Tag: #1508

ArizonaItalianPizzaRating: N/R (Not Rated)United States

Myke’s Pizza – Mesa, Arizona

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

Americans eat a tremendous amount of pizza. Denizens of the fruited plain consume roughly 3 billion pizzas annually. Per capita that’s about 46 slices or 23 pounds per year, adding up to about 100 acres of pizza daily,  Pepperoni is the favorite topping and Super Bowl Sunday the biggest sales day. Over 90% of the U.S. population eats pizza regularly, making it a staple for any meal. With staggering numbers like that, you might think no country–not even Italy–comes close to competing with the United States for pizza consumption.  Norwegians consume the most pizza per capita globally, averaging around about 25 pounds per person annually. That’s significantly more than Italy or the U.S. According to Food & Wine, the most popular pizza in Arizona is a “meat lovers” pizza.  Perhaps, that’s because pizza paramours across the Grand Canyon State have not discovered Myke’s Pizza in Mesa.  When the season is right, Myke Olsen and his crew don’t hesitate to add in-season fruit to a pie.  Pineapple is old news–no longer new, exciting, or relevant.  Everybody does pineapple pizza…much to the consternation of purists.  In season, Myke’s pies may be graced by such ingredients as fresh sliced peaches.  Myke’s has also…

AmericanArizonaRating: N/R (Not Rated)United States

Perfect Pear Bistro – Tempe, Arizona

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

Growing up Catholic, I probably read more about the gods of Mount Olympus than the catechism which taught about the almighty God worshipped at St. Anthony’s in Peñasco.  I didn’t hold the gods of Greek mythology in reverence.  If anything, I wondered how they could be so peurile and petty.  Though also splenetic and petulent, they were very interesting.  Perhaps indicative of my future gastronomic interests, I was particularly curious about the foods that were so prominent in Greek mythology.  Pears, for example, were sacred to two of the most powerful goddesses: Juno (queen of the gods and marriage) and Aphrodite (goddess of love and beauty.  Pears were also prominent in one of my very favorite books, The Odyssey. Growing up in agrarian Peñasco, we were surrounded by lush trees offering a bounty of cherries, chokecherries, apples, peaches, apricots and more.  The only pear tree I can recall was in our grandfather Max’s front yard.  While the pears were sweet and delicious, we seemed to prefer using them as projectiles to hurl at one another or at offending cows daring to trespass into our yard.  Pears rated rather low in the pantheon of fruits…at least as an edible fruit.  Perhaps…