Pizza

Orchard Market & Cafe 8815 Orchard Tree Lane -- Towson -- 410-339-7700 Zella's Pizzeria 1145 Hollins St. -- West Baltimore -- 410-685-6999 Entrees $7-$11 -- zellaspizzeria.com For less than $12, you can feast on an enormous meatball calzone or a 10-inch pizza topped with ingredients like caramelized onions, artichokes and prosciutto at this new casual restaurant across from Hollins Market. The restaurant's blond wood accents, brightly painted walls and shiny-new stamped tin ceiling make the place particularly welcoming, as does the delicious smell of garlic that greets you at the door.

As I drove north from the Delaware Memorial Bridge, I could feel my "R's" flying out the back vent windows, littering the road under the "Welcome to New Jersey" sign. The preposition "of" instantly changed to a simple "a," and I coulda sworn a buncha superlatives entered my brain, because as I closed my windows, I thought: "I'm gonna freeze if I don't put on a sweata, what is this, Antarctica?" It's what happens whenever I return to the state where I attended college, next to the land where I grew up, Long Island.

Stone Mill Gourmet 2 Go Green Spring Station, 10751 Falls Road, Lutherville -- 410-821-1310 Hours --10 a.m-9 p.m. Monday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Sunday The do-it-yourself craze, so popular in home repairs, has spilled over to carryout food. A prime example of this is Gourmet 2 Go, the new addition to the Stone Mill Bakery operation in Green Spring Station. This stylish dispensary is adjacent to the Stone Mill Cafe, stretching out in a space that once housed the Brooklandville post office.

Two men sought in the New Year's Day pizza-driver shooting and robbery at a Columbia apartment complex were arrested yesterday by FBI agents in North Carolina.Pursuing a tip to the Baltimore area's FBI office and Howard County police, the federal agency's Charlotte Fugitive Task Force arrested the two suspects at a residence there at 4: 20 p.m. yesterday, said Special Agent Peter A. Gulotta, an FBI spokesman in Baltimore.Two employees of Papa John's Pizza in the Harper's Choice Village Center were robbed and one was shot after being sent to the Harpers Forest apartment complex Jan. 1 to deliver an $81.05 order that was placed from a pay phone, according to county police.

The pizza delivery rush usually begins about 4 p.m., just before rush-hour commuters make their slow crawl home and night falls on the suburbs.For delivery drivers, the early hours are the calm before the storm, when running steaming hot pizza pies -- and Chinese food and fried chicken -- goes at breakneck speed until well after midnight.But delivery drivers in Howard County have to contend with something besides bad weather and stingy tippers.Last week, Martha Lunsford, 30, a Papa John's driver, was shot in the jaw at point-blank range in the parking lot of an apartment complex on Turnabout Lane in Columbia's Harper's Choice village after she was robbed of $20.Delivering pizzas has gotten scary, said Jeff Benson, 20, a driver for Domino's Pizza in Columbia.

The pizza delivery rush usually begins about 4 p.m., just before rush-hour commuters make their slow crawl home and night falls on the suburbs.For delivery drivers, the early hours are the calm before the storm, when running steaming hot pizza pies -- and Chinese food and fried chicken -- goes at breakneck speed until well after midnight.But delivery drivers in Howard County have to contend with something besides bad weather and stingy tippers.Last week, Martha Lunsford, 30, a Papa John's driver, was shot in the jaw at point-blank range in the parking lot of an apartment complex on Turnabout Lane in Columbia's Harper's Choice village after she was robbed of $20.Delivering pizzas has gotten scary, said Jeff Benson, 20, a driver for Domino's Pizza in Columbia.

A Baltimore man, 19, is wanted by Howard County police in the shooting of a pizza delivery driver in Harper's Choice last week.Charles A. Mosley is charged in an arrest warrant with 26 counts, including attempted first-degree murder, police say.Pub Date: 1/08/99

Two men sought in the New Year's Day pizza-driver shooting and robbery at a Columbia apartment complex were arrested yesterday by FBI agents in North Carolina.Pursuing a tip, the federal agency's Charlotte Fugitive Task Force arrested the two suspects at a residence there at 4: 20 p.m. yesterday, said Special Agent Peter A. Gulotta, an FBI spokesman in Baltimore.Two employees of Papa John's Pizza in the Harper's Choice Village Center were robbed and one was shot after being sent to the Harpers Forest apartment complex Jan. 1 to deliver an $81.05 order that was placed from a pay phone, according to county police.

ONE mother shares a strange dream that came early one morning before her son's first day of school: As she walked the hallways, she realized every billboard was brightly decorated by a corporate sponsor.The dream was forgotten until a PTA meeting some weeks later, when her son's kindergarten teacher explained a schoolwide reading incentive program. Each month, children who finished 10 books would receive a reward. Great, thought the mother, until she heard more.Each child's prize: a coupon from a pizza franchise for a child-size pie. She noticed the bright red roof of the restaurant on the coupon.

ATLANTA -- Todd Pratt does not remember much about the 1997 Super Bowl -- only the intense heat from the pizza oven."A thousand orders in a three-hour period," Pratt recalls. "I was supervising a full crew and I sweated harder than I ever did in my life."His self-image was of a major-league baseball player, but he had just spent a season away from the game, working for Bucky Dent's school in Florida, and his job description at the moment was manager of a Domino's franchise."If I had to go back to it, I could," Pratt said yesterday.

When I asked Blake Smith, who has a degree in finance, why he decided to open a pizzeria, he sounded incredulous: "You have to love pizza. C'mon." His new brick-oven pizza place is the Bagby Pizza Co. (1006 Fleet St., 410-605-0444, BagbyPizza.com), just open this week in Harbor East. It's in the old Bagby Furniture building, which is where it gets its name. His chef, if you can call a pizza maker a chef without sounding a little high-falutin', is Kyle Gillies. The menu features gourmet pizza, sandwiches, salads and pasta.

"What? They're closing?!" Jenny Bumblis hadn't heard the news that Ledo Restaurant in Adelphi, the place where she got "the best pizza in the world," where she often took her children for dinner, was shutting its doors. Actually, it's shutting its doors and reopening them several miles away. Ledo, a Washington-area landmark that has served its legendary square pizzas for almost 55 years, is moving next year from its original spot in a University Boulevard shopping center, just west of the University of Maryland, to College Park.

Los Angeles has its taco trucks, but now we can do them one better. As of a couple of weeks ago, Baltimore has the Kooper's Tavern Chowhound Burger Wagon. You can find out where the roving hamburger stand is going to be on any given day by checking its Web site (KoopersChowhound.com) or Facebook, or signing up for Twitter updates. Last Wednesday when it landed at Tide Point, more than 100 people were standing in line at one point, according to an owner, Patrick Russell. What are they standing in line for?

If pizza and pizzerias had trends, the latest would be the coal-fired oven. (I say if they had trends, because somehow pizza is one food above such things.) These ovens, which burn anthracite coal, produce such a hot fire that a pie can be fully baked in less than five minutes. Coal-fired pizzas should have thin crusts and thin toppings so that they cook all the way through before they burn. (Expect a bit of char here and there, which coal-fire aficionados feel is part of the pizza's charm.

There was another brick-oven pizza joint on the same corner spot in Little Italy where Isabella's is now. That place was good, but Isabella's, open now for 2 1/2 years, is better. I'm sorry I hadn't made it there sooner. The truth is that there's a good range of eating choices in Little Italy, from unpretentious family fare to high cuisine, and Isabella's occupies its own niche. Isabella's is the kind of order-at-the-counter joint you'd drop into a couple of times a week to order a pizza or a good sandwich.

The heart of Harryman House may be a 200-year-old log cabin, but there's very little that's old-fashioned about this Reisterstown restaurant, which over the years has become something of a fixture in the area. After recent renovations, "The Grill" was added to the Harryman House name, as if proprietor John Worthington were saying, "We know the kind of food people are eating these days, and we're adding it to our menu." The Harryman House is still a fine-dining restaurant, but that's not all it is. I can't think of a restaurant that's more successful at being, if not all things to all people, at least many things to many people.

Constantine "Gus" Klosteridis, a retired baker and Howard Street pizza shop owner, died of cancer complications Saturday at the University of Maryland Medical Center. The Timonium resident was 85. Born in Baltimore and raised near Patterson Park, he graduated in 1941 from City College and then enlisted in the Navy. He was stationed at Camp MacDonough Naval Training Center in Plattsburg, N.Y., and at Fort Pierce, Fla. He earned a bachelor's degree at Loyola College and joined his father and brother in their Athens Baking Co. on Bouldin Street in Highlandtown, which they expanded to mass-produce hamburger rolls.

POKER World Series of Poker 8 P.M. [ESPN] Televised high-stakes card playing. Deal me out - unless it's four buddies from high school and a half-eaten pizza.

Events Pizza class: Learn to make pizza from scratch and enjoy samples of freshly made pizza at 10 a.m. July 13 at Williams-Sonoma at the Village of Cross Keys, 70 Village Square. Free. Call 410-435-6020 or visit williams-sonoma.com. Chefs and wine: Watch cooking demonstrations by award-winning chefs while tasting food and wine at the Baltimore Chefs and Wine Experience, noon to 6 p.m. July 13 at Tremont Grand, 225 N. Charles St. $55. Call 410-244-1030 or visit chefsandwine.org. Site du jour EATFEATS.

Papa John's International Inc. Shares advanced $2.27, finishing at $27. The pizza delivery chain's adjusted profit rose, and results were also boosted by a 2.1 percent rise in domestic same-store sales.