Rant #3,614: No Anchovies Please

I just discovered that this week is National Pizza Week.

I guess you celebrate by getting a pie at your local pizza parlor ... but not at those national chains like Domino's ... which is sacrilege to begin with.

Over the past 60 years, pizza has become our collective national food obsession.

Everyone loves pizza, and the variations are endless. Me, I like mine traditional, or with meatball as the topping.

And you just know that any neighborhood pizza place has to be infinitely better than what you can get at the national places, in particular in the state that is the true home of the best pizza in the United States--

New York.

There is no better pizza than New York pizza, and the crust and the cheese--and the water--make New York City pizza, in particular, the best pizza that there is.

Here on Long Island, the pizza isn't as good as what you can get in the city, but it is, in my estimation, just a notch below what you can get in the five boroughs.

Pizza is sort of like bagels--

You can get them anywhere, but the original ethnicity of these foods make New York the true mecca of both of them.

And the national chains, for each, simply cannot compare with what the local.places put out.

I remember vividly the first time I ever had pizza

It must have been 1962 or so, and my uncle--my mother's brother--took me into Greenwich Village, which, at the time, was one of the few places you could get pizza in New York City.

He bought me my first slice, and that was the beginning of a more than 60-year love affair with pizza.

This infatuation continued during my adolescence, as when we lived in Rochdale Village, South Jamaica, Queens, New York, the first mall had absolutely the best pizza I ever ate, at King George Pizza.

If I remember correctly, you could get two slices and a soda for 75 cents ... and garlic knots were free!

How times have changed ... we found a pretty good pizza place near where we live, and the pizzas there are about $20 apiece!

Sometimes, I make pizza at home, using pre-made Boboli for the crust and putting on top whatever I want.

It is OK in a pinch, but you have to get your pizza from a real pizza parlor to get real pizza.

So happy National Pizza Week to everyone, and I wish that a nice slice of New York pizza finds its way onto your plate sometime this week.

Yes, that's a real slice of life, for sure!