Myke’s Pizza – Mesa, Arizona

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…

Perfect Pear Bistro – Tempe, Arizona

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…