Pizza. It’s ubiquitous, reliable, dependable. It’s earned a place beside your favorite pair of jeans, your oldest friend, those favorite CDs you upgraded from cassettes and now need to replace again. But don’t let familiarity breed contempt. I suspect one good pizza could change the world. Consider: Pizza as host. From soy-cheese and spinach to double pepperoni, corner slice to creme fraiche-and-caviar, pizza accommodates everyone. Mention your meeting features pizza and attendance doubles.

I’ll advance the argument that even a bad book club is better than none at all for those of us who fancy themselves career students of the University of Life. (Anyone out there who’s on an academic track need not bother with this line of thought. Your profession is already a de facto specialized book club for your field of interest. Move along, nerds!) The thing is, what do we find as the most common frame of reference with most people in our lives?

Did I ever tell you about the time I discovered beets? No? Well, it’s a fun story. I grew up in a beet-free home. Lotsa tomatoes, lotsa carrots. Dad just didn’t bang a drum for the beet. For that reason, I was a teenager before I discovered pickled beets at a potluck. They were amazing. I just couldn’t get enough. Sweet, earthy, rich! I must have downed a half-pound of pickled beets.

The cool, damp spring screeches to a sudden halt with a day so muggy it’s like walking around in someone’s mouth. And of course the air conditioner is out of service. Under these circumstances, I can’t think, I can’t focus and I feel so sweaty and gritty I want to peel my skin off. But a cool, sweet liquid hovers in my mind with a shimmering promise of sweet refreshment. Ahh, Horchata.

Through pure happenstance (or was it fate?), I bumped into an old love today. Having missed my train stop, I ended up walking past my favorite Korean grocer (Hana Food, 534 Metropolitan Ave in Brooklyn), and there in the deli case, was my forgotten obsession, flushed with a healthy crimson glow. I clamored stupidly forward and we were reunited in a scene worthy of epic poetry. How could I have lost touch after all the good times we’ve shared?