About Jim, The Pizza Guy!           As I mention in the intro video, I was deprived of pizza until I was 14 years old, but not really deprived as pizza was quite new back then. Anyway, although it didn’t look the best, so it wasn’t love at first SIGHT, it was love at first BITE! It was at a pizza parlor which had just started up some months ago by an Italian and without a doubt, one of my top 10 pizzas as anyone who lived in the area back then could attest to as being their favorite pizza! I rank my first parlor as a 9! My cousin ordered a 9” cheese and sausage which today one doesn’t have to specify the cheese as they all have a cheese base so we just say sausage.           As the next few years flew by, when my wife to be and I were dating, I would eat pizza at my favorite place, the only #10 parlor on my list when off to tech school, every Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights. My favorite was closed on Mondays so I found a second best in that city for Monday nights. Then when my girlfriend came home from working in Milwaukee on Friday night, we would eat at my first pizza parlor on Friday and Saturday nights. I just couldn’t imagine going to bed without having a great pizza!           Then, 10 years later after my first bite, I made my first pizza, Chef Boyardee in the box. I wouldn’t enter a contest with one of these but it was pizza and I was making our own! From that point on I was obsessed with perfecting my home made pizza and started putting into practice the things my mentor had taught me years prior. From there my quest took me into everyone’s pizza kitchen from fresh to frozen to take ’n bake where I could observe and learn. When I really liked something I would try to duplicate and in most cases improve. I did operate a fresh parlor back in 1971, but just on weekends and only for one winter. I had a full time insurance job and would make sure I was home early on Friday afternoon to do the prep work that was left to be done in time to open at 5:00.           Every Friday, Saturday and Sunday night we were packed and 20 years later when someone would walk up to me they would say, That was the best pizza I ever had! Our kids were very young and after getting home in the early morning hours, they would come in our bedroom to see daddy. I wasn’t getting much sleep, plus the restaurant in which I was renting for $100 / month, was sold, so that ended my restaurant career but certainly not my interest in GREAT pizza and I ended up with purchasing commercial pizza equipment for our basement and we have entertained many a pizza party.