Everyone loves traditions, especially when they involve free food, dancing and prizes, and we are not any different here at Pagliacci. Our annual Holiday Party for our crew always draws a big crowd, and this year was no exception. In years past, our crew has bobbed for smelt, raced Green Machines, and carved Spam.  (No, there aren’t any plans to add Spam as a topping, thanks for asking.)

This year we celebrated the season with a Festive Holiday Wear Contest at The Crocodile. Whether they wore sweaters that pushed the limits of style or costumes that reflected the season, even the scrooges had an opportunity to get into the holiday spirit with the plethora of fake antlers that were available to wear. Extra raffle tickets for some great prizes were awarded to those who really embraced the holiday theme. With an Xbox 360, Seahawks tickets, a Kindle e-reader and a Blu-Ray player up for grabs, the people handing out the raffle tickets attracted a small crowd wherever they went up until the drawings. Our friends at Macrina made some delicious hors d’oeuvres, Reverend of Rock from London Loves kept the music going all night and Airpocalypse from “America’s Got Talent” made a special appearance as well. Chris Bunger, GM from Juanita took the top prize for his costume, Tony Schaffer from Crossroads popped and locked his way to the coveted King of the Dance Floor title, and Queen Anne ran away with the prize for Most Store Spirit. If you are interested in seeing some of the fine folks who make, bake, and deliver your pizzas, check out the location pages on our website. Store photos will be up soon!

When I was growing up, the concentrate used to dispense Coca-Cola came in large metal cylinders that weighed (what was to me) a ton.  At a friend’s restaurant, we would get a glass and put in varying amounts of the four flavors that were available: Cola, Lemon Lime, Root Beer, and Orange.  We called them “Graveyards” and dared each other to drink whatever concoctions we dreamed up. Now the only time I see those metal cylinders is at the houses of friends that brew their own beer.

My, how times have changed.

Broadway is now home to Pagliacci’s first Freestyle Coke machine. The syrup now comes in cartridges that are about the size of a VHS tape.  This self-serve machine dispenses flavors that I could never have dreamed of when I was a kid. Caffeine Free Diet Raspberry Coke? They got it. Sprite Zero with Peach? Please. Both of them are base flavors. There are actually over 100 base flavors to choose from and you can mix virtually any combination of them that you like. Come into Broadway, get a slice or a salad and ponder which flavor you will try. You’ll have many to choose from!

Not long ago, our Associate Managers took a road trip to the Yakima Valley and visited Inaba Farms in Wapato, one of the farms that supply us with some of our produce.

The Inaba family has been farming in the Yakima Valley since 1907, when Shukichi Inaba and his brother came over from Japan and started farming the land. It was hard work, as they had to clear the land of sagebrush and dig irrigation channels before they could till and cultivate the fields. Over one hundred years later, Shukichi’s 3 grandsons are running the farm, which is now about 12,000 acres in size. They grow about 20 different kinds of crops that include peppers, asparagus, green beans, watermelons, sweet corn, grapes, onions and tomatoes. They are committed to trying to farm as sustainably as they can. When the opportunity to expand the farm presented itself in the early 1980s they made the decision to farm some of their fields using organic methods. About 10-15 percent of their crops are farmed organically now, and they are constantly trying new techniques to cut their use of chemicals. As some of their cucumbers, watermelon and squash depend on bees for pollination, it is easy to see why they would like to use as few pesticides as possible.

They still employ composting principles that Shukichi Inaba brought over with him from Japan over a century ago. With over five miles of windrows that are scattered around the farm, they compost thousands of tons of waste a year.

At the height of the harvest, the Inaba family employs some 200 people, about ¾ of whom return every year. Having faced discrimination with the enacting of the alien land laws of the 1920’s that prohibited them from owning land and the Japanese Internment during World War II, they empathize with the seasonal workers that they see every year and strive to be good employers.

It was a fun visit, and it is always great to see one of the sources for some of our great pizza toppings especially one that is so close by!

The holiday season always brings special joy to movie fans. They eagerly await the slew of new films that are released every December. It seems that this year will be especially good for fans of books made into movies.  The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 1, based on the bestselling novel by Stephenie Meyer was released in mid November and had a lock on the #1 spot at the box office until last week.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo opens on December 21^st.  Directed by David Fincher, this is actually the second time TGWTDT has been made into a movie. The original Millennium series was released in Swedish in 2009.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, based on John Le Carre’s classic Cold War spy novel, opened in limited release last week.  Along with Gary Oldman and Colin Firth, it stars Benedict Cumberbatch, who has to have one of the most fantastic names ever.  He starred in the BBC’s update of Sherlock Holmes last year and is slated to have a role in the upcoming movies based on The Hobbit. TTSS will open in Seattle on December 23rd.

Stephen Spielberg has been a busy man, with 2 movies coming out within a week of each other this month. The Adventures of Tintin is his interpretation of Herges beloved comic about the intrepid reporter and his faithful companion Snowy. War Horse is his adaptation of Michael Morpurgo’s novel of the same name about a boy searching for his horse during the First World War. War Horse will be released on Christmas Day, along with Tom Hank’s newest movie, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, from the novel of the same name by Jonathon Safran Foer.

A highlight of a recent trip to Maui for the winners of our Associate Manager contest included a tour of the Maui Gold Pineapple farm. In addition to being the farm that provides us with the fresh pineapple we use for our pizza topping, it is the only working pineapple farm in the United States that allows tours. Everyone had a lot of fun seeing where our pineapple comes from. This particular variety of pineapple was developed at the Pineapple Research Institute at the University of Hawaii in 1973, although their farming tradition has been part of Maui’s culture for over 100 years.  Due to its low acidity and high natural sugar content, the Maui Gold is not a good canning pineapple, but its sweet, juicy fruit is ideal for eating out-of-hand or baked on a pizza! While they were there, Rudy, one of the owners, put on an impressive display of machete prowess while cutting up some of the fruit for them to eat. He also gave them some tips on choosing the perfect pineapple when they got back to the Mainland. Ripe pineapples should be yellow on the outside. As pineapples do not ripen after being picked, try to avoid green pineapples. Pineapples that are brown on the outside are overripe and should be avoided. And, if at all possible, pineapples should be kept out of the refrigerator until it is time to cut and serve them.

By day she handles our Accounts Payable, on evenings and weekends Erna Muller is usually writing.  Her hard work has paid off with her recently published book, A New Leash On Life (Volume 1). It is about a cop who is sent back to Earth as a police dog to learn humility from a precocious teenager and to investigate his own death. It is currently featured on Pacific Book Review.

Born in Austria, Erna’s parents immigrated to the U.S. when she was a child. They returned to Austria after she had finished grade school, but she always dreamed of returning to the United States. After finishing her education, which included a year in Paris, she was finally able to return to the U.S. and started writing to practice her English.  A New Leash On Life originally started out as an award-winning screenplay. It won first prize at the 2006 Houston International Film Festival in the Family Screenplay category and was the winning entry in the 2000 Burbank Family Film Festival where none other than Steve Allen himself presented her prize. To boost its marketability as a film, she decided to adapt her screenplay into a novel. She describes the book as being geared towards young adults but “is not adult repellent.”

Erna is very proud of the reception that A New Leash On Life has received and is at work on a sequel. You can order the book through Amazon.

Besides skiing, I am hard pressed to think of a more old school winter sport than ice-skating.  A study from the University of Oxford theorizes that an early form of ice-skating developed in southern Finland around 4000 years ago. Skates as we know them were invented in the Netherlands in the 13^th or 14^th century. Ice skating rinks are a classic setting for many winter movies and stories. We are lucky to have a few nearby to enjoy during the holiday season. Cal Anderson Park is inaugurating an annual ice rink that will operate from December 6^th through the 24^th.  Seattle Center’s annual Winterfest Ice Rink at the Fisher Pavilion opened November 25^th and will run through January 1^st. Bellevue hosts a tented ice arena as part of their Magic Season winter celebration. There are also indoor rinks in Renton, Shoreline, Lynnwood, and Everett where people may enjoy skating year round. While the image of an idyllic outdoor rink may seem more East Coast than West Coast, we do have a couple of options that are relatively close by. Suncadia Resort has an outdoor rink complete with a communal fire pit and hot chocolate and Grouse Mountain in Vancouver B.C. boasts a massive 8,000-foot outdoor pond and also offers sleigh rides!   See you at the rink!