CPK

A recent reading of Michael Pollen’s “The Omnivore’s Dilemna” has really changed how much we think about where our food comes from. Eschewing chains and processed food isn’t new to us, but now we’ve start really looking at where our meat comes from, which farms grow our greens, and weighing the benefits of local vs. big organic. Even more than before, we’re putting a lot of thought into our food. And yet this weekend, we find ourselves out in suburbia, indulging our yuppish impulses to find a great sugar bowl and creamer set at Crate & Barrel or picking up yet another pair of the season’s must-have boots. And shopping is bound to make you hungry, and the choices are limited. This is how we came to eat at California Pizza Kitchen.

I’m not going to waste time describing much about CPK. We’ve all been there. The yellow and black tile, the frames pizza boxes-cum-art on the walls. Named-tagged servers only too happy to suggest the avocado spring rolls to start your meal or a slice of key lime pie to end it. And the food, well, it’s tasty. Even better than passable. It works.
It works, but it really, really shouldn’t. It’s not local. It’s not organic. It doesn’t even pretend to be seasonal. But still, it tastes good, and isn’t that what matters most?
So what is about CPK that we don’t like? Why don’t we ever eat here?

We sat at the bar, genuinely enjoying our Thai Chicken Tortilla Spring Rolls. Though a strange concoction to be sure, a marriage of a few different bastardized culinary traditions, it somehow made tasty sense. Took the best from each, rolled it up in a crispy shell and served with some peanut dipping sauce. These tasted good. Better, I’d even say then some creative appetizers we’d had at some pretty high-brow restaurants. So what’s so wrong with CPK?

We hold these gastronomic truths to be self-evident; Local is better than remote, to eat seasonally is to eat sensibly, and organic is better for all parties involved. And here we were happily devouring food that fragrantly broke all these rules. We continued our discussion over the main course. Noneifbysea went with the carne asada pizza. Yep, not a typo. Pizza dough with mozzerella and jack cheese, grilled steak, mild chiles and a heap of tomato-salsa in the center. On the side, some tomatillo salsa. I went with my standby, the tricolore salad. The usual suspects (radiccio, arugula and red leaf) with a balsamic vinegrette and shaved parmesean served on top of an addictive pizza crust which has been topped with parmesean and baked to a crispy, chewy goodness.

But of course the food tastes good. It’s engineered to. This food has been focused-grouped and test-marketed. Surveys have been filled out and questionnaires submitted. Somewhere, there are test kitchens and lab coats that double as chef’s jackets. They’ve taken the ingredients that work and make them work for everyone. This food is made to be palatable. To not be challenging. It’s concocted, not cooked.

And maybe this is where the problem lies for us. Not simply that the food isn’t good for us, that we’re not eating seasonally and locally. But that there’s no connection to the people in the kitchen. There’s no one back there in that shining silver, yellow and white cave putting any thought, consideration or creativity into the food. There is no love. There is no craft. There is no discovery. We are just part of a larger corporate entity. We are simply consumers, in the most literal possible sense of the word.