The comic book chick

Archive for October, 2011

Most Rhode Islanders agree with the premise that pizza is good. Pizza stretches into quite a polarized topic when the question posed is, “What is good pizza?” Some salivate over Roman pizza, New York style- hand tossed, brick-oven, foldable pizza with thin, stretchy, and doughy crust lightly covered with tomatoes or a tomato-based sauce and cheese. The exchange at Chowhound, a local web forum, sites Pier Pizza as one of the best pizzerias serving authentic style New York pizza on Rhody’s turf. Every pizza is hand tossed and cooked on brick in an oven, no pans and no oils. Their six locations facilitate fast finger food foraging amongst Rhode Islanders and state bound road warriors–152 Gansett Ave., Cranston; 13 Pier Marketplace, Narragansett; 6667 Post Rd., North Kingstown; 328 Main St., Wakefield; 2763 Post Rd., Warwick; 45 Nooseneck Hill Rd., West Greenwich.

As the pizza turns, there are thickheaded tomato pie politicos who crave Sicilian-style pizza-thick crusted pizza topped with tomato sauce, cheese, and optional toppings. Caserta Pizza (Rhody natives possessively call it Caserta’s), is located at 121 Spruce St., Providence, in the confines of Federal Hill, once an Italian enclave in the capital city. Caserta’s may be the only local pizzeria where cheese is considered an additional topping. That mentioned, there are four toppings to choose from-cheese, pepperoni, mushrooms, and olives. I can attest that their crust is thick and chewy, one of my benchmarks for a good pizza. Their toppings go all the way to the edge and there’s plenty of sauce.

A pizza for every palette, Rhode Island offers a betwixt and between version. Lazio style pizza- a somewhat thin crust with the distinction of crispness not unlike that of an English muffin, can be enjoyed at Twin’s Pizza, 1000 Mineral Spring Ave., North Providence. A plethora of toppings to choose from include– pepperoni, mushrooms, olives, peppers, anchovies, onions, salami, linguica, meatball, Italian sausage, eggplant, bacon, sliced tomatoes, ham, jalapeno, and grilled chicken. In my estimation, Twin’s pizza deserves high praise for its tasty sauce and fresh crisp dough. It’s one of the best pizzas Rhode Island has to offer.

Roman, Sicilian, or Lazio style-the thick and thin of pizza politics is amore to Rhode Islanders. Tomato tales and crusty conclusions should encourage out-of-towners to hit the sauce by trying our cutting edge pizzerias.

Do you want to know how to write a romance novel? Is it your life’s desire to see your name of the cover of a best-selling historical romance in your local bookstore? Or maybe you are more interested in the contemporary “chick lit” type of novel.

It’s a great time to get started on your book. People are looking for something to take their minds off of their troubles, and a great romance is certainly something that would accomplish this. Here are a few tips for you.

1. Your hero and heroine should have something in common besides chemistry. If not, your story won’t be believable. They don’t have to love everything the same but give them some common interests to build on.

2. Your heroine does not need to be the most beautiful person in appearance. She can have a few flaws which will make her more believable. Same goes for your hero. Don’t make them perfect.

3. You need to know a lot about your characters before you begin your novel. Make up a questionnaire on each character and answer all the questions, then keep it handy. You don’t want to refer to your character as having blue eyes in one chapter and brown eyes later on in the book.

4. Don’t write about something you haven’t researched, whether it is a town or a pet that your hero owns or a purse of piece of clothing. If you are unsure of the specifics, don’t make things up. The reader will immediately suspend disbelief and probably toss your book aside in disgust.

5. Decide who you are going to try and publish your book with and get a tip sheet from them for their romance novel line. This way you won’t have to do a lot of rewriting later when you realize you’ve written your novel 100 pages too long or short.