America’s Porsche 911 Is A Van And Pizza Is Definitely A Meal: COTD

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The internet is full of hot takes. Should cars be banned? Is pizza a meal? Is Elon Musk the modern-day’s Henry Ford? Well, today, our Thomas Hundal had a spicy take of his own.

Thomas’ take was that the Chevrolet Express cargo van was America’s equivalent of the air-cooled Porsche 911. His take could be summarized as both vehicles were slow to adapt to the times and both vehicles were ridiculously optimized for their one job. Some people still found the take absurd, but A. Barth saw through it with this COTD winner:

Editor’s Note: We editors warned Thomas that this take was too hot.

This is basically “a vehicle designed for a particular purpose evolves slightly over the years”. One might have a similar view on school buses, 18-wheelers, dump trucks, etc.

If my soup were the temperature of that take, I’d put it back on the stove.

Nemebean brought up some old saucy takes from the Lighting Site:

While a bit of a stretch, this take is not nearly as infuriating as the “Pizza is not a meal” or “Touch the cars” ones from the old site. Thomas is reasonably safe from needing skin grafts after reading the comments.

While we’re on the subject of those hot takes, pizza is absolutely a meal. In my eye, if you can get full on the food in question, it’s a meal. Yes, that means even for those weirdos who fill up on unlimited salad and breadsticks. I’ve even had pizza for breakfast on a number of occasions. Fight me.

Since we missed a couple of COTDs, I’m nominating three comments today! For this morning’s Cold Start, Jason gave us a Clark airport tractor that looks like it could be a snail or a slug. I’m not sure that little guy has pulled a plane. It looks more like it could have been used for baggage duties. Also, weirdly, Piedmont Airlines still exists! Well, sort of. See, Piedmont was absorbed into USAir/Allegheny Airlines, which merged with America West Airlines, which merged with American Airlines.

The airline today that calls itself Piedmont started life as Henson Aviation. It was later bought by Piedmont Aviation and when Piedmont was under USAir control, Henson was renamed Piedmont Airlines. Today, Piedmont Airlines falls under the American Airlines umbrella and does business as American Eagle. So, there’s that.

Oh yeah, our second COTD nomination. Anyway, flyingstitch said:

Ah, snails. Reminds me of this rapid-fire exchange with my 4-year-old son, who is now grown and could go toe-to-toe with Jason in weird streams of consciousness. I had just tucked him into bed.

Him: Dad, why are snails’ eyes way up high?

Me: So they can see all around, I guess.

Him: Because they have lots of enemies?

Me: Yeah.

Him: Like French people?

That kid better become President or something one day. Have a great weekend everyone!

(Top image: GM, Lou Malnati’s Pizzeria)

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74 thoughts on “America’s Porsche 911 Is A Van And Pizza Is Definitely A Meal: COTD”

  1. Yay, I made COTD! My life is complete!

    I also love how the pizza take still gets a rise out of people this many years later, thus proving my point. 🙂

  2. You lost me at the picture of Chicago deep dish…. arguably the worst style of pizza.

    It’s more of a cheese-based casserole.

    It takes an forever to make, never tastes better than an equivalent thin(ner) crust pizza using the same ingredidents, makes you feel like garbage, and is usally overpriced.

  3. I only recently realized that pineapple is not why Hawaiian pizza is gross the Canadian bacon is. Replace it with pepperoni, toss on some jalapeños and you have a winning combo.

  4. Him: Dad, why are snails’ eyes way up high?

    Me: So they can see all around, I guess.

    Him: Because they have lots of enemies?

    Me: Yeah.

    Him: Like French people?

    Those are their hands kid.

  5. There’s a couple deli’s near me that literally serve breakfast pizza, bacon, scrambled egg, shredded American on pizza dough, its actually good, especially for $7

  6. Hot takes ranked by fart production:

    1. Pizza absolutely makes me fart, regardless of which context it’s eaten in. Meal? Snack? Solid farts, either way.
    2. Drew’s cream cheese ranking at Defector COMPLETELY IGNORED THE BEST ONE, JALAPEÑO (or similar spicy pepper). Either way, cream cheese is okay fart fuel. Not a bowel-wrecker like pizza, but the potential is there.
    3. Express-as-911. You can fart in these vehicles, I guess, especially if there’s a change in altitude involved. That really squeezes out the ol’ toots.
    4. Getting hit by a bus. Did you know that a dying body toots as everything shuts down and decomposes? This is easily the worst way to fart, however, so I’m putting it way near the end of this hot take fart ranking.
    5. Touching the cars. You will hold your farts in out of sheer terror after you get chased out of your favorite car show/museum/whatever by large henchmen for touching the cars without getting the owner’s okay. This take ignored consent! Touching the cars is only fine with consent. Otherwise, you run the risk of never farting again, and then exploding because you’re full of farts.

  7. Pizza is most certainly a meal. It may be the most delicious perfect healthy meal you can eat. Refer to your 4 basic food groups and the 4-4-3-2 portions required for your daily consumption. Fruit and vegies, meat and proteins, rice, and breads and finally dairy. Well pizza has bread crust, fruit sauce (tomato is a fruit), meats and vegies in ingredients add pineapple and anchovies you got more fruit and fish protein, cheese is more dairy. Heck have a beer or glass of milk and you are eating a super healthy meal.

    1. I agree i have 13 pizza places near me. Twelve offer only thin crust, the 13th offers hand tossed pan and is the best pizza i have had across the country, and it is relatively inexpensive compared to other quality pies. I used to say if it doesnt cost $20 or more it isnt a pizza.

  10. Thanks, Mercedes! 🙂

    Fun fact: pizza leftovers are much better when heated properly. Put them on a metal baking sheet and put them in the oven. Set the oven to 350 and let it start to heat. As the oven gets warmer, so does the pizza (though not at the same rate). When the oven temp reaches 350, the pizza should be at a good eating temperature and have a nice crispy crust.

    This works for a full-size oven; a toaster oven would probably be better. Some people recommend heating pizza in a no-stick pan on the stovetop, but I don’t think that would melt the cheese effectively, even if you put a lid on the pan.

    1. My approach is to fire up the cast iron skillet. Load the pizza into the microwave for about 45 seconds (one slice). Slide piza onto the skillet until the bottom is nice an crispy. You get both melted cheese and a crispy crust!

      2. This is the way. Almost.

        No microwave needed; just cover the cast iron skillet and the heat will reflect off the lid and melt the cheese.

        1. No, fridge is the problem. Fridge makes cold pizza, just leave it in the box and eat it the next morning. Room temperature pizza is the best breakfast. My wife is convinced I’m going to get some food-borne illness from 6 hour old pizza. If it doesn’t kill you it makes you stronger!

      4. Since I work at a QSR Pizza joint, I can tell you that pizza reheated in the same oven it was baked in is most definitely better than cold. You only have to put it in for about a minute, too.

    6. 100% reheat pizza in the oven, but also, Workshop/work tip; if you’re stuck with heating up your pizza in a microwave, due to limited work kitchen facilities, but you have access to a workshop, a bit of post-processing with a heat gun does a good job of re-crisping the pizza

  11. Giordano’s > Lou Malnati ;-).

    And yes, pizza is a meal – especially Chicago style pizza. Now I am going to have to pull out a (Giordano’s) frozen pizza from the freezer and cook it up.

    2. Dude you were winning until Giordanos. Buy frozen pizza dough and make your own. Rhodes makes a good dough as well as many pizza places.

      1. “Dude you were winning until Giordanos.”

        I’m sorry you think so. I like it better than the Chicago pizza places in my area.

        “Buy frozen pizza dough and make your own.”

        I AM making my own, including the dough, using the Giordano’s recipe, hence DIY. I’m a cheap bastard so if I can make a pair of 10″ pies for about $4 worth of ingredients yeah, I’ll do that.

        “Rhodes makes a good dough as well as many pizza places”

        Are you talking about this Rhodes?:

        https://rhodesbakenserv.com/pizza-and-calzones/

        If so their product locator says its a no go for me, plus all their pizza recipes call for dinner roll dough. :/

        I’m still happy to give it a try though. Hell I tried Jepsons. I blame Mercedes for that.

    2. “I have found this excellent; providing I substitute or eliminate all the bullshit stuff I don’t like”.

      Do you include the seaweed?

      “Seaweed is used in the pizza’s crust to lower the dish’s sodium level.”

      If so maybe just use straight MSG instead:

      “The flavor-enhancing property of MSG was discovered in 1908 by Kikunae Ikeda, a chemistry professor at Imperial University of Tokyo and founder of Ajinomoto. He isolated the substance in a seaweed that for centuries Japanese cooks had been using to make food taste better and found that it was l-glutamate.”

      https://pubsapp.acs.org/cen/whatstuff/stuff/8130sci3.html

      1. “I’d have gone with garlic buttered snails, scrambled eggs, toast and champagne myself.”

        Hmmm hard to tell if the Frog here is supposed to be sitting on the plate or in front of it…

        (It’s still okay to make fun of the French isn’t it?)

            1. “Just a reminder: if it weren’t for the French support of the American Revolutionaries, we’d still be a British colony”

              Baja Canada.

          2. Repeating a comment I made in an earlier post so it’s an oldie but a goodie:
            “Oh, geez, not that tired old trope about the French being surrender monkeys, never mind that it was actually the government (& the Church) that capitulated & that the French people had a strong and fierce underground resistance which many people, including Churchill, credited as being one of the most important and decisive factors in the Allied victory over Germany.”

            1. I think it’s less about historical [in]accuracy and more about the Simpsons episode where Groundskeeper Willie was a substitute French teacher for some reason (budget cutbacks?). He greeted the class with “Bonjour-r-r-r-r-r, you cheese-eating surrender monkeys!”

            2. Totally agree but the Maginot Line was set up to defend against WW1 Attacks not WWII. And the french underground did do more behind the lines than an army at the front would have done. And the French suffered more than any for resisting after the nazi take over.

  15. Happy Father’s Day weekend y’all!
    I’m gonna definitely spend some time washing and waxing my shitboxes in honor of my late father. Gonna choose Boston for the soundtrack. He’s a good dad, just can never show up on time.

    1. My favorite lesson about cars he taught me?
      Glad you asked.
      He pulled into the driveway one day in the first really new car my family had ever owned. A brand new car!? As we all stood around admiring this 91’ Protege he pulled the keys from the ignition and purposefully scraped a long groove in the driver’s side door with them.
      “So I don’t have to worry about it getting scratched” he explained with a grin.

      1. Aw, man…for once, I don’t have words.
        I both smiled & choked up a little.
        I’m going to go walking with mine tomorrow. Maybe ask him what vehicle he took his license test in, what his farm chores were in 10th grade—then just listen.
        Here’s to Dad

        1. Many years later that protege became the first car I owned. Left it on the side of the road somewhere in Arizona when the transmission gave out with 280k on the odometer. Paint was fine.
          Funny thing is he got the Protege because he was too tall for the Miata.

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