I’m no chef. When an ideal meal consists of mac and cheese, Hint of Lime chips, and Heath Bars, I’m probably the last person who should be dispensing advice about the culinary arts. But regardless of my apathy over the perfectly placed piece of parsley, I feel I’ve got some legitimate gripes over some particular manners of food preparation. Salad and pizza are my pet peeves du jour.

Salad

Order a salad at a restaurant. Any restaurant. If they bring out one huge leaf of lettuce, a whole tomato, and a bowl of dressing, you can walk out without paying. It’s in the Constitution. I shouldn’t need a knife to cut my lettuce. No one should be forced to eat a tomato whole - even a grape tomato.  The dressing shouldn’t pool up at the bottom of the bowl. These rules are in the salad Bill of Rights.

Proper salad preparation consists of cutting the lettuce into small bits, cutting grape tomatos in half (at least!), and slicing up all vegetables into small pieces that easily fit on a fork. You shouldn’t need to stab everything in the bowl in order to get it to your mouth. Dressing should be mixed into the salad lightly and/or placed on the side when brought out.

Pizza

I happen to live near one of the most famous pizza places in the country. I don’t consider their pizza to be that much better (if at all) than Domino’s. I’m a fan of Totino’s frozen pizzas. I’ve seen “artisan” pizzas that look fancy enough but fail on some key aspects. All would do well to listen to my advice.

Grease. Famous pizza place has so much oil on their pizza I could pour it off. Totino’s also has a lot. Git rid of it. We make pizza in our house from scratch, and frankly I have no clue why it takes that much oil to produce a pizza.

Edges. Listen up famous pizza place and Domino’s! Place your ingredients all the way to the edge of the pizza. You can leave a little space for convenient holding, but it’s time to follow the lead of Totino’s. Theirs are covered from edge to edge, so every bite is delicious.

Sauce. Listen up Domino’s and Pizza Hut! I don’t know when we began facing an international shortage of pizza sauce, but find some and charge the extra nickel it’s worth. You can’t cover up your lack of sauce by throwing on more spices. I love your pizza, but you need to fix this.

Following these rules will help you produce a worthy salad or pizza. And if this writing can save but one, it’ll all have been worth it.