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Credit...Ryan Liebe for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Barrett Washburne.

Good morning. The theory of pizza cognition tells us that an individual’s first and primary source of pizza — say, Joe and Pat’s on Staten Island in New York; the California Pizza Kitchen in Alpharetta, Ga.; the frozen aisle at Vons in California; a House of Pizza in Massachusetts; the No Name Pub in the Florida Keys; Buddy’s in Detroit; or Domino’s anywhere — is the pizza that will become that person’s inner optimum, the pizza against which all others are judged.