As a young boy, I remember the cold, square-sliced pizza of the Three Little Bakers. The pie was rectangular, cut into squares and had no cheese -- just thick bread topped with a sweet, light marinara sauce. A nickel a slice.
Image via WikipediaI graduated to more sophisticated pizza as I grew older. My father would bring pizza home every once in a while for a Friday night treat.We would eat pizza while dad taught us how to play a card game like poker, or black jack, or pinochle. The pizza was New York style, thin-crust, cheese, no toppings. He usually bought it from "Lou's" (name changed). Lou's sold pizza and assisted select customers with investments in horses, football teams, and such.
The pizza at our high-school, Friday night football games was the cheap over manufactured, synthetic kind, but I liked it.
I lived in Hammonton, New Jersey for a while where Bruni's had as good a pizza pie as I have ever had. Speaking of Hammonton, Marian and I met and were married there -- and we stopped for pizza not long after we left the church and the reception. It sounds funny now, but seemed perfectly normal back then.
Pizza at the beach was Grotto's, for me. I loved Grotto's back in those days, and still love sitting at their boardwalk bar with a couple of slices, a diet-Coke, a book, and an ocean view. My sister, at the age of sixteen, was the first waitress hired at Rehoboth Beach's Nicola's Pizza speaking of the beach and pizza. Nicola's and Grotto's are still thriving.
It didn't take long to find good pizza in Fort Worth. The Meadowbrook area was fortunate enough to have Charlie's Pizza, a Saturday night family favorite for over twenty years. Charlie retired a few years ago. I miss him, his family, the many friends we made there over the years -- and the pizza. It was the best.
Brick oven, Neopolitan pizza is popular now, and I like it. Cavalli's and Il Cane Rosso, are two good examples in the area, but they are popping up everythere these days.
If an evil food god insisted that, for the rest of your life, you could only eat one of the following three: pizza, hamburgers, or tacos, which would you choose?
I'd take pizza. No question about it.
