The Pizza Trail

Pizza has followed me virtually everywhere in life, including into an intensive care unit. When I was in an ICU some thirteen years ago, I saw it with my own two eyes. In the middle of the night, a doctor changed my leg’s dressing with a fresh, hot slice of pizza rather than a clean, sterilized bandage. While I’m normally a pizza aficionado, on this occasion—hallucinating with a medley of strong pain-killing meds coursing through my body—I would have preferred the bandage. That was definitely a night to remember—or forget in that instance—when pizza became my enemy.

So, I’d just assume recall my more agreeable pizza encounters in more agreeable settings. When I was growing up, Sam’s Pizza on W231st Street in the Bronx was a neighborhood institution. Owner George used the same mop to clean his shop's floor and pizza oven. He assured concerned witnesses that the intense heat of the oven would kill anything that needed to be killed. Aside from home-cooked meals, Sam’s supplied me with more lunches and dinners in the 1970s and 1980s than anybody else. And I'd like to believe George was spot-on concerning the floor mop.

My father, nevertheless, referred to Sam’s Pizza as the “grease shop” because—in those days—multiple slices to-go were placed in brown paper bags. The excessive oil—grease—from the slices therein often ate away the bags. The Italian side of my family—first and second generation alike—typically frowned on take-out food. My grandmother, in fact, made delicious homemade pizza. She topped the mozzarella cheese with a light coating of breadcrumbs. Predictably, I was asked whose pizza I preferred: Sam’s or Grandma’s? It was an unfair question that put me on the spot. They were two different animals. I liked them both.

Seemingly on the other side of the world—in Bangor, Pennsylvania—there was yet another memorable pizza. It came from a place called Johnny’s Tavern on Messinger Street. My maternal grandfather and father frequently imbibed in the place and—on occasion—returned home with a couple of pies. I remember that the cheese was especially white—no browning on it like typical New York-style pizza—and the sauce had a certain peppery seasoning that was pleasing to the palate. Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of it. It was unique pizza for sure.

While on the subject of unique: In my high school years, TGIF assumed an even higher meaning because pizza was the cafeteria’s main course. Now that same cafeteria in that same school is more like a hipster food court, serving today—I just checked—Cheese Tortellini Alfredo, Parmesan Crusted Tilapia, and Cheese Empanadas. Forty years ago, though, the cafeteria pizza was a hard-to-describe gooey kind—no doubt frozen—that I found quite edible. What would it taste like to me in the here and now? I wonder. But in those days, I consumed a lot of frozen pizza at home, too, ranging from the truly bizarre Buitoni toaster pizza to the especially good Celentano’s square pizza in its own cooking tray. The Buitoni and Celentano brands live on but—sadly—not their pizzas. Ellio’s frozen pizza—which was the most often bought in my house—had a cardboard quality that the cast-iron stomach of my youth found rather appealing. My non-youthful, non-cast-iron stomach recently revisited Ellio’s and found that its cardboard quality tasted like—well—cardboard.

When I was a boy, my family regularly vacationed on the Jersey Shore, which was a good place for pizza. Nothing quite like a slice on the boardwalk in earshot of the Atlantic. But one not-so-good pizza there came from an establishment called Virginia Corner on—where else?—the corner of Virginia Avenue. One year we rented a house on that street, so this cozy-looking eatery was the proverbial stone’s throw away. The fact that it served pizza seemed especially fortuitous, except that the older woman doing the cooking—whom my younger brother and I dubbed “Virginia” herself—didn’t seem to have a handle of things. And the pizza just didn’t happen.

Another pizza tale is from a 1984 Memorial Day weekend road trip, which found a group of us in the tiny sliver that is coastal New Hampshire. The Cove Motel, where we stayed the night, had an attached restaurant that made pizza. We ordered a couple of pies—one plain and one with pepperoni—for dinner that were under-cooked and especially oily. In addition to sour stomachs, one felt like showering after eating the stuff. But to add insult to injury, the Cove Motel had no hot water that night. It was cold showers for everyone. And the sheets on the beds reeked of disinfectant. Happily, the placed redeemed itself the next morning. We had breakfast in the same restaurant, which turned out to be a pleasant surprise. It’s the only time I ever had strawberry syrup on my pancakes.

One final stopover on the pizza trail at a place called Felix Astro pizza—circa 1982—on the East End of Long Island. A bunch of us ordered a Sicilian pie, which we intended on eating there. It oozed with cheese that needed several more minutes in the oven. Sprinkling garlic powder on the mess didn't help when the shaker's top flew off. And so, until death do us part, I continue to follow the pizza trail wherever it takes me.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)