(Marcus Nilsson/Martha Stewart Living)

In the current issue of Martha Stewart Living magazine, Martha’s explicit love affair with Chris Bianco shines on.

After dining at Pizzeria Bianco for the very first time while in Phoenix recently for Super Bowl XLII in early 2008, Martha Stewart experienced what so many one-time Pizzeria Bianco virgins have been gushing about now for years – pizza rapture.

As her favorite NFL team the New York Giants won in upset at the big game, Martha and her posse were enjoying a closed invitational dinner party at the famed Downtown pizzeria (read: must be nice). Since then, the domestic goddess has quite effectively become Bianco’s de facto PR representative. The accumulated endorsements by Martha Stewart has now officially trumped Oprah’s lone “Best Pizza in the Country” contest, in which Pizzeria Bianco was one of several nationwide winners a few years back. At this rate, Martha may be replacing Ms. Winfrey as our official president selector in 2012.

Mmm, or maybe not.

In any event, from appearing on her daytime network television show for a double cooking segment last year, to now being being featured in her flagship magazine Martha Stewart Living for the second time, our local pizza guru is continuing to reap the benefits of impressing an immortal lifestyle maven.

And, we can’t blame her for doing so. I know I definitely can’t get enough of the Wise Guy.

See some of his recipes online now at MarthaStewart.com

Pizzeria Bianco | pizzeriabianco.com | 623 E. Adams | Downtown Phoenix | 602-258-8300

Pizza Bianco, downtown Phoenix

[Source: Richard Ruelas, Arizona Republic] — In a downtown Phoenix block full of historic buildings, the Baird Machine Shop might be the richest one.  And it is a story that continues to be written.  The 1928 square, brick building was one of several buildings from Phoenix’s original townsite days that was spared demolition by a Phoenix mayor.  Another man, who would become Phoenix mayor, had the vision that the building could become an iconic restaurant that would draw tourists from around the nation.

That second mayor, Phil Gordon, might have been ahead of his time by proposing the restaurant in the late 1980s.  But his vision came true, as the Baird Machine Shop houses the nationally renowned Pizzeria Bianco.  “I just always knew there would be that attraction to the physical uniqueness of the building,” Gordon said of his 1987 proposal to remodel and revitalize the Baird building.  “We saw the potential of (Heritage Square) being so unique,” he said.

So did then-Phoenix Mayor John Driggs.  When he took office in 1970, he decided to save the buildings that still remained from Block 14, one of the first created in the city that still had original buildings on it.  The Rosson House, which Driggs remembered seeing as a child, had been subdivided into apartments and had air-conditioning units hanging from its windows, said Darla Harmon, executive director at the Rosson House Museum.

The Baird Machine Shop, whose previous tenant was Milt Ponder’s Sign Shop, was one of the buildings bought by the city.  It was just luck that a deal didn’t go through that would have leveled the old structures, Harmon said.  “We’re a great place to put a parking garage, don’t you think?” she said. “(Developers) were looking around licking their lips.”  [Note: To read the full article, click here.]

[Source: Andrew Conlin, Special for The Republic] — For nearly two decades, we’ve heard confident predictions that downtown Phoenix was on the brink of a crucial “tipping point,” when public investment would no longer be needed to generate new development that was both vigorous and self-sustaining.  A term like “tipping point” is a kind of mental shorthand, useful in summarizing complex ideas but sometimes misleading when it comes to making decisions or drawing conclusions.

In reality, we won’t see the beginning of a significant shift from public to private investment until downtown achieves the requisite critical mass.  This will be the moment when the collective energy generated by the diverse collection of downtown businesses, retailers, residences, entertainment venues, and academic and cultural institutions fuses into the nucleus of an energetic and growing community.  Private investors will be drawn to this energy, creating new businesses and helping to further enrich the downtown scene.  This will inspire more people to live and work here, generating new opportunities that will draw new investors.  This development “chain reaction” will, we hope, be self-sustaining and transformational.  [Note: To read the full opinion piece and comments, click here.]