My brother, fellow Scandinavian—someone who actually knows what fattigmand is—is wrought with Italian blood. In an impressive show of mozzarella and marinara, he fashioned a pizza of such delectability that I am left wordless in its wake.

HAH. Wordless. Riiiiight. You wish!

My vigilant nose caught the divine scent upon the air. I stole into the kitchen. Peering into the aromatic oven, I captured the visual feast:

Catching the dying embers of my camera's flash, Charlie rushed to the room. "Pictures? Of my masterpiece? Yes, Yes! I must document this creation!" he must have thought. I willingly obliged.

It was a two-man job to transfer the pizza from the pan. Unfortunately, all we had to work with was a word geek and an Italian-Norwegian. The job still got done—with the application of cuss words and burned fingers. Ah, but such is the price of greatness.

It was almost too attractive to eat. Almost. We inched the pizza cutter closer to the pie. This next step must come to pass, though we loathed to destroy such a treasure.

Consulting my thesaurus...
Heaven: (n) ecstasy, rapture, rhapsody, bliss, paradise, Charlie's pizza.

Yes, I had a piece. I couldn't resist. You can't know the siren song that this pizza sang. As if the golden glory of the breading wasn't enough, the Italian-Norwegian whiz kid stuffed the crust!

I was not a happy camper. He wove that tale of irresistible proportions purely to break me—and break me, he did. "Look at the cheese—just the way you like it! You know you want some, Laur!" And I did. I partook of the bubbling beauty.

Below, you see that my ambivalence was well documented. The impatience on my face reflects my fall from dietary responsibility, my deviation from self control...and the knowledge that I would do it all over again if the opportunity presented itself.

Time to get back on the treadmill.