Local Pizza

I’m lucky. I live in small town West Virginia and a half a mile from a glorious, honest to God Italian pizza parlor, Larobi’s Pizza. The only Italian place this side of Ona that’s not a chain. Larobi’s takes cash and they don’t deliver. Their dining room is almost as good as their drive through. I lost a mirror in that drive through last time I got pizza there.  It might take an hour to get one of their pizzas too. They don’t believe in convenient or fast. They believe in greatness. They are always “covered up,” like you say when folks are really busy. 

For me, pineapple, bacon, and pepperoni is the only way to go with a Larobi’s pizza, unless I want the Grand Garbage Pie, no anchovies. They have a process of throwing handfuls of everything they have, everything, and it magically ricochets and distributes stuff  on top of the dough in perfect formation. They don’t count out seven pepperonis like popular chain pizza places. If the pie doesn’t weigh at least ten pounds, it’s not done right. I do pick off the banana peppers, and like I said, anchovies are unnecessary. 

Gino’s was the only pizza that we ever got at home because Dad knew the guy that grew the state’s most famous pizza parlors from land grant deals and became a millionaire by collecting old cooking oil from restaurants, disposing of it, and barbering with dad.  Dad never said what he did with the oil. I always wondered if that’s why Gino’s pizza was so greasy. I was a kid, I made weird connections, what can I say? I do have a soft spot for Gino’s, even though it ain’t Larobi’s…they’re the only real deal south of Bridgeport. Pizza gets better as you go north. 

I don’t get pizza unless my boys come home. I don’t do a  lot of things since the kids are gone. Movie and pizza nights are a casualty of their absence. I am not the same  person I was when they lived here. If I had a pizza and movie night now, I’d swell up like a balloon and eat pizza for three days. Ordering and cooking habits are hard to break. I still can’t cook or order pizza in small quantities, an unfortunate symptom of the empty nest.