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Aurora Borealis Rotaract
ROTARACT CLUB OF INTERIOR ALASKA
PO BOX 84919 FAIRBANKS, AK 99708
Pizza tasters give slices of opinion
By Nancy Tarnai
For the News-Miner
Sure I could have taste-tested a variety of pizzas and informed readers about my opinions, but in the interest of fairness (and fun), I decided to call the real experts.
Who better to judge pizza than college students or recent college grads?
So on a Thursday night I called every locally owned pizza joint I could think of and invited three Rotaract (sort of a junior Rotary Club) members to join my family for a pizza party. The willing subjects showed up hungry - a good thing, since my pizza-tasting affair offered eight tables of enticing pizza pies.
Rebecca Kyle, Faith Henry and Matthew Pecsok dove right into a chicken pizza from Big Al's. There were moans of satisfaction. I had arranged the room and pizza boxes so that most of the restaurants were anonymous and asked the young people to write down their comments about each selection.
They took their job so seriously that the room fell hushed as the three made their rounds. When I interrupted the peace to ask if anyone wanted water or soda pop I was met with dead silence.
Finally they warmed up and relaxed. I told them we were not there to pick the "best" pizza but rather to give opinions about each one. I overheard some interesting comments, such as, "This rocks my world" and "What a cheese explosion" and "Dumpster pizza!"
They all agreed that the order in which they tried the pizzas seemed to matter (much like a wine tasting when after a while the tastes blur) and the crust is vital to the pizza experience. "The crust is more important than I thought," Henry commented.
As much variety as I found when scouting for pizzas I was surprised to not locate any alternative crusts - no wheat, no spelt, nothing but white, flour crust in Fairbanks.
Following are the pizzas I bought and a few select comments:
Hawaiian pizza from Boston's ($17.45 for a medium):
"I'm not a ham-and-pineapple persona and am hesitant to taste. The crust looks very flat and hard, not happy, like cardboard." - Kyle
"A great choice on a first date. Cheesy but not stringy. The biggest Canadian bacon slices ever. The pineapple looks funny but has a good taste. The crust tastes awesome." - Henry
"Interesting specialty pizza, a nice sweet flavor. Definitely not for everyone." - Pecsok
to be continued....
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