No more 'whitehead' pizza for me!

It was nice to see Parade magazine, which is in the Sunday edition of The Parkersburg News and Sentinel, recognize what this old Steubenville, Ohio, guy has known for years ... that DiCarlo's pizza is one of the best in the nation.

DiCarlo's, which was listed in Parade as being Wheeling, W.Va.- based, came to my attention in 1984 when I started working at The Herald-Star in Steubenville. Some of the Italian-heritage gang in the newsroom used to refer to me as a "whitehead" because I hadn't tried DiCarlo's pizza, opting instead for Dominos or Pizza Hut pies when we watched "Star Trek, the Next Generation" and/or "Deep Space Nine" with our then-young daughter.

The gang kept telling me to try DiCarlo's because it was "real" pizza, remining me there were two shops in the Steubenville area: One downtown and one on the main drag into Wintersville, west of Steubenville proper.

Finally the gang "put a gun to my head" and "forced" me to the downtown DiCarlo's ... and the rest is pizza history.

Not only did I fall in love with the pizza, but soon my wife and daughter did also. My daughter liked it so much that after spending her junior year in high school as an exchange student to Denmark, the first thing she wanted upon driving home from the airport was to stop at DiCarlo's to get some "real" pizza. It was the one food, she said, she really missed.

When we moved from Steubenville, we again had to settle for national chain pizza, especially when we lived in Louisiana, which is famous for lots of great food, but not for pizza.

Upon moving back north and taking the job at The News and Sentinel, we were delighted to find a DiCarlo's here, but it soon closed and was replaced by the Home Depot store.

Years went by and then to our delight a DiCarlo's opened on the South Side and we were again rewarded with its tomato-glazed crust, fresh-baked with shredded provolone cheese either spread cold or melted on the pizza. I get the original and my wife gets the melted, but either way it reminds us of Steubenville.

Parade magazine recognized the worth of DiCarlo's and named it fifth -- and the only West Virginia pizza -- in its honorable mentions in the national pizza hall of fame list last Sunday.

The guys at the local DiCarlo's were more than pleased last Sunday noon when we mentioned it to them as we were getting our luncheon treat.

Yep, DiCarlo's is my pizza ... and I'm no longer a "whitehead."