Kavey – Thanks for your incisive comment. Was my use of those examples in the first paragraph too crafty by half? Could be. BUT, the not-necessarily round pizza was a metaphor in a post about the misguided use of perfection as an attention-grabbing standard. Anyone who promises one thing and delivers another, as you suggest was done here, leaves themselves open to ridicule far more biting than mine. Speaking of which….

Tim – Enjoyed your contemptuous and spot-on rant nearly as much as I relish imagining the look on your face as you read this: the dreaded p word was in fact used by guardian.co.uk in the heading for a teaser link to your post. Is it possible someone deleted the offending word on the actual headline but neglected to make the change on the front page of life&style?

I too loathe the concept of ‘perfection’ in the national culinary discourse and am rigorous in expunging it. I can see no mention of perfection in the pate piece.

Granted, the subs occasionally use it in a headline against my wishes but it could never be my intention.

In fact in the penultimate par of the pate piece you’ll spot a small, admittedly weak, gag based on parfait/perfection.

Can I refer m’learned chum to the following extract. It’s part of a rant I delivered at the last RFF…

“…But there’s one floppy bit of food waffle that I find completely and totally unforgiveable.
It’s the concept of ‘perfection’.
How many columns, recipes, programmes etc have you seen headed ‘The perfect something’
How to make the perfect cupcake
A perfect romantic dinner in 10 minutes
I put the word ‘perfect’ into the search engine at my own paper and got offered the perfect rissotto, roast chicken, cheesecake, spring salad, black pudding, scotch egg, fried breakfast, cup of coffee, cup of tea and detox diet… and that was in the last month.
I should make clear that we writers aren’t to blame for this. We file the stories. The headlines are put there by editors and sub editors who think its what the audience want to read
Let me tell you a story.
Last week My paper sent me to spend a day improving my bread making with Richard Bertinet. Richard is a brilliant Baker. He’s been doing it since he was sixteen and spending a day with him is like working with a tall, handsome French Yoda.
We made some beautiful bread but I know that once the sub-editors get hold of it, that story is going to be headlined ‘Making the Perfect Loaf’.
That’s a hell of a claim. Richard never said it was perfect…the thing that I learned most is that, even after a probable 30 years of daily bashing industrial quantities of dough, Richard is just searching for perfection. Besides which, what if he had an off day? More than that, the headline carries the promise that we can pass on this perfection to you. But what if you have an off day. Hell, what if you don’t like sourdough.
There is no such thing as the perfect loaf, ladies and gentlemen, nor cupcake, cabbage, custard or canape. It’s a fatuous overclaim and it makes everything we write under that heading look into pointless lie from the first to the last word.
We are cooks. We are writers. We strive for perfection. God willing we shall never attain it. And next time you see that headline promising ‘the Perfect’ anything I want you to get as angry as I do at the sloppy thinking. I want you to yell at it. And soon those yells will grow to a steady roar and at that point even our editors will be forced to listen”.

BUT I think it’s disingenious to criticise the many posts and recipes for the perfect this or that, linked in your first paragraph.

For, most of those I’ve read are focusing on achieving the best one can from a taste perspective, not appearance!

I doubt the NY pizza Co in question would use a slogan along the lines of “Our pizzas don’t always taste as good as they could”!