Mari and I eat basically lean and healthy food — brown rice, tofu and other soy-derived things, some eggs, vegetables, fish, fruit, cereal. But last weekend we decided to treat ourselves to some fast and tasty home-delivered pizza and beer. We also decided that I would be the one to order, since it would require me to speak Japanese to a stranger on the phone.
We took out the Chicago Pizza flyer that had been dropped in our mailbox. Some of the flavors were definitely new to me in this context. All seafood? Cream sauce? Chowder sauce? And every other pie had a grid of mayonnaise lines drawn on top. We decided to do a half-half. Mari’s half was the cream-sauce and seafood “Boston Pirates,” ahem, Bo-su-ton Pai-re-tsu, and I got “Anchovieno” (which, now that I think about it — hey! — didn’t come with any anchovies.)
Then Mari helped me compose a cheat sheet. The flyer actually had some English directions explaining what pieces of information to have ready. The call itself went smoothly. We knew that I would probably receive long strings of fast Japanese that I wouldn’t understand, so we did the call on speakerphone, and at times Mari piped in or whispered “hai,” and then I would repeat, “HAI.” Ordering pizza in a different language — I should have recorded everything for your entertainment.
The drippy cream sauce, the chewy rings of squid, the anchovies (missing or not), the Malt’s beer, not having to do dishes. Delicious fun, maybe we’ll do it every month.