Hello... still eating pizza?

March was a funny month for me - you know the sort of months when nothing goes right and you want to bury your head in the sand? It started with a botched attempt at holding a radio broadcast with the Italian ambassador at the BBC studios in Aldwych. Got there, circled the place for about an hour, couldn't park the car - tried to do the interview via the mobile but the BBC technology couldn't manage that! Some things aren't meant to be.

Anyway, the story was that he (Italian fella) had been mouthing off about our pizza -and telling us how we have disgraced the traditional Italian pizza by using toppings like ham and pineapple.

Now I'm thinking, if our pizza are a disgrace, why do so many of us eat them - and why am I writing this to 100,000+ pizza connoseurs?

The Italian pizza is what Henry Ford was to the motor industry. But would you buy a Model T? Thought not. With more and more of us travelling further afield every year, we are bringing back tastes from exotic places. That is why our pizza has evolved into a national dish - eaten by 90% of the population.

When I made pizzas for a living in the 1990's, I had customers who would ask for the strangest toppings on their pizza - like beans and spinach! Low and behold - some years later these toppings are the norm - in fact Heinz saw the potential and created their own Bean topped pizza. A pizza is basically a cooked sandwich - with one slice! As with sandwiches, you can put anything you like on top of a pizza - anything it seems is allowed. Although, personally, I would not let anchovies, pineapple or egg anywhere near a pizza -



On to more serious pizza stuff - this months' review is the Chicago Town Takeaway Pizza. Having tried and reviewed all the other Chicago Town pizzas - I thought that this one would be just a cleverly packaged pizza - however, the pizza was - wait for it - GREAT!

A word of warning - when you do try it, (and I know you'll want to after reading my review) make sure you leave it to cool down for a few minutes! My wife and I are still nursing very large blisters on the roof of our mouths - blimey that tomato sauce is hot!!

Buon Appetito.