The longest hour of my life consisted of 60 interminable minutes waiting for a couple of slices at Di Fara Pizza in Brooklyn. Years before he turned 80, pizza legend Dom DeMarco worked at a pace all his own.

On a return visit earlier this month I didn’t watch the clock. I focused instead on Dom, shadowing his slow movements, tuning out the backround noise of the pizzeria and tuning in to the vocals of Claudio Villa, the “little king” of Italian song, playing on the pizza maker’s small red boombox. If ever there was music to make – and wait for – pizza by, this was it!