We seek out more and more usual things to distract us from the crushing waves of trauma that mercilessly beat against our brains. We steel ourselves behind oddities and weirdness hoping that these craven hobbies might make the rest of the world seem more normal by comparison. 

Most recently for me was Spak Bros. pickle pizza.

This is the kind of pizza you want to share with your friends. A pie you’ll want to get as a novelty, laugh about how good it is even though you started eating it with your nose pinched to get your buds to chuckle. Anything for a laugh. It’s gruesome on paper, a dare, like going to a haunted house encountering clowns, faux murderers, arsonists, criminals and nightmares of the mind only to escape through a smoky tunnel with a laugh.  The pickle pizza is more fun with a group of pizza adventures. Right now that’s an anomaly in the age of quarantine. 

The pickle pizza from Spak is not frightening. It’s unique, foreign, and defies the pizza tradition. when something clashes with your existing classification you get mad, or angry, or scared. And the pickle pizza, unlike other pizzas, even Hawaiian, elicits an emotional and visceral reaction which makes this pizza art in a lot of ways. The Pickle Pizza at Spak deserves to be studied and assessed by food professors at universities that focus on the culinary arts.


























Note how crisp those pickles stand against a hungry pizza devotee







In the doldrums of the pandemic, it’s easy to get stuck in your routine. Waking up. Brushing your teeth. Eating avocado toast for breakfast every morning. Doom scroll. Log into work. Refresh the news. Work. Refresh the news. Room scroll. Work. Turkey sandwich for lunch. Work. Log off. Watch whatever new thing is on Netflix while also watching your phone refresh. Go to bed. Wonder if this will ever end and you’ll escape this snow globe of an existence. Sometimes you feel like a domino knocking into another domino.

The pickle pizza is a variable that disrupts to banal day to day existence. It’s completely different from what you would expect, and injects a much needed zest. 

The pickle pizza is of course worth eating and digesting. The dill pickles are sprawled over the canvas likeilipads floating on a sea of cheese. It’s impossible not to get a pickle in a bite of the pizza, they’re ubiquitous and delicious. 

The base of the pizza is a mixture of pickle’s best friends - a safety net for pickles going out on the wild. A special havarti cheese blend, dill and a creamy ranch sauce provide lubrications for these pickles to slide down your throat like a slip n slide. And before you know it the pizza will have vanished - the dill taste will linger in your mouth for a while but pickle pizza never leaves you. 

Next time you’re at a cookout or able to gather with your friends and loved ones you can recall the amazing pickle pizza you ate. “You got that??” They’ll say with a dash of disgust. Then you can charm them with your tale of how you ventured forth from your home, risking life and limb to get the legendary Spak Bros. Pickle Pizza.