Pizza Parties and Videogaming = Bliss
The next time you’re thinking about getting some pizza delivery, don’t forget that you’ve got other options, including the take n’ bake offerings from Papa Murphy’s.
Trying the Taco Grande Pizza
The kind folks at Papa Murphy’s set us up with a taste of their limited-time-only Taco Grande pizza on a recent Friday night, and we gotta hand it to them — they are adventurous! And not only that but successful. This pizza sounds like a mindbender, but it’s remarkably harmonious on the tongue. The ingredients: seasoned taco beef (which tastes a bit like sausage), refried beans, salsa, mozzarella cheese, black olives, roma tomatoes, green onions, and cheddar.
Note the utter lack of tomato sauce in the mix. That’s right: rather than spreading on tomato sauce to start the pizza, like 99.9% of the pizzas you’ve ever consumed, the Papa Murphy’s folks decided to start with refried beans and take it a la mexicana the rest of the way…! And que sabroso — it totally works! “It’s really good!” says Nicole. Also, there’s no sales tax, as I found out recently. It’s not cooked, so it’s not taxable, and the Papa Murphy’s prices are already pretty darned good.
I have to applaud the innovation. Also, they don’t skimp on the toppings. For the price of a two-topping pizza, we got this monster with — count ’em — seven toppings, not including the refried beans. Nice. Too bad there’s not one of these places closer to my house.
Gaming Recap
We started out with a strong dose of Portal 2, which Fred kindly brought. It was my first Portal experience (I know, where’ve I been) and it was an enjoyable one. It’s deviously simple and yet oh so deviously difficult. It takes a certain puzzle-solving kind of mentality to enjoy, one which I wasn’t 100% in thanks to a rough week, but I still got a kick out of. It’s also a surprisingly good group game because there’s little time pressure and everyone can sit around and throw out puzzle-solving suggestions. I think Fred also enjoyed the chance to see the co-op levels that he’d never been able to play.
As before, Rock Band was the capper of the evening. We got to try a huge variety of genres, and several people sung themselves happy and hoarse. Good times indeed.
