As you may know, I was on vacation last week. I barely looked at the web. And that, ladies and gents, was AWESOME. But it also means I missed a lot of pizza news. This link dump is, therefore, loooong and may contain things you've seen already. Deal with it. —The Mgmt.
Video: Albert Grande, on a pizza tour of the East Coast, finds "the next rising star of pizza" (above) in Stefan Ambrosch. [Pizza Therapy]
Movies: Bruce Willis films a motion picture at Brooklyn's legendary L&B Spumoni Gardens. [Pizza Therapy]
Celebs and Slices: Blake Lively (Gossip Girl) at Bleecker Street Pizza; Emeril Lagasse at Otto. [Grub Street]
Music: The duo Das Racist honors(?) those odd combination Pizza Hut–Taco Bell locations. [BrandFreak]
Katy Perry Naked [SFW]: The pop star in the bathtub with a strategically placed pizza. Doesn't look half bad, either. The pizza, mind you, the pizza! [EMD]
Peter Reinhart's Pizza Class: Cary Steiner talks about his experience learning from the baking and pizza master. [Passion-4-Pizza]
Domino's: Not much news here but for the fact that the chain's Pizza Tracker is now embeddable in Facebook. Everything else is old hat. [Gizmodo]
Pizza Hut: The chain's summer "twintern" posted her first message on Twitter on Thursday. [@pizzahut via NRN]
Pizza Hut: Not changing name to "The Hut." Only being used in some marketing efforts, says chain's chief marketing officer. [NRN]
Reprehensible: Illinois man gets 81 years for murdering delivery driver with hammer. WTF? [cbs2chicago.com]
More links ahead: Pizza reviews from around the country, after the jump.
Papa John's: An analysis of Papa John's new webcam-enabled coupon-delivery system (above) finds it clever yet frustrating. [StorefrontBacktalk]
Back to Pizza Delivery: Welsh Domino's driver Jamie Pugh voted off Britain's Got Talent. [Broadway World]
"Operation Pizza Surge": Uno Chicago Grill to deliver more than 25,000 pies to troops in Iraq, Afghanistan for July 4. [Pizza Marketplace]
Pizza Executive Summit: Time running out to attend this industry event. "By invitation only." Whoa, high class. [Pizza Marketplace]
Florida: Tucci's is the best coal-oven joint in Boca Raton. [worstpizza.com]
Los Angeles: JAB reviews Pazzo Pizzeria, gives it 3 of 5 slices. "In the end it is just pizza. I know that sounds jaded, but thats the truth." [LA Pizza]
Milwaukee > Topper's: Regional chain growing fast by targeting underserved demographic—18- to 24-year-olds. [Journal Sentinel]
@soundbitesnyc: Until your tweet, no, I had not heard Personal & the Pizzas. Sounds very Ramones-ish, which isn't surprising, given that their MySpace page lists the Ramones as an influence. As fans, they must be aware of the Joey Ramone pizza connection. After the jump, a video of the band playing "I Don't Wanna Be No Personal Pizza."
The blog Food Network Humor reacts to Alan Richman's pizza list in GQ, focusing on No. 12 Frank Pepe's:
Here’s the thing: I live in Connecticut. I’ve waited in the lines. I’ve feasted on the various “world famous” pizza pies. And I’ve left disappointed, every time. Sure the place is filled with history, and yes, they cook in a coal oven, but so what? The result is a tired, dated restaurant and pizzas that are so chewy you can hardly swallow them. The truth is, Pepe’s serves the worst pizza I have ever eaten in my life (and I’ve eaten some pretty bad pizza all over the world).
"It doesn't even bend," Jillian Madison says, and offers the video above.
In another knock-your-socks-off moment on Britain's Got Talent, part-time pizza delivery driver Jamie Pugh conquered stage fright to floor the audience and judges with his rendition of "Bring Him Home" from Les Miserables.
Prior to Saturday night's performance the story on Pugh was that he had a crippling case of stage fright. The 37-year-old from Blackwood, Wales, auditioned for last season's show but couldn't muster the courage to even sing for a producer. But Wales Online reports that that's not even the half of it.
Pugh's triumphant performance (judge Simon Cowell even seems to almost well up a bit at 4:47) is all the more poignant after the paper revealed that Pugh's life all but fell apart ten years ago when his wife died of a brain tumor—a fact that he kept from everyone, including the judges, because he didn't want a sympathy vote. But as you can see in the video here (after the jump), Pugh easily made it to the next round on his own. According to Wales Online, "Bookies installed him as the main rival to Scottish spinster Susan Boyle for the show’s £100,000 prize and a spot before the Queen at the Royal Variety Show."
Oh, and you're probably wondering—what pizzeria does Jamie Pugh work for? Domino's, according to this bit in the Sun.
Now this is a development in pizza gadgetry I can get behind. Seriously.
Green-friendly packaging design firm ECO Inc. has come up with the Greenbox.
The lid is perforated into four sections that can be used as plates. Tear off a couple triangular strips from the sides of the remaining bottom and fold along the score, and you've got a half-sized rectangular leftovers box.
[Video of the box in action, and why it might not actually be recyclable, after the jump.]
If you missed Pizza: The Movie last week on the Documentary Channel—or, if you're like me and don't have the channel—the folks there have put the movie online in its entirety. Clocking in at more than an hour, it's a long one. So grab some slices, sit back, and enjoy.
A warning: If you're looking for pizza history or some really in-depth info about the most-renown names in the pizza world, there's only a little bit of that in this doc (quick interviews with Dom DeMarco, Chris Bianco, and the late Ed LaDou). It focuses mainly on the world of competitive pizza-tossing.
Gary Vaynerchuk, founder of Wine Library TV and now social-media consultant, gives his take on Domino's reaction to the two now-infamous North Carolina asshats.
Last night, at 7:26 p.m., Consumerist posted videos that some dumbass Domino's employees had taken showing one of them doing disgusting things with food that was presumably sent out to customers—putting banana peppers up his nose and then on a sandwich, sneezing on cheesy bread.
Consumerist readers, using the YouTube account handle and the few identifiable details they could see in the videos, tracked down the Domino's location this occurred in and alerted Domino's corporate. By 10:26 a.m. this morning came word from Domino's HQ that the two asshats had been fired. Good riddance.
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