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Canberra Today 15°/16° | Friday, March 29, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

Canberra Confidential: Pizza queen says goodbye

AFTER 25 years, Civic’s pizza queen Irene Paz is calling it day.

Irene Paz... “I love everything about making pizzas, but I’ve been working hard enough for long enough.” Photo Gary Schafer
Irene Paz… “I love everything about making pizzas, but I’ve been working hard enough for long enough.” Photo Gary Schafer
Chilean migrant Irene arrived in Canberra in 1989 with her husband Rolo and started up Rolo’s Pizza in East Row.

In 1998 they opened La Posada in the Melbourne Building, which was sold in 2008 following a marriage split.

Irene worked casually for the previous owner, but when new owner Gianni Guglielmin took over in 2010, she started rolling dough full-time again.

“She’s the mother figure of the restaurant,” says Gianni.

“Some customers have been eating her pizzas since the ‘90s from the ‘Rolo’s days’, and they’ll ask for old pizzas, like the Jennifer, that we don’t even have on the menu anymore. Irene will always make them if asked.”

Irene, who’s just turned 60, will leave behind her children and grandchildren to move to Melbourne at the end of May with her new partner.

“I love everything about making pizzas, but I’ve been working hard enough for long enough,” she says. “It’s a little scary, but I’m ready for a new start.”

Royals visit for chemist Paul

royalsLAST week social snout Lyn Mills, in her St Pat’s report from the Irish embassy, said ambassador and rugby tragic Noel White in farewelling the local Royals Rugby team off on a three-game adventure to Ireland, implored them to visit his brother, the local chemist in Carlow, after their game there for “all those fixin’s footy players need”.

And sure enough, as this picture confirms, the full busload of Royals poured into Paul White’s pharmacy, to the huge entertainment of staff and customers. That’s Paul, who has more than a passing resemblance to his brother, in the tie.

Rock and rollering

PEOPLE of “all shapes and sizes” are promised a warm welcome from the “friendly and fun” Varsity Derby League, says president Melissa McEwen (aka Doc’d Marx).

varsityShe says Canberra’s only gender-inclusive roller derby league, is looking for male and female new players, referees and officials and will be holding an information night at King O’Malley’s, Civic, 7pm, on Friday, April 4.

No experience with roller skating or roller derby is needed as all coaching and instruction is provided by the league. The only restriction is you have to be over 18, but “there’s no upper age limit!” she exclaims.

Delicious, if vinegary

“SINCE Fairfax precipitated the closure of my local newsagent by stopping supply of its printed papers, I have to make a round trip of about 70kms if I want ‘The Canberra Times’,” bemoans our Bungendore snout. “With the price of petrol, it’s not worth it. Except Saturday for ‘Panorama’, where, on March 8, the final title on the ‘Books in Short’ page was Number 96: Mavis and Me by David Sale.

“I am indebted to reviewer Steven Carroll and a blind sub-editor for the following jewel: ‘(Sale’s) big break came after the ABC and bit parts in productions such as On The Beach where he learned to make a Caesar salad from Anthony Perkins and Ava Gardner’.

“I imagine that the doyen of Canberra sub-editors, Michael Travis, would have made a meal of Carroll before that got to print. Don’t know about Perkins, but I suspect that Gardner would have been delicious if a little on the vinegary side.”

 Bounded in blue

MEANWHILE, Pierre the Lair, also reports from deep in “The Canberra Times” that, on March 13, the Lifeline Book Sale received publicity.

“It seems they had a book ‘bounded in blue leather’,” he sniffs. “While it is obviously kangaroo hide, it is less certain that it was taken from a blue flyer.”

 AND, finally, from our defence (of the language) snout, a call for someone to be “fired” for the howler in the daily paper’s “Gang Gang” column of March 24 where author David Ellery quotes a spokesperson at the Majura Field Firing Range as saying: “There is a high probability of unexploded ordinance being present”. There is a high probability he really said “unexploded ordnance”.

Roses wilts

WHAT was with that funny “shut-up” look on real estate personality Richard Luton’s face when Jason Roses was congratulating his daytime boss for top bidding a weekend in a luxury car in Sydney? The two were doubling as MCs and auctioneers at the Good Samaritans awards dinner at the Hotel Realm when Jason announced that the car prize was especially good because Richard spends every weekend in Sydney. No I don’t, says Luton; you do, says Roses, and if anyone saw Richard paddle boarding on Sydney Harbour… that’s where the funny look came in and Roses changed the subject.

 

 

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