Although most of my career was spent at the park (with the nickname Raven Maven), for a handful of years in the late ’80s I was known as The Big Cheese.

When I told park peers that I’d formerly served as editor of Pizza Today magazine, I’m not sure they believed me. They’d give me that side-eye thing. With a grin and a shrug, I’d make a mental note to bring an issue in someday as proof.

Like this one:

Actually, I think this next cover was my favorite. Talking our publisher (may he rest in peace) into an American Gothic re-make took a bit, but we all loved it in the end:

Much like the running joke that I had no business working for an amusement park (I’m just not a park/ride person), there was really no reason for me to be editor of a pizza magazine.

Because I don’t much care for the stuff.

To be fair, my childhood experience with the pie was limited to an occasional Chef Boyardee Pizza Kit.

Remember those?

The kit included a bag with flour/yeast mix, a can o’ sauce, a tiny amount of mozzarella cheese, and a tin of Parmesan. Good heavens: I just checked – apparently if you’d got three bucks to spare, pizza kits are still on the market.

Just remember: You get what you pay for.

An aside: No way! When I googled Chef Boyardee to make sure I spelled it correctly, the top video recommendation was a goof-ball tutorial. Absentmindedly I thought, “Huh. That looks like Chad’s smile.”

Indeed it is! Chad is the morning guy from WBKR radio. A nicer, funnier fellow you’ll never find.

Back to the Pizza Today job offer: Writing is fun and telling stories about pizza makers sounded like a blast. Plus the office was 10 minutes from home. So I gave it a try.

It didn’t take long to realize that this was a serious gig.

“Pizza Today is the bible of the industry – we read every page and design our business around it!”

Honestly, I’d hear that praise every couple of days from hard-working pizza makers around the world (this was back when people phoned in or wrote letters to provide feedback). It took every ounce of self control for me not to respond with, “Oh, no – please don’t say that! I’m really just a beginner.”

It made me work harder, though, to make sure each issue was full of solid ideas, advice, and success stories.

I even took a class:

We also put on a giant Pizza Expo each year:

Wearing that name badge while walking the show floor, there was no hiding. “Editor? Editor! Hey, you’ve got to try this!” And that was how I sampled more types of pizza, crust, sauce, cheese, and toppings than I could possibly list.

It was … amazing.

I learned a trick from another foodservice editor early on: Take a bite so you can chat with the exhibitor about their delicious product (Dole pineapple, for example) and then walk around the corner to a trash can and discreetly toss the rest. Otherwise, you’d be impossibly full just 30 minutes in – and the day was incredibly long.

Are you hoping for some name dropping? Okay, here goes: Indeed, I met a few famous folks while editor:

• Julia Child
• Wolfgang Puck
• Paul Prudhomme
• and the inimitable Justin Wilson (admittedly, my favorite, as he took us to lunch and regaled us with stories)
• Industry pals included Evelyne Slomon, Pat Bruno Jr., plus Dan and Linda Bacin from Chicago

I learned more about pizza and pizza people as we put each issue (sometimes as many as 200 pages long) to bed, month after month. And my appreciation for pizza increased exponentially.

Then one day … USA Today called.

They’d heard about the upcoming Pizza Expo and wanted a few comments. And a photo.

I’ve never been one to run toward a camera (unless it’s to take photos of others), so I offered our publisher, Gerry, for the photo session. He’d started the magazine after all, so it seemed only fair.

But the assignment was to interview and photograph the editor. Me.

I was heading out of town, though, to Savannah for the IFEC conference.

So they followed me there.

IFEC stands for International Foodservice Editors Council. The conference was all about food. It went like this: We ate a meal. Then we talked about food. And then we ate more food. Next, we’d get up and stretch, get on a motorcoach, and head to a local restaurant so we could eat more food.

There were two types of people at the conference: foodservice editors and publicists. We wanted stories and they wanted us to write about their lamb, seafood, cheese, fresh vegetables, oatmeal, potatoes, coffee, honey, and endless other foods. Oh, and prunes. Apparently it was the responsibility of the host hotel’s chef to create a dish for us out of the prunes provided by one of the sponsors.

You see, the hotel’s chef had the challenge of putting together menus for us based on the various food sponsorships. I hope it was fun for the kitchen staff; they did a great job of creating feast after delectable feast for us.

And it was toward the end of one of these meals when someone tapped me on the shoulder and asked me to follow him to a private room, where the photographer from USA Today had already set up.

“Oh, and we’ve got a bunch of pizzas just about ready to come out of the oven!”

Oh, good! Maybe they changed their mind and just wanted photos of the pretty pizzas.

No such luck. It was worse.

Much worse.

The photographer showed me his assignment sheet: Photo of editor, eating pizza.

He explained I needed to hold up a slice of pizza, point down, so it was parallel to my head. Next I should lean in and take a bite from the tip and pull back slightly, making sure the cheese stretched at least a few inches between the slice and my mouth.

Pizza porn.

I tried. I really tried. It was tremendously embarrassing, as a few members of the kitchen staff lingered, making sure the pizza supply didn’t dwindle. And Gerry was there, too. At one point, he tried to scoot his chair into the shot, but the photographer awkwardly instructed him to move away. I wanted to scream, “But it’s HIS magazine! And I’m starting to feel really, really nauseous …”

Good thing the room was private, because the kitchen staff brought in a spit tub. Just what it sounds like:
Step 1 Take a bite of pizza and stretch – but don’t break the cheese.
Step 2 Hold perfectly still as the camera clicks.
Step 3 Try to look pleasant. (USA Today has millions of readers.)
Step 4 When the photographer says so, spit the nibble of pizza into the tub, drop in the rest of the slice, and get ready to take another bite, with a fresh slice, on cue.

I think it took about 90 minutes to satisfy the photographer.

Here’s what went to press:

What? No pizza porn shot? Nope. As I could have told them from the very start, the photos didn’t exactly match what the editor had in mind.

Instead, a different photographer came to our offices in Santa Claus the next week and all I had to do was pose with a pie. Click. Done.

Something to think about: Middle-son John may owe his very life to Pizza Today magazine. In 1990, Gerry bought a shuttered department store in New Albany, on the Indiana side of Louisville, with plans to convert it to corporate offices for Pizza Today.

The thought of an hour commute (each way) added to my already long days (telecommuting was not yet truly viable), plus driving into the sun both ways, made the decision easy.

“Honey? Maybe it’s time for another baby …”

Turns out, it was. Eight and a half months later, I finished up my final issue and headed home to nest. John was born two weeks later.

And yes, he loves pizza.

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