There’s something fishy with this pizza

When I got home Monday night my wife, Erin, was upset, shocked and not at all happy about the events that transpired before I got to the house.

There were several quotes about the incident that stuck out to me.

“It was horrible,” “They were nasty,” “I couldn’t get the smell out of the house,” and my personal favorite, “They are evil, I don’t know why anybody would like them.”

No, she was not talking about kids in the neighborhood or a prank they had pulled — this development was of her own doing.

With Thanksgiving coming up later in the week Erin wanted something for dinner that did not resemble your typical Thanksgiving fare, so she ordered a pizza. That in and of itself is not a bad idea, but she also decided to try something new and get anchovies on half of it.

If you read the first part of this column, you know her culinary adventure did not work out too well.

Erin said she could not get the flavor, which she described as “the taste people who don’t like fish fear,” out of her mouth. The fish oil and salt was too strong and clung to her tongue like Spider Man on side of a skyscraper.

Actually, I think she probably would have rather eaten a spider than those anchovies — and she is deathly afraid of spiders.

I will give Erin credit for the fact she is much more willing to try new things than I am.

I will try new dishes to a certain extent, but I am not as likely to venture into unknown as she is.

I could have told her she probably would not have liked anchovies.

I spent a brief period of time — three weeks — working at a pizza joint when I was younger. I got a whiff of the anchovies one day and thought I was going to vomit.

But I understand people have different tastes and apparently there are people out there who like anchovies, why else would just about every pizza place in the United States have them on the menu?

While I got a good chuckle out of her misfortune, I did sympathize. There have been times I ventured out into the culinary world with undesired results, although I do not believe any of those experiences traumatized me nearly as much as the anchovies did to Erin.

At least it was a short-lived problem and we will be back to the safe cuisine of Thanksgiving where the most exotic food will be her grandmother’s coconut cake — which I am pretty sure was not on the table when the pilgrims got ready to chow down about 400 years ago.

I guess eating is a lot like traveling. You don’t realize how much you appreciate the familiar until you venture out into the unknown.