Whatever Happened To Anchovies?

I was going to write about this a couple of weeks ago, when it seemed like an aberration.
Now, it seems to be turning into an epidemic.

My wife and I love anchovies.
Particularly on Pizza and Caesar Salad.
After a rather disastrous experience at our local California Pizza Kitchen, where they do
not have one single anchovy in the entire place, we wised up and bought anchovies at the local supermarket,and brought them with us to the California Pizza Kitchen.
Now, the California Pizza Kitchen, like most restaurants, can be a satisfying experience if you know the menu, and know how to order from it.
The Pea and Barley Soup is first rate.
The Cobb Salad is excellent.
Then one time, we braved the elements and ordered the mushroom pizza.
It had a lot going for it.
It tasted good.
But that's when we found out that they didn't have anchovies.
So we decided that next time, we'd bring our own.
And so we did.
For the uninformed, there is no way you can open a can of anchovies in a restaurant without making a major mess.
Which is what we did.
But it was worth it.
The other thing about the pizza at the California Pizza Kitchen is that they don't seem to believe in pizza sauce.
You know. Marinara sauce.
So something was still missing on this rather good pizza which now had home-brought anchovies on it.
I then asked for a side of marinara sauce.
They brought it.
It was cold.
You know. This is how everyone likes marinara sauce on their pizza.
Cold.
I wasn't going to ask them to heat up the marinara sauce, because the pizza was already on the verge of cold.
So I begrudgingly ate the pizza with cold marinara sauce on it.

So okay.
That's the California Pizza Kitchen.
A place that thinks pineapple is a more suitable topping for pizza than anchovies and
hot marinara sauce.
But just today, we went to a much more traditional Italian restaurant, part of a chain
called Buca Di Beppo.
The food has always been first rate.
They always had anchovies for their excellent Caesar Salad and pizza.
No more.
They no longer have anchovies.
They should know better.
It's inexcusable.
And they're costing themselves money.
They would charge for anchovies on a pizza.
It's cheaper to get them at the supermarket.
How hard is it to keep a can or two on the premises?
I haven't heard anything about them becoming a health hazard.
If anything, I hear that they're good for you.
If there was something wrong with them, they wouldn't keep selling them in supermarkets.
We're now beginning to hoard them.
Because we don't know where the next abandonment will strike.
We will be armed whenever we go out, and there is the slightest chance we'd be ordering pizza or Caesar Salad.
And fully prepared to make the mess that accompanies it.

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My books ,"Show Runner" and it's sequel,"Show Runner Two", can be found at the Amazon Kindle Store.
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