by Brian Jeffiers

Created on: April 29, 2008

I'm a purist. So sue me. When it comes to almost anything, I am quite particular about calling things by the right name, reading all the directions, and inserting a toothpick in the center of a cake. Maybe that makes me elitist; I'm sure Barack Obama would like to see that tattooed on somebody else for a while.

But I can't help it. I used to think this particular affliction of mine was applicable mostly to assembling furniture or medicating children, but a few hours of cable TV has broadened my judgmental horizons. Specifically, I'm talking about food.

Like a lot of attitude changes, mine were shaped by guilt. I saw a fascinating piece about the origin of pizza in America, and during the show a genuine pizzeria operator was decrying these cardboard Frisbees that pass themselves off as pizza here in the states. The screen showed big, thick, delicious and legitimate pizza, pedigreed stuff, cooking on a real live stone oven. I slunk down into the recliner, contemplating a quick disposal of my Totino's in the freezer and a session in the Father Papa John's confessional. "Bless me Father, for I have sinned. I have partaken of a cracker dressed in tomato paste and cheese food and called it pizza." I'd probably have to say a few Hail Mushrooms and then go on about my day.

I knew, deep down, that this stuff wasn't real pizza, after all. A summer of working in food service during college had taught me a lot, including what a real pizza place produces. At that restaurant, we made the dough in the store and cooked in a 700-degree oven. The floor of the oven was stone. Near the end of cooking we removed each pizza from the screen that goes under it for most of the baking and placed the pizza directly on the stone in a process referred to as "stoning". Apparently nobody was creative enough to refer to it as "giving it the old St. Stephen". The result was the best pizza I have ever eaten, so even though I knew some of this other crap wasn't pizza, I ate it anyway, and taught my children to eat it. I was wracked with guilt.

I soothed my guilt watching another show. This one was on barbecue, and a thick, sweaty man took issue with the careless use of the word "barbecue". It ain't a sauce. It ain't a gas grill. It is a process of slow cooking over a wood fire, and that same college summer taught me that, too, after I split the pizza joint for a barbecue joint.

Perhaps the joint is the best part of a barbecue meal, and I'm not talking about the joints that Spike Lee creates or that

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