Tony Buzzelli is approaching mandatory retirement next year at Deloitte, where he heads up its southwest region based in Los Angeles. But he’s ready. He bought a retirement house several years ago not far from Charlottesville, Va.
Buzzelli and his wife, Marta, made several improvements to the 4,500-square-foot country estate and completely renovated the kitchen. But the appointment he likes most is the wood-burning pizza oven in a corner of the kitchen. (The house and its pizza oven were featured about a month ago in the Wall Street Journal’s online edition.)
Buzzelli, 61, and his wife are Italian-Americans and they love preparing pizza with the family gathered in the kitchen. Buzzelli said the perfect temperature for pizza is between 650 degrees and 750 degrees. In such a hot oven, a pizza will cook in only two minutes.
The only problem: You must pay attention, he said. Any distraction, even a few wayward seconds, can result in a burned pizza.
“So my wife came up with a simple rule,” said Buzzelli. “No wine until the pizza’s done.”
Small Tech World
Judging from the name, you wouldn’t guess that the Israel Conference would be a big tech meeting. The June 4 conference at the Luxe Hotel in Bel Air mostly pairs Israeli tech companies with L.A. investors.
Sharona Justman, who co-founded the conference last year, sometimes has trouble explaining what it is.
“Because of that, we made it a policy that there are no politics, no social issues,” she said, adding that it is “strictly business and we want people to bring their ideas to create new joint ventures and generate deals.”
Sharon Rechter, co-founder of L.A.-based BabyFirst TV, a television network for babies and toddlers, said last year’s conference led to an unexpected high school reunion of sorts.
“A few people I went to high school with ended up being serious entrepreneurs, and we ended up doing business because the conference got us together,” said Rechter, who’s a presenter at this year’s conference. “It’s funny how it’s such a small world.”
Trash Talking
As a manager at Bentley Prince Street, a carpet manufacturer in the City of Industry, Rosie Rodriguez is accustomed to dealing with raw materials.
Recently she dealt with some very raw material.
It happened May 13, when Rodriguez, 46, participated in the company’s occasional “dumpster dive” during which volunteer employees sift through Bentley’s trash in search of recyclables.
“It was fun,” said Rodriguez, adding that the exercise reminded her of childhood days during which she searched for treasures in the neighbors’ trash.
However, the “treasure” discovered by Rodriguez and her co-workers among the 402 pounds of discards they sorted through was 7.5 pounds of recyclables, including several Starbucks cups, plastic wrappings, foil paper and two pieces of wood. All of which was turned over to a recycling plant.
“I think all of us have dug through the trash at some point,” Rodriguez said. “This feels good, though, because you’re not hurting the environment.”
Staff reporters Alfred Lee and David Haldane contributed to this column. Page 3 is compiled by Editor Charles Crumpley. He can be reached at [email protected].
