Photo of the Day: The Mark Special

Camera: Canon 5D | Lens: EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM | Setting: f/4, 1/25th sec, ISO 400

This is the goodness.  Just look at it.  Smell it.  Feel the heat. Watch the cheese closely, you'll actually witness it sliding off of itself.

Take a deep breath.

See it glisten?  Don't show your doctor, as that's at least four or five times the amount of saturated fat you should let enter your body in a week.  And here you'll put it down in 15 minutes.

You're experiencing The Mark Special, a delectable combination by which I judge all pizza. It's characterized by three simple toppings, nothing more, nothing less: bell pepper, red onion, and sliced tomatoes.  For the last 10 or so years, Eduardo's Pizza in Superior, Arizona holds the record in my book.

First, what Eduardo's does right is the crust.  A standard hand-tossed bread that's toasted to just-rightness that not even Goldilocks can find fault with.  Just the right amount of cracker-like crisp on the outside with soft, warm fluffy baked pockets of bread in the middle.

Second, the sauce.  I can't say anything else.  It's just . . . right.

Third, that cheese.  It seems they make damn certain to deliver this pie to your table within 4 seconds of it coming out of the oven, just so you get a giggle out of watching the cheese settle in around the toppings.

Fourth, the toppings.  I'm nearly certain that they add the toppings just two or three minutes before the entire thing is finished baking.  This way, the bell pepper slices and onion slivers stay crispy, rather than going limp and chewy.  And tomato -- TOMATO -- you can kill a tomato quickly with heat.  But these tomato slices are still watery and squirt in your mouth with the slightest chill to them that suggests they just came from the produce cooler.

Superior, Arizona's population sits proud at 3,300 folk.  It ought to be a crime.

Attention pizza restaurant owners: care to enter the challenge, beat the record? You know exactly what I want on top.