Jersey to Moscow--Pizza to Go

A slice of glasnost is on its way from Jersey to Moscow, in the form of American-style pizza. Louis Piancone Sr., a partner in Astro Pizza Ltd., said: “They’re going to love it. Who doesn’t love pizza?” Muscovites will get their first taste from a 36-foot mobile pizzeria that includes a machine that can press dough in three seconds. The van, which cost several hundred thousand dollars to design and build, can churn out a pie in only seven minutes, at a charge of 70 cents a slice or $5.50--7 rubles--for a 16-inch cheese pizza. Ingredients are to come from the United States, but some toppings may not be all-American. “If caviar’s what they want, that’s what we’ll give them. A little variation will be good,” Piancone said. He and partner Shelley M. Ziegler formed Astro Pizza after signing an agreement with Moscow officials who visited New Jersey in October. Officials credited Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s policy of glasnost , or openness, for their ability to make the deal. The pizzeria has been loaded on a freighter and should open in Red Square in April. Astro Pizza hopes to eventually run as many as 25 stationary Italian restaurants in Moscow.

--The De Beers conglomerate revealed a secret kept since mid-1986 and known only to a handful of its employees and the South African government: the discovery near Pretoria of a 599-carat diamond that is worth tens of millions of dollars and will be the world’s second-largest when cut. In making the announcement, De Beers Chairman Julian Ogilvie Thompson drew gasps from a banquet audience of 400, including multimillionaires and gem experts, gathered to mark the company’s 100th anniversary. The stone, which should be more than 300 carats after cutting, is expected to be larger than all others except the Cullinan I, which is set in the Royal Scepter of Britain’s crown jewels.

--Southern Cross Ranch, a 455-acre spread once filmed as the home of Clayton Farlow, played by Howard Keel, on the television show “Dallas,” drew a disappointing top bid of $2 million at auction, far less than the $6.1 million it was appraised at in 1985. Rather than accept the bid, owner Ewing Oil Co. of Dallas--no relation to the fictional TV Ewings--said it wanted a day to think it over. An auction company spokesman, Mort Freedman, said the seller had realized a low price was a possibility because of the depressed Texas real estate market. The real-life Ewing Oil does not own the TV Ewings’ South Fork Ranch.