Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Pizza Bianca and other pleasures


I have a weakness for family run restaurants that serve pizza. It seems to me like money well spent. These come in three different categories, at least in my town. First, there is the place that is the institution. The food is not terribly special but may have nostalgic value and has hosted more little league teams than can be practically enumerated. Then there is the place you pay more for, maybe almost more than a pizza is worth, but you save that for more special occasions and when someone else (like your workplace) is paying. Then there are places in strip malls where the food is better than the nostalgic joint but maybe not as gourmet, but there is the added satisfaction that you are helping a person and their family AND they are helping you get a meal when life has gotten itself into extended mode. Which it is now, which is why I am writing about pizza at a pause in the grade crunch when can we shut this down for a couple weeks for spring break zone kind of week. I'm working my way through a book, a movie and a DVR broadcast and can't seem to get them to the end for my end notes.

So let me then celebrate the Pizza Bianca at Pizza Italiana off of Fourth Plain Blvd. and Stapleton Road. in the little strip cluster next to the Albertson's. They also serve Greek Food and I am hoping to try that some day, but it is always something I notice on the standup board after I have made my order, which almost always is a medium Pizza Bianca.

The Pizza Bianca seems to me just the right amount of mozzarella, chicken, oil, and garlic. I am not a major crust fascist so can't tell you how great it is or not, except that it certainly is better than the place I referred to earlier that hosts all of the little league parties. And the experience of the Bianca seems better than anything you can find at Godfather's Roundtable Hut.

Food is important during the last week of an academic quarter. Whenever I can I convert the final for my project based classes into potluck celebrations. I learned about the pleasures of this from when I collaborated with a Jewish radical women's studies professor from the east coast about a decade back. Having food on the last day seems to make it all worthwhile. Last year one of my students brought some baked salmon that the lab assistants in the building are still talking about today. And I have the great pleasure of having this fellow in my class that is wrapping up later this week. He tells me that there will be a reprise of this dish for the final of the current class, which, it so happens, is scheduled for noon. Even Better.
posted by well-executed buffet at 9:35 PM
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