Happy Lunar New Year to any and all Slice readers who celebrate it! We were happy to find this pizza-related story so as to make mention of this auspicious day. Seems that, in Thailand, where there's a large ethnic Chinese population, the avian flu scare has prompted celebrants to leave pizza instead of chicken at temple altars [via the Times]. That's a deviation from tradition that we stand fully behind, though we can't for the life of us figure out why pizza would be so popular with ethnic Chinese in Thailand that it would warrant an altar offering.If you're thinking... More

From the Land Down Under, in a town called Port Macquarie to be exact, residents binge-ate enough pizza in one day to set a record. From the Port Macquarie News:Port Macquarie has proven itself the most pizza-lovin' town in Australia. Forget about who can run fastest, jump highest or throw furthest because Port Macquarie residents and visitors can eat more pizza in one day than any other town in Australia.Now that's an achievement.An achievement ... yeah. Uh, we couldn't say it any better... More

Mr. Feldman's photo of the Italian pizzaman in Stockholm prompted me to dig through my own photo archives for this picture. Taken in Kurashiki-shi, Japan, during my latest visit with a longtime friend who now lives there, it shows Mr. Sekizen Kohara at the prep table in his shop, La Cenetta. Pizza in Japan actually isn't that hard to find (click the Pizza Royalhat image at right for a menu from a Japanese pizzeria). But good pizza is. Sekizen's pie falls squarely in the former camp, and it's what makes his shop popular with Western ex-pats living in the area... More

Ian Feldman, a reader in Stockholm, sends us a photo he took while a student of photography. This is a picture, Ian says, "taken on 15th Oct 1971 of Salvatore Versace, a baker in a fancy pizzeria called Piazza Opera, at Gustav Adolfs Torg in Stockholm, Sweden. Salvatore doesn't live here any more, so, apparently, he hasn't followed the path taken by many a cook here back in those days who bought up their outlets and became restaurant mini-moguls. Nowadays pizza parlors here are the domain of folks of Middle-Eastern origin, while Italians cater to more lucrative segments of the... More

A man has opened a pizzeria in Baghdad, the New York Times reports in an AP story apparently picked up from the Wall Street Journal. Walid Mahmoud learned his chops working in a family pizzeria in Rome. When the Americans came to town, he cobbled enough cash money together to open a pie joint. "The Wall Street Journal reports on a good day he sells nearly 200 pizzas," the story says. "But orders can drop to a handful depending on terrorist activity." I bet. Not only that, but if Mr. Mahmoud offers delivery, he has to contend with some pretty... More

Israelis in Tel Aviv have cooked what they hope is the world's longest pizza. Channel News Asia reports, "The labour of love included 30 hours of work, 25 cooks, 150 kilos of dough, 50 litres of tomato sauce, 60 kilos of green olives, and 80 kilos of mozzarella cheese." Palestinian spokesmen vowed to retaliate with an even longer pizza.... More

Pizza delievery in Tehran: I would have thought it unlikely. Heck, I didn't even know Iran had pizza. A trip to the movie Crimson Gold might do me some good then. A.O. Scott writes in the New York Times: Mr. Kiarostami, the lion of contemporary Iranian art cinema, and Mr. Panahi, who has established himself with "The White Balloon" and "The Circle" as one of Iran's leading urban filmmakers, set out to explain what drove the robber, a pizza deliveryman and a veteran of the Iran-Iraq war, to his desperate, self-destructive act of violence. The answer is not altogether surprising,... More