An Ode to Za...

Growing up in New Jersey, there were certain foods that were a huge part of my life. We ate a lot of bagels (does that surprise anyone?) on weekends, had a great deal of Chinese food (especially on Sunday evenings, when we'd go out to dinner), and Italian food also figured prominently in our culinary adventures. I grew up with a great love of all things parmigiana and, of course, pizza.

New York-style pizza is, in my opinion, one of the greatest foods ever. The crust is the perfect thickness—not too thin like some gourmet pizzas and not too thick like deep-dish—and the amount of cheese should produce a light film of grease on the pizza. Should you choose to have sausage on your pizza, the sausage should be shaved into disks; sausage shouldn't be crumbled on it. I'm still beholden to Romeo's Pizza, Marlboro Pizza and Brio's Pizza (in, of all places, Phoenicia, NY) for honing my love of za.

I've lived in the Washington, DC area for nearly 25 years now. Over those years, I've been able to find reasonably good bagels (although there's still no match for those you can get in NYC), good Chinese food and Italian food to rival what I remember from New Jersey. But for years I've struggled to find pizza comparable to New Jersey and New York's finest, and I've found some real pretenders along the way.

And then, a few years ago, friends found a restaurant about 25 minutes from our house called Ciro's NY Pizza, and I was home. The crust, the sauce, the grease, the sausage—everything is just like I remember it, and I don't have to deal with the NJ Turnpike or the traffic in Delaware to get it! (Of course, we limit ourselves to a visit every 4-6 weeks or it would be very, very dangerous!)

Luckily, we had some pizza tonight, or I would be hungrier than I am just writing about it!