You CAN Go Home Again...Just Be Sure To Get Drunk First.

New York City has always seemed like a culinary epicenter to me, a hub of gastronomic pleasures one would be hard-pressed to find elsewhere. However, I grew up in Ohio, and as far as food was concerned we had to make do with what we had (I actually think that's actually the state motto, come to think of it).

It's natural to assume that Ohio has little to offer in the way of food satisfaction, but I reaffirmed during a Memorial Day trip home that this is simply not true. I'll spare you the details of home-cooked meals and perfect burgers straight from the grill and focus on the most important thing: pizza.

Everyone in the Midwest eats pizza, just as everyone in New York eats pizza. Granted, Midwesterners don't seem to be as...inventive as New Yorkers in this arena (I'm talking about YOU, Artichoke), but there are a ton of superb pizza joints near my hometown. One of the best: Danny Boy's.

I was craving it pretty intensely as soon as my plane landed on Thursday evening, and I finally got it on Monday night. A calzone bigger than my face stuffed with cheese, mushrooms, green peppers and sausage plus a $4 glass of wine pretty much made my evening. Sure, I spilled some of my wine on the table, but what else is new?

I couldn't finish the calzone, so I did something I consider pretty heroic. I took it home, put it in a ziploc bag, and stored it in the refrigerator. The next day, I dropped it into my purse and took it on the plane.

I had to whip out my calzone (that's what he said?) at the airport and put the accompanying pasta sauce in its own ziploc bag in its own little tub to send through security. The man working there, amusingly, seemed completely unfazed by this production. I guess maybe he's used to people loving Danny Boy's calzones enough to bring them back through airport security to New York? In any case, I had a delicious Tuesday evening meal that reminded me of home, and it was totally worth it. Totally.