quashes all coronavirus variants. But regulatory hurdles and a lack of funding make it unlikely to reach the U.S. market anytime soon.
A drug widely used to treat COVID-19 might be spurring the evolution of new SARS-CoV-2 variants.
An experimental COVID-19 antiviral appears to be effective at preventing hospitalizations without some of the downsides of other treatments.
In his first earnings report since he came out of retirement to retake the reins of a troubled Disney, Robert Iger unveiled a new operating structure for the company — one designed to galvanize its film and television studios while drastically cutting costs.
Walt Disney said it plans to cut 7,000 jobs and slash $5.5 billion in costs as part of a major corporate reorganization that gives more power to the company’s content executives and puts a greater emphasis on sports media at the company.
Documents reveal tech lobbyists revised a right-to-repair bill before New York’s governor signed it.
Gov. Kathy Hochul announced $100 million in state funding has been released to support the renewal of State roadways impacted by extreme weather.
A coalition of more than 100 faith-based organizations and clergy groups urged Hochul to back measures designed to make it harder to raise rents and evict tenants as well as create a housing access voucher program.
Hundreds of New York public schools are being shortchanged by tax breaks that benefit private businesses, a handful of Democratic lawmakers and good government advocates asserted.
Lawmakers and advocates for incarcerated people are pushing for a constitutional amendment that would ban prison slave labor, as well as legislation that would require incarcerated people to make at least minimum wage for their work.
Former State University of New York Chancellor Jim Malatras has taken unpaid leave from a faculty position at SUNY Empire to work for The Fedcap Group, an international nonprofit focused on improving social and economic mobility around the world.
Regulators at the New York state Department of Financial Services moved to review how banks overseen by the state are providing services to minority-owned and women-owned businesses in their communities.
New York health officials want to fill 500 open positions for the newly created public health corps, created in response to the COVID pandemic.
Budget pressure from mandated class size limits, a possible charter school expansion and supporting an influx of migrant students could need more funding to fend off cutbacks, NYC Schools Chancellor David Banks and state lawmakers said.
Mayor Eric Adams accused “woke” Democrats of driving minority voters out of their party — embracing a talking point typically pushed by Republicans.
“I think the party is now understanding that we have to speak at those issues that are important: Jobs, public safety, educating our children, good health care — just these common, kitchen-table issues that we move away from,” Adams said.
The arrival of tens of thousands of migrants has put a strain on New York City’s homeless shelters and presented an unexpected challenge to first-term Mayor Adams, who thus far has relied on a series of ad hoc solutions that have produced mixed results.
New York officials, who once condemned Texas leaders for busing migrants from the southern border, calling the treatment inhumane, are buying bus tickets for newcomers who want to go north and seek asylum in Canada.
Weeks after going on strike at two private hospitals in New York City, a nurses’ union is calling on the city’s public hospitals to commit to paying its members’ salaries comparable to what they now make in the private sector.
NYC failed to conduct enough oversight on the emergency procurement of PPE at the start of the pandemic, putting taxpayers dollars at risk of price-gouging and leaving the city vulnerable to opportunistic vendors, a comptroller’s audit found.
A financial professional accused of slugging a train operator during an argument in a Coney Island subway stop last year pleaded not guilty in a Brooklyn courtroom packed with angry subway workers.
Starting Friday, downtown Binghamton will host the first New York state-licensed dispensary selling legal recreational marijuana outside of New York City.
In a win for some affordable housing proponents, Albany’s Common Council approved new rules that require developers to increase the number of units set aside for renters under certain income limits.
The Troy City Council’s Republican and Democratic leaders are prepared to tap into the remaining $4 million in the city’s American Rescue Plan Act money and to find other funding sources to replace lead pipes in as many homes as possible.
The body of a missing Cohoes woman was found at an abandoned building in downtown Albany.
