My earliest memories of pizza are from my childhood, when my friends and I would haunt our favourite Global Bakery, order a small pizza, eat a slice each and go to our evening tutions.
When one of our friends had their birthday, we would celebrate with a pizza along with 200 ml each of Coca Cola or our desi favourite, Thumbs Up. Those were the best days, of no worries and screen-free childhood!
The nearby, Country Oven was somehow unsuccessful. Everyone preferred the Global Bakery.
Anyway, schooling was the time my love for pizza started.
Once I progressed to college, getting pizza delivered became a routine. Mid Land Bakery got most of our business. These orders grew manifold, once I began earning.
I miss those days when the Technical Division team girls had a fun lunch at the Pizza Hut and ate to our hearts content.
After marriage, when Mr.Bee and I, made Charlotte our new home, pizza had been the go-to lunch or dinner, during our lazy days.
Even though I have been in love with the Pizza, this post is not about me!
I remember my first ever pizza in Charlotte, which had nothing but mushrooms as the topping. (I hated the Mellow Mushrooms pizza, by the way. I am not a fan of mushrooms, even though they are one of the rare sources of protein for vegetarians.)
Then came the particularly soft Papa John’s pizza, who knew my heart and always sent extra pickles for this desi girl, Queen Bee! I could savour their soft pizza, thanks only to their pickles.
Then there was Vapiano Pizza, which had the best ambience and was the true Italian pizza, but I felt no connection! (Sadly, it was shut down during Covid lockdown and now the new pizzeria in it’s place is, the Bella Ciao)
The Pizza Hut pizza was good too, but could hardly conquer my taste buds.
The Fuel Pizzeria’s Garden Fresh Pizza with my all time favourite topping of Basil had me salivating like never before. Mr.Bee loved to have a Margarita Cheese Pizza. At Fuel, we ordered half and half, one half with my choice of toppings and the other half with three kinds of cheese for Mr.Bee. Sweet deal! The added advantage was of the ambience, which was friendly, but not too friendly.
Incidentally, the FUEL pizzeria was close to Mr.Bee’s office and that added to the charm. I also loved their Garlic Knots, which were my “soul” food, they made my soul happy!
The day we landed in Charlotte, we had pizza from Mellow Mushrooms, Mr.Bee got negative marks for this choice of pizza! He didn’t know about my aversion to mushrooms. To compensate, he took me to the Fuel pizzeria for dinner and that saved his neck!
Team lunches and dinners for Mr.Bee always meant Pizza, he must have eaten more than twice of my share of pizzas, but still, this post is not about him either!
During the lockdown, the one person who missed pizza was none other than GBee. Yes, this post is about my elder munchkin and his love for the Pizza.
Thanks to lockdown and the after effects of it, we stopped eating out for a while. To satiate our demanding taste buds, we even made a pizza at home, with the head chef/ baker being Mr.Bee and the sous chef / baker being me!
Once GBee saw that we were making him a pizza, he was excited and I don’t remember how we made him sit for full 45 minutes, till it was done.
He was so excited, he rushed outside to the main gate, as soon as he heard the gate open. He shouted at the top of his voice about pizza being made at home. Sadly, the visitors were confused and were in too deep a conversation to even respond to the kiddo.
GBee sharing his happiness with random strangers!
Since we didn’t have an oven good enough to bake a sinful pizza, we made it with desi jugaad. That weekend had been memorable.
Before and After – Homemade pizza
Credit goes to Mr.Bee for the tasty pizza. Guess who loved it the most? GBee.
Although, he picked out every piece of vegetables on the pizza and piled it onto my plate, he still loved it! If only he ate it with all the vegetables, he would have been a bigger pizza fan!
Some day I would love to go to Italy and try the pizza there, probably made by a nonna . Does anyone have similar dream?
P.S :
1. Down the line, when we wanted to feed GBee to some sandwiches, we would bluff that they were just mini-pizza and he would believe us and eat them. Now, he is old enough to recognize the bluffs.
2. KBee, surprisingly doesn’t like pizza. We always order garlic bread for him to eat. Our choice of pizzeria in Hyderabad is the Pompeii. (The pizza is to die for!)
3. Before our flight to India, when we were finally returning home, Mr.Bee and I ate at the Fuel Pizza, one last time.
