Most people who know us know that in the Ackerman household Sunday night is pizza night. Our Sunday night pizza night started before we had kids and since they were old enough to eat solids Ben and Emma have eagerly joined us for this ritual. Served with a salad for us, veggies and fruit for the kids, it has become a dinner routine that is met with a chorus of "nooooo's" when pizza is not on the Sunday table.
Dave, who takes two carefully wrapped pieces of cold pizza with him every day to work without fail, is teased incessantly by his coworkers about his pizza for lunch habit. Among the many jokes lobbed his way as he unwraps his pizza lunch is the inevitable "doesn't your wife know how to make anything else for your lunch?" psst, guys, I don't pack his lunch. I also don't lay out his clothing for him the night before work. Dave is just a guy who really likes his pizza, even every day for lunch, so much so that he travels with his own microwave from work-site to work-site so he can reheat his slices. I'm just the girl who makes sure he takes a serving of fruit and vegetables to balance out a little of the cheese.
As I was cleaning our pizza cutter this evening I was struck by the thought that this almost 18 year old, well worn, well loved, kitchen utensil is so much more than just a pizza cutter.
This pizza cutter has moved with us to 3 different homes and it's handle used to read "Papa Aldo's" before they merged and became "Papa Murphy's"- and yes, I realize you didn't need to know that but every fourth time that we bake pizza Dave reminds me of this. And it is one of our stories so I smile and nod and remember bits of culinary trivia about our early married life like the time I sent him to the store three times for something to keep our first Thanksgiving turkey tied shut or when he made me waffles using the baking soda from the fridge that was there to absorb odors.
Our beloved pizza cutter has also been used to cut pancakes and waffles into bite sized chunks for Ben and Emma's breakfasts and to even open a box or two (shh, don't tell Dave.)
Pizza is what Dave cooks for his weekly turn at dinner night, and he cooks it to perfection. And with his favorite pizza cutter in hand he is able to get 16 slices out of a family size pizza -a point of pride almost equalled by his pizza cooking technique that involves moving the almost cooked pizza off the pan and broiling the top until it is just right. The fact that Dave is completely in charge of his pizza cooking technique also gives me a night off from cooking, and a night off from cooking makes for a super happy me.
By my calculations, give or take a week without pizza, this humble little cutter has made neat triangles out of almost 2,000 pizzas. That's over a 1000 nights of coming together as a family to eat, laugh, and share a little love.
And that, my friends, is when a pizza cutter is more than just a pizza cutter.
