Pizza

RE THE EX-COP who shot and killed a robber who tried to hold him up as he tried to deliver a pizza. Thank you for getting rid of a bad guy who has been in and out of jail and had cost us taxpayers a great deal of money. No thanks to his parents or single parent who didn't do a good job of raising him to be a lawful citizen. Robert F. Schaffer, Philadelphia

The Italian government is being asked to define pizza. Italy's Green Party, alarmed over numerous food places that now say they are selling pizza, wants laws to establish what constitutes a proper Italian pizza. The Greens believe that none of the coffee bars, American-type hamburger joints, railway-station canteens, grand hotels, tourist-site vendors and others that sell what is labeled pizza actually seems to be making a pizza. The Greens believe that there is no evidence of the pungent odor of a wood- burning oven, in which a proper pizza must be cooked, according to Neapolitan tradition.

What's to eat: Wood-fired, bubble-crusted, 11-inch pizzas - a steal at $9 or less. These pies are arguably the best in town. Find it: 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Monday at 440 N. Broad St.; Tuesdays and Thursdays at the northeast corner of 33rd and Arch; Wednesdays and Fridays at LOVE Park. Look for: A red-and-white trailer hitched to a black F-150. Online: www.pitrucopizza.com . Twitter: @PitrucoPizza. Call ahead : 484-602-5454. Around for : Four months.

If there's one thing we know at the Daily News, it's pizza. Specifically, free pizza. So we tossed a couple pies on the ol' expense account to see what Joe Stanfa is serving up at his new - and rather affordable - restaurant in Grays Ferry. Our critics, who were guaranteed anonymity, gave the pizza mixed reviews. But that doesn't mean we won't return to try the chicken cutlet with roasted peppers, broccoli rabe and sharp provolone. Reporter #1: "This pizza is like the button men of old, before wiseguys tried to become celebrities - solid but not flashy.

Six West Philadelphia residents required hospital treatment last night after eating a homemade pizza apparently laced with a hallucinogenic drug, police said. All six were taken to Lankenau Hospital, where they were treated for a toxic reaction to an unknown substance. A doctor at the hospital told police the substance probably was a hallucinogenic. Two of the victims were admitted to Lankenau in stable condition. They are Maria Iannone, 88, of 65th Street near Callowhill, and Michael Ermilio, 56, who lives across the street from Iannone, police said.

There's a reason that there are six Santucci's in the Northeast: The crust is square, deep, and crispy, the tomato sauce is sharp. But they are known for causing pizza mayhem by putting a layer of melted mozzarella beneath the sauce, not the other, expected, way around. Now Santucci's has opened a location in Bella Vista, and it couldn't be more welcome. It's the type of normal, untrendy, sit-down restaurant that makes a neighborhood complete. Here, the non-pizza offerings are stepped up - there's an antipasto board, and hoagie rolls are teeming with slow-cooked meats such as short ribs with wild mushrooms and porchetta.

Good pizza is a simple matter. Start with fresh ingredients. Strike a proper balance among crust, cheese, oil and sauce. Cook in an oven that's hot enough. Yet Philadelphia and the nation are glutted with bad pizza. We're drowning in it. Choking on it. Smothered by it. Pizza that's pre-fab. Reheated. Drenched in oil or buried in cheese. Yellow cheese. Beige cheese. Fake cheese. Crust that's too thick. Too heavy. Too old. Sauce that's canned. Too processed. Too cheap. Such pizzas are consumed by the tens of thousands every day in Philadelphia.

After serving four generations of a single family at the same Port Richmond location for 72 years, the old brick oven at Tacconelli's Pizzeria has been forced into retirement. "It was a wreck. If I called the doctor for the oven, he would have put it in intensive care," explained Tacconelli's patriarch pizza baker, Vincent Sr. Contractors are hitting the bricks on Tacconelli's stalwart old oven to make way for a new one to carry the family's brick-baking approach to pizza into the 21st century.

Basketball is first on Tyree's fun agenda - and he's earned a trophy that he will be glad to show anyone in sight. Tyree has a long list of activities that he enjoys. Riding a scooter, playing video games, and watching magic shows on television are among his favorites. He's also talented at drawing, and likes to look at illustrations in magazines and copy them. Doing any of these is even better when followed by a delicious cheese pizza. Tyree, 11, has a reputation for having a sweet disposition, despite neglect and abuse in his background.

With summer coming, Vinnie & Scalia's California Pizza is an exceptionally attractive place for fashionably light dining. Open only six weeks, this Cherry Hill spot exuberantly offers imaginative cuisine that will tickle your palate as well as caress the eye. The menu offers exotic boutique pizzas, excellent salads and marvelous pastas. The office-complex restaurant formerly was the site of two other restaurants, Down Under and H. A. Winston's. Thankfully, the place has been repainted and brightened in typical California-Spartan fashion.

WASHINGTON - The notion that Congress could consider pizza a vegetable may be just too much to digest. The SLICE Act, for School Lunch Improvements for Children's Education, has been introduced in response to congressional action last fall ensuring that two tablespoons of tomato paste slathered on pizza could continue to be classified as a full vegetable serving in the federal school lunch program. "Pizza certainly has its place in school meals, but equating it with broccoli, carrots and celery seriously undermines this nation's efforts to support children's health and their ability to learn because of better school nutrition," Rep. Jared Polis (D., Colo.)

Company description: Savor the combination of creamy ranch sauce, sliced chicken strips, crispy bacon, fresh sliced onions and tangy buffalo sauce. Chain: Papa John's. Calories: Oy. We ordered ours without the bacon and onions (on Buffalo Chicken Pizza?) but order it the Papa John's way and one slice of this large pizza has 370 calories, 160 of which come from fat. There are 17 grams of fat (6 of which are saturated), 39 grams of carbs, 15 grams of protein and only 1 gram of fiber.

Wood-fired oven by wood-fired oven, the city's pizza scene is heating up. When American-raised Antimo DiMeo, 20, expressed interest in following his Neapolitan-born father, Pino, 43, in the pizza business, the son insisted he wanted to cook in the old-country way, with a wood-fired oven. (Pino's parlors use conventional gas ovens.) Then the father and son said they performed a taste test at their parlor in downtown Wilmington: They made batches of dough with Wilmington tap water and with bottled water from Naples.

IT IS A JOKE that you had "I Want My Dough" as your cover story. I feel no pity for this pizza-store owner. On large orders over $50, it is his job to get a callback number to maybe confirm the order. Doesn't a red flag go up when order after order comes in with a blocked number? The $1,200 you are seeking to get back is a misleading number because that is the net profit you would have made off these orders. In reality you are probably out $250 in food products. It is not our city detectives' job to track down a pizza-store prankster.

THREE defendants accused of killing a pizza-deliveryman after luring him to a vacant rowhouse in Southwest Philadelphia waived their rights to preliminary hearings yesterday and were ordered held for trial. A fourth defendant in the case, Xylaca Devlin, 18, of Southwest Philadelphia, waived her preliminary hearing Jan. 25 and was held on murder and related charges. Prosecutors and defense attorneys now can begin preparing for the joint trial of Devlin and her co-defendants: Keyona Jones, 18, of Camden County; and Rashad Cheeseboro, 23, and Michael Covington, 21, both of Southwest Philadelphia.

What a long, strange trip it's been for Nomad Pizza Co. The onetime wood-fired mobile pizzeria - run from a 1949 REO Speed Wagon that co-owner Stalin Bedon won on eBay - put down roots nearly three years ago with its first shop in Hopewell, N.J. All sorts of awards followed. Then came a call from Philadelphia. You need to open a Nomad here. And so Friday, just off South Street, Bedon and business partner Tom Grim mark the debut of Nomad Pizza Co. (611 S. Seventh St., 215-238-0900)

Three defendants accused of killing a pizza-deliveryman after luring him to a vacant rowhouse in Southwest Philadelphia waived their rights to preliminary hearings Wednesday and were ordered held for trial. A fourth defendant in the case, Xylaca Devlin, 18, of Southwest Philadelphia, waived her preliminary hearing Jan. 25 and was held on murder and related charges. Prosecutors and defense attorneys now can begin preparing for the joint trial of Devlin and her co-defendants: Keyona Jones, 18, of Camden County; Rashad Cheeseboro, 23, and Michael Covington, 21, both of Southwest Philadelphia.

What's to eat: Wood-fired, bubble-crusted, 11-inch pizzas - a steal at $9 or less. These pies are arguably the best in town. Find it: 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Monday at 440 N. Broad St.; Tuesdays and Thursdays at the northeast corner of 33rd and Arch; Wednesdays and Fridays at LOVE Park. Look for: A red-and-white trailer hitched to a black F-150. Online: www.pitrucopizza.com . Twitter: @PitrucoPizza. Call ahead : 484-602-5454. Around for : Four months.

If there's one thing we know at the Daily News, it's pizza. Specifically, free pizza. So we tossed a couple pies on the ol' expense account to see what Joe Stanfa is serving up at his new - and rather affordable - restaurant in Grays Ferry. Our critics, who were guaranteed anonymity, gave the pizza mixed reviews. But that doesn't mean we won't return to try the chicken cutlet with roasted peppers, broccoli rabe and sharp provolone. Reporter #1: "This pizza is like the button men of old, before wiseguys tried to become celebrities - solid but not flashy.

An excerpt from the blog "My Daughter's Kitchen." There is nothing more universally loved than fresh-from-the-oven, homemade pizza. It appeals to adults and children alike; it can accommodate meat-eaters and vegetarians; it never fails to impress. And, once you get the oven hot, you can keep the pizzas coming every 10 minutes! Special requests of more cheese or no onions, for once, are not the least bit annoying.