THE GREATEST PIZZA IN THE WORLD

You know how you have to go to Mecca if you're a Muslim? Well, if you have ever enjoyed pizza in your life, you have to make a pilgrimage to DiFara's Pizza in Midwood, Brooklyn in NYC. There you will find a very elderly man (in his 80s) in a tiny hole of a pizza joint making THE GREATEST PIZZA IN THE WORLD.

I do not say this lightly, and I am not the first to say it. The place has been reported on and rated by numerous publications of all kinds and shown on television by the Food Network. The pizza maker's name is Dominick DeMarco, and he will not allow anyone else to make the pizza. He has been cooking there for forty years, and he only uses the finest imported Italian ingredients: fresh buffalo mozzarella that he shreds onto the pie, fresh Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese cut from a giant wheel that he grinds by hand, and a sauce made with canned peeled tomatoes grown in Italy. He reaches into the six pizza ovens with his hand to pull out and turn the thin crust pizzas, and to pull out the aluminum pans filled with thick crust pizza that bubbles over with molten cheese. He is like the Shaolin Master of Pizza; he has been approached numerous times by many parties who wish to apprentice to him or otherwise get his pizza making secrets, and he has refused them all.

We ordered a large pizza that was half mushroom, half broccoli rabe. The broccoli rabe was phenomenal, with large chunks of garlic strewn throughout, and the mushrooms were fresh and hand cut. When we were served, we were given thin paper plates to eat off of, and a plate filled with about two cups of grated cheese. The cheese was fantastically tangy, and everything about the pizza was perfect.

I did take the opportunity to thank him for the best pizza I have ever had in my life, and he smiled kindly at me and asked if it was my first time! It must be something that he hears often, at least from first timers.

I will travel five hours to get this pizza on a regular basis, as long as he is still around to make it. This pizza has changed my life FOREVER.

Mercury And Wipeout

I bought Mercury for PSP in NYC yesterday. Pretty cool game - like Super Monkey Ball meets Marble Madness, but with blobs instead of balls. All you do is tilt the playing board, and little blobs roll around hitting things and activating things and being eaten by things. Bits of the blobs can fall off the edges, so one of the win conditions is percentage of mercury; you have time constraints and puzzles to solve also. You also color the blobs and have to on occasion "mix" the colors to produce the right blob that activates the right switch.

Fun so far, but I am a puzzle nut, so take it with a grain of salt - I am eager to try multiplayer with this one though.

And yes, I did end up buying Wipeout Pure. I like it lots, good mindless racing game. In fact, I drove to CT and back with the PSP hooked up to my car stereo because the soundtrack of the game is terrific driving music.