I was browsing online today and came across these three words in italic written on a plain sheet of paper. Sounds (really) good to me. How does it sound to you?
For me, keeping life simple would be to:
1. play the piano
2. feed the canary
3. eat moderately
4. drink water
5. sleep well
6. don’t worry
7. be kind
Recently, I’ve been amusing myself by keeping up with the engagement news of Amal Alamuddin and George Clooney. Notice I put her name first. Whether or not the public is fascinated by the fact that he seems gaga in love and wants to marry her is one thing. I, on the other hand, am entranced by how attractive and together she looks in the photos of her dressed up to go back to work in London. Reportedly, she had her hair and nails done at the John Frieda salon there. Clooney, reportedly, is joining her in London to look for a place to live “so that she can continue her international law career.”
That’s nice, but with the strong human rights interest they share politically, the sky’s the limit on what they might do together: a new Brad-Angelina humanitarian dynamic duo. In my mind, he’s perhaps as lucky if not luckier than she is that they are together, the bling ring, not withstanding. And it sounds like they will be getting married sooner rather than later. Fun to stay tuned.
So, why am I writing about this celebrity fluff? Because I think their example is not only one of charm because they are both so good looking, but because they also both look like they’re in love with each other in a comfortable, familiar way that many invisible couples also share.
Maybe some would react with envy but not me. Instead, I feel a sense of “joie de vivre” (joy in living) from the depiction of their lives. That is, there’s no reason we shouldn’t “go for it” too in the context of our own lives. And there’s no reason we should hold back on how much fun and love we can experience in our lives as much as they seem to be doing in theirs. For me, whatever passive resistance I may have had in the past about waiting or not doing something because of (fill in the blanks,) there’s no valid reason to keep holding back if we decide to open up ourselves to new possibilities.
We’ve been talking about taking a driving trip to Nova Scotia for over a year and seeing the rugged coast of the Bay of Fundy. Even with my laid-up leg and slow recuperation not being able to drive yet, there’s no real reason not to start planning a trip. It also feels like it would be a good idea for me to make the trek on my crutches down and up the stairs (3 floors) more often, in order for me to be outdoors more and to see the dogwood blossoms up close and personal with my own eyes rather than through photos that G. took yesterday.
So, it isn’t just celebrities who can be joyful about being in love or finding “the one,” the rest of us have our own capacity for being happy too. Whether it’s buying some frozen fruit popsicles (pineapple? coconut?)to eat while watching the finale of “The Good Wife” on TV tonight, or finally hanging some hooks into the door of a kitchen cabinet for potholders and strainers so they are easier to reach, especially from a wheelchair, G. and I can make improvements and look forward to many other things in our own lives. It just takes figuring out what they are and then going for it.
It’s a quiet Sunday morning and the sheets are laundered, hanging out on the clothesline on a beautiful sunny day. What more could I ask for?
In front of our Queen Anne Victorian home, we’ve had a mountain laurel tree growing in the courtyard garden for over twenty years. Then one night a few years ago, there was a heavy rainstorm and we heard what sounded like a soft sigh in the middle of the night. We woke to see the tree toppled over from internal rot that wasn’t visible from the outside.
Our despair was softened by a four foot high shoot that seemed sturdy and ready to bear leaves. Ah, a baby tree that might replace the ill-fated parent tree. It grew to be about eight feet tall until we noticed last year that the leaves shriveled up and that life had seeped away from it too. Bereft, we dug it up and mourned its loss. Meanwhile, across the street at G.’s mother’s house, the decades old weeping cherry tree was also damaged during a storm and taken down, leaving a bare patch near the driveway.
I did some research on replacement trees and made the rounds of some nurseries in the towns nearby. Flowering pear trees appeared alongside the post office, white and fluffy for awhile but were uninteresting to me. Down the street a ways was a mature coral dogwood tree whose branches had filled out bearing flowers, both lovely and modest. I went to Lowe’s on the suggestion of a neighbor down the street and came across two six foot high dogwood saplings for $29.95 each. I bought them both and carted them home in my Subaru wagon. Into the ground they went here and also across the street. Then, we wondered aloud how long it would take before flowers might appear on the small trees.
Kept upstairs like Rapunzel due to my ankle injury in February, I have only been able to be down in the yard for medical checkups and out to the grocery store. Lo and behold this week, our dogwood and the one across the street bloomed. What a wonderful sight to see them yesterday, and so heartening after a winter filled with anxiety and being cooped up.
This blossoming coincided with a new way for me to manage things in my life: to be less passive about things or people that bother me, and to nip in the bud situations that festered long enough, some of my own making, but mostly not. One by one, I took them on with polite firmness. As each fell by the wayside, I felt better and better.
The dogwood blossoms bear out this new flowering of my psyche. Oh, isn’t it great that it’s finally Spring?
“Stoner” is the name of a novel (1965) by a writer named John Williams who taught English literature at University of Denver and who is not very well known among the pantheon of famous novelists. It came to my attention by reading a review of it in last Sunday’s New York Times which you can read for yourself here.
It arrived via my Amazon Prime account and I’m almost finished reading it. As noted in the review, it’s the life story of a man named William Stoner who teaches English literature at the University of Missouri and what happens in his life. What is engaging about reading and thinking about it is that some people in our culture would ask why it’s worth spending time reading about a “loser.” While others see it as a “perfect novel” about an ordinary person’s life, illuminating for readers that things do not always end up well and people do not always end up living “happily ever after” as our Walt Disney culture is wont to press upon us.
In fact, it is this counter-culture kind of attitude and tone that I relished reading about in this handbook of a novel. The writer describes the excruciating viciousness of academia politics which many know firsthand and which illustrates how petty people can be about power. Undoubtedly, these struggles occur everyday in politics everywhere and even in small town civic groups of volunteers which I have some knowledge about myself.
William Stoner was fortunate. He was able to pursue his love of English and literature and make it into a lifelong profession rather than being forced to be a farmer living out a hardscrabble life like his father’s. He loved his wife even though she turned her back on him shortly after they married, keeping his only daughter from being close to him. He cleaned the house, took care of the baby, did the chores and prepared his lessons. His spouse chose to be distant from him while living off him until he died.
He also loved and was truly loved by someone other than his wife. They had a brief time together, one of personal integrity, a triumph over the odds of people bent on destroying them because they were happy. He was full of dogged fortitude in standing up for his beliefs even when it inured his enemy to become even more vindictive than thought possible over a long period of time. And then he dies.
Many of us subscribe to the “happily ever after” model of the American Dream. We think that if we only hope and work hard towards our dreams that eventually they will come true. Along the way are pitfalls, things that happen that become water under the dam that we don’t speak about and sooner or later, we look back to see if we feel good about how our life turned out or not.
If we have been lucky, we will accept what we see in the dry way that William Stoner did. He realized when things did not turn out the way he wanted them to and he kept going. Most of all, he did what he really wanted to do–which was to be a teacher even if he was not the most popular or highly regarded professor. And he was deeply loved by another person even if they were not able to be together for very long.
Life is full of people who take a dislike to us for reasons we don’t understand. It also introduces us to people who love us even when we are difficult to get along with. When I look around at the people who struggle to make ends meet and who look to find some solace in their everyday schedules, I wonder about how many stories like “Stoner” there are or might have been.
If you want to ruminate about what life is all about, you wouldn’t do badly to pick up this book at the library or read it on an airplane when you’re on your way from here to there.
a miniature carrot cake . . .
Last Saturday, I picked up in the kitchen, putting pantry foodstuffs together on a large tray for G. to help put away. You know how things pile up during the week on the chairs, magazines, newspapers, books? I emptied out several caches of them stacked around our living space that opens to the kitchen, our great room where we spend most of our waking hours.
I pulled myself onto the old leather couch to take a rest after a couple of hours of light housekeeping, planning to read some magazines before lunch. G. arrived from one of his piano moves and clucked at me to go and take my shower with the bench placed in the tub so that I could sit while washing my hair. But, i protested, wanting to wait awhile until I caught my breath. No luck–as G. nudged me towards the bedroom.
Sighing, I went along, finding myself secure enough to stand partly for the warm water to run down my back and then, sitting on the seat, washed my hair, putting a moisturizing cream rinse at the end. Dripping, I combed out my tangled hair with a wide-toothed wooden comb.
Almost dressed, I heard a light, lilting voice saying, “hello!” I looked up and saw my youngest daughter, C. (who lives an hour away,) walking towards me as though an apparition. She said, “Surprise, Mom! I brought you lunch to celebrate mother’s day today because we’re going to be out of town next weekend at a wedding in Chicago.”
dark purple parrot tulips, orange ranunculus, wonderful ferns . . .
Honestly, I was speechless! It’s hard to surprise me about anything and I realized G. was cued in on the surprise too, hence his shuffling me to take a shower sooner rather than later. With a wide smile on her face, Caitlin brought in bags of food and a gorgeous flower arrangement of dark purple parrot tulips, orange ranunculus and fine-leaved ferns, casually encircling the bouquet. She was an angel who brought this little mother’s day treat, hosted in absentia also by my daughter M. and their partners, plus my granddaughter, J., of course.
Here are photos of this little feast! I am so touched by this thoughtful gesture. It was one of the best mother’s day celebrations ever, especially so beautifully wrought a week early!
And thanks to everyone, especially, C., who was so sweet and thoughtful to enact this mother’s day tribute. The food was fabulous!
shrimp wonton and baby bok choy soup . . .
fresh sushi . . .
my granddaughter’s shoes . . .
Sometimes, it feels like time stands still and progress is impeded. Or worse, something happens that stalls or detours what we’d like to see happen. Yesterday or the day before, I was cooking in the kitchen and twice ran the big toe of my injured foot into something–the stove or the fridge as I swiveled around in my wheelchair. So much for my naivete, thinking I could safely get around by myself!
The result was an angry looking, red, swollen joint on my big toe the next day which I gingerly iced for ten minutes at a time. I was also miffed at myself for being careless and not putting on the right side Teva sandal to protect the foot which protrudes beyond the footrest of the wheelchair. Anyhow, it’s better today and so I decided to venture into the pantry adjacent to our kitchen to sort and cull out canned goods for a U.S. Postal food drive scheduled for this Saturday. The only thing is, there’s a step down from our kitchen to get into the pantry.
Normally, we wouldn’t even notice such things that we take for granted. So in order to get in the pantry, the wheelchair footrests had to come off. Then, I pulled the wheelchair gingerly into the pantry, reattached the footrests and sat down in it, pulling things out like lentil soup and chick peas that I didn’t think we’d use. I also put G.’s cans of Coke into the small fridge that we use for drinks so as to free up space in the big fridge we use in the kitchen.
Sounds good, right? Except for the near-fall that I took when I tripped, getting the wheelchair into the pantry, breaking a china cannister that was in the way. I managed to pick up the broken pieces with my handy grabber, proud of myself that I was able to get most of the broken pieces into a double layered plastic grocery bag. I’ll ask G. to sweep up the rest of it up once he’s back home since I don’t want to push my luck any further.
In looking through the foodstuffs, I discovered I had plenty of dried tree ear, shitake mushrooms, dried bean curd skin, tiger lily root and cellophane noodles. When soaked in a bowl of hot water before ready to use, they are then rinsed, and cut up and then cooked with some napa cabbage, resulting in one of my favorite dishes, Buddha’s Delight. I remembered there was a small container of marinated ground pork and shrimp left over from making wontons last week which I’ll defrost and add to our buddha dish, slightly departing from the recipe’s vegetarian origins. No matter, I thought, it will still taste good. So, that’s how tonight’s dinner got decided.
“buddha’s delight” for dinner . . .
Afterwards, I pulled myself onto the couch and looked outside at the beautiful, sunny, early Spring day. Somehow, it reminded me of Beethoven’s “Archduke Trio” which I saved into a playlist from my library on I-Tunes and emailed to my daughters, M. and C. to see if they could download it and enjoy the wonderful piece themselves where they are, working so hard today to study for exams and preparing students for theirs too.
So simple: clean things out; try not to fall (too badly); use what I already have to make supper; look out the window at the beautiful Spring Day, listen to Beethoven; share it with the kids.
That works for me! At least for today.
Postscript: Happy to report the next day, I was shown by a physical therapist how to use crutches to go up and down the steps (bad foot down first; good foot up first.)
We live on the third floor of a large Queen Anne Victorian house so there are lots of steps, and also thankfully, lots of landings on which to rest. Having gotten over my reticence to try it out, I figured I’m going to be on crutches a lot longer while the ankle strengthens and becomes more limber, so going up and down the stairs with crutches (rather than sitting and sliding on my backside) is a logical next step to take.
A supper of mustard/rosemary/garlic marinated lamb loin chops and fresh asparagus made it all worthwhile!
Magical thinking may lead people to believe that their thoughts by themselves can bring about effects in the world or that thinking something corresponds with doing it.[1] It is a type of causal reasoning or causal fallacy that looks for meaningful relationships of grouped phenomena (coincidence) between acts and events.
I don’t know about you but magical thinking permeates my life, at least lately. So many coincidental things have happened. It reminds me again of what people call “New Age” frame of mind: that there are Helpers in the Universe and all you have to do is to acknowledge you need help, ask for it even if it’s not out loud so anyone can hear you doing it, and somehow, help arrives in unseen ways.
From last Sunday to today, serendipitous things have happened too numerous to count: a repair was done on my laptop under a warranty I didn’t know I had; something of value that was thought to be lost suddenly reappeared. And greatly needed help surfaced in a situation that was permeated with bad energy and felt like a dead end.
I don’t know what magical thinking may have had to do with all of these situations, but it feels to me like there is a script somewhere that we can’t read ahead of time. In our American culture, it’s easy to think that if only we (fill in the blanks) that things will change for the better in time. Sometimes it takes a very long time. And sometimes, something happens that decimates all the things that you think you can’t solve or change.
That’s what has happened with my ankle injury in February. Suddenly, my priorities were a) how to get a good night’s sleep with a heavy cast on my leg; b)getting to the bathroom when I needed it; and c)making sure that I did everything for my ankle to heal, noticing how touching the caring ministrations of my husband, daughters and friends have been through it all.
Gratitude has a lot to do with the amount of magical dust that sprinkles itself into one’s life I think. Hardship is another factor too. I believe (and maybe this is my own brand of magical thinking,) that no matter how dark it appears to be before the dawn, that it’s important to apply oneself, to be honest with oneself and to do one’s best to get through hard times no matter how bad, sad or bereft one becomes at the seeming hopelessness of it all. Is that what is known as faith?
Help sometimes arrives years later than we wished for it. Timing is not up to us, God knows. In hindsight when looking back on my own life, events took their time coming together before the jigsaw puzzle pieces fell in place and then readjusted themselves.
Being in the moment is all we have. Most of what we berate ourselves about is small stuff in the grand scheme of things. If it has taken weeks of being bedridden to learn this lesson, it has certainly been worth it.
Thanks to all my helpers, seen and unseen!
French macarons . . .
G. and I are enjoying a quiet, sunny day today. The kids are visiting in-laws and so we will have a quiet day and a simple supper tonight. Right now, I am listening to Dave Brubeck’s “Take Five” and feeling like snapping my fingers to the music–it’s so much fun to listen to it! Earlier, I went to the piano and played the 2nd movement of the C minor Fantasie by Mozart. The makeshift wooden board that G. placed over the pedal worked well with my leg that still has a heavy cast on it.
Last night, with absolutely nothing to watch on TV (unless you wanted to tune into a four-and a half hour view of the “Ten Commandments”,) we decided to watch “Amadeus” the 1984 movie which won 8 Academy Awards. It’s a little grating to me with the Mozart character’s neighing all the time (from Tourette’s Syndrome)? But F. Murray Abraham (who won an Oscar for best actor in this best picture) plays Salieri, a rival court composer whose works are banal compared to Mozart’s and who is obsessed both by God’s gift of talent to Mozart and his equally strong belief that God has shortchanged him of same. This assignation of “blame” to God for Salieri’s shortcomings is one of the amusing conceits of the film. Reading about Salieri online, he is purported to have taught the likes of Beethoven, Schubert and Liszt so he must not have been as lightweight a musician as the movie, “Amadeus,” makes him out to be.
Anyhow, seeing the period instruments (since G. specializes in all things piano) is a treat to watch. I was also reminded again hearing excerpts of Mozart’s great Mass in C minor with its rousing opening “Kyrie” how great a composition it is. So, I listened to it this a.m. before segue-ing to the more upbeat and laid back jazz of Dave Brubeck’s quartet and Paul Desmond playing saxophone. Did you know that it was actually Desmond who composed “Take Five?” I didn’t until recently when I watched Clint Eastwood’s masterful biographical DVD of Dave Brubeck which we saw on PBS a couple of years ago.
For lunch today, I’m going to heat up some frozen Korean dumplings with chives and make a piquant dipping sauce of Chinese black vinegar, Japanese seasoned rice vinegar, Ohsawa soy sauce, sesame oil, chopped scallions and grated fresh ginger root. Afterwards, we’ll try a tiny sliver of the dark chocolate sour cream cake that I made yesterday afternoon. I had to bake it ten more minutes than the recipe called for and even then, the beautifully rounded middle sunk when cooled so it looked like a miniature tube cake!
I also had difficulty broiling a miso eggplant dish for dinner last night–you couldn’t chew it and it felt and tasted like wet cardboard. I even tried frying it afterwards but to no avail. Then, I remembered the pizza stone the other night didn’t seem hot enough even though heated to 500 degrees. And that instead of the pizza taking 3-5 minutes to cook, it still wasn’t done at 15 minutes and I had to turn on the broiler to finish it. So, dear reader, it occurred to me that perhaps my stove/oven isn’t heating up properly. (DUH!) It’s about a dozen years old and I cook a lot, so it wouldn’t be surprising if it’s losing its legs, heat-wise that is.
So, I dug out my oven thermometer and will be double-checking whether it preheats to 425 degrees when I get ready to roast the rack of lamb that we’re going to have for dinner tonight. I use Julia Child’s recipe for a mustard (Grey Poupon Country Dijon), olive oil, soy sauce, fresh rosemary chopped and lots of minced garlic–the marinade coating applied for the room-temperature lamb before going into the oven. The lamb on the rack looks miniscule so I’m hopeful that there will be something tasty there when it comes out of the dubious oven.
Yesterday, I don’t know what came over me–perhaps it was re-reading a cohort of British cookery books in the last few days–I decided to cull out and reorganize my bookshelves, one whole section of which is dedicated to food. One of the shelves now includes a set of Terence Conran, Roald Dahl, Jane Garmey and Time-Life volumes on making galantines, terrines, meat pies, trifles and aspic with eggs. In this group, I rediscovered the absolutely wonderful simple and yet appealing recipes in Nigel Slater’s cookery books. Slater’s recipe for roasting chicken wings suffused with fresh lemons and cracked pepper until the wings are caramelized to the baking sheet is one I’m going to try next week, I think. 
Even though they were somewhat pricey, I went through some books yesterday that had recipes I know I would never try (too conventional, complicated or took too much work/ingredients) so they went into the carton that will be donated to our local library. That is the only way I can justify ridding myself of books–which is to recycle them at an institution that will either catalog them or sell them in their bookstore.
Back to the reorganization, the revised bookshelves also hold a section of what I call “Celebrity Chefs”: David Chang’s “Momofuku”, Rene Redzepi’s “Noma”,Thomas Keller’s”French Laundry”, Daniel Boulud, Stanley Tucci, Jane Grigson, Judy Rodgers’ Zuni Cafe Cookbook and the River Cottage series by that guy who has an un-spellable name.
On the top shelf (for most usage) are short stacks of cookbooks featuring Asian noodles, tofu, dim sum, Chinese snacks, Bento box and Japanese Zen/Temple cookery. There’s also a smaller section down below on macrobiotic and raw vegetable ideas. Right now, I think I’ll be cooking more recipes out of the Nigel Slater books than anything else. Not only are the books now better organized, there’s now room for more!
The photos above and below are of an order of French macarons that I made and had sent to C. and her husband for Easter. She teaches high-school French so these little treats seemed like the perfect thing for Easter. She’s going to share them with her in-laws after their luncheon today. The funny thing about them is that I ordered them from a baker on Etsy (one of my favorite places to find homemade things,) and in finalizing the purchase, I noticed a Chinese name in their email address. Sure enough, she was trained in France to bake these macaron specialties but like me, she’s Chinese. I meet many artists who are Asian on this site. And in the oddest of places too–like with these macarons. They’re made of egg whites and an almond paste filling–somewhat like marzipan, I think. They arrived in time and C. said they shared one macaron before bringing them to the Easter luncheon and it was delicious!
rack of lamb with mustard, rosemary, garlic glaze . . .
In addition to the mustard/rosemary rack of lamb medium rare (hopefully,) we’re having artichokes with a curry mayonnaise as a starter, the lamb, small yukon potatoes crisped in butter and garlic salt, and parsnips (G.’s favorite vegetable.) And for dessert, the dark chocolate sour cream cake with chocolate frosting.
So, here’s hoping you have also had an enjoyable day filled with reading the paper, Easter egg hunts and some nice wine and tasty food!
Instead of making hamburgers tonight, I decided to make a shepherd’s pie. There are some shortcuts along the way and I thought maybe I’d write them down in this post. First of all, I’ve been learning from watching a lot of cooking shows to keep flavors separate until you want to blend them. So, instead of frying the ground beef with onions, I cut up a whole onion and browned it in some oil and butter after two garlic cloves had been toasted and removed. Then, I cut up three huge button mushrooms into chunks and added them to the browning onions. I scooped them into a separate bowl while I browned the beef in the skillet, breaking it up so that it browned evenly. (Dropped the spatula on the floor, flinging onions around twice!) Then, added the chunky onions and mushrooms, gently folding them into the beef. Sprinkled with Maldon salt and cracked pepper. Finally, I made some mashed potatoes, enriched with milk and butter, smoothed over the top of the meat, onion and mushroom mixture, dotted with butter and sprinkled lightly with parmesan cheese.
Washed and dried my favorite fluted baking dish that I bought years ago in Gloucester. It’s just the right size to hold a casserole dish for two. Plus, it’s so elegant on the serving board when we have dinner. There’s a huge bag of fresh spinach that C. brought from the organic farm last weekend that I’ve been meaning to cook before this. I thought I’d heat up a few garlic cloves and cook a mound of it in the skillet, letting it disappear to almost nothing as fresh spinach is wont to do. Then, drain the liquid out of it, cut it up in the skillet with a sharp knife and add some light cream, a little salt and pepper and freshly grated nutmeg to dress it up a little.
I’ve noticed lately that I’ve been dropping things and finding the logistics of cooking from a wheelchair more challenging these days. Maybe it’s because it is getting near the tail end of the dozen weeks that I’ve had my cast on and I’m impatient to have it off next week. My short fuse might also be due to the many dishes that I’ve been cooking of late–a cumulative culinary journey that has occupied me during these long days sitting on the couch for most days since February when I broke my ankle.
The weather is turning warmer, the light so much brighter and it will be nice to be able to navigate the stairs so that I can go outside more often. G. has been doing heavy lifting for grocery shopping, getting things out of the pantry, raising and lowering the shades, doing the laundry and helping me all day long, with good humor and so much patience. We will enjoy our supper tonight together and, as usual, give thanks for the simple things in life.
homemade mushroom pizza . . .
For the past few years, I’ve been wanting to try my hand at making home-made pizzas. When we had a winter rental more than two years ago in Rockport, MA., I ordered Jim Lahey’s book on making pizzas along with a pizza stone but never got around to following up. We are still looking for that pizza stone downstairs somewhere, but I ordered a second one which arrived last night. (If the first one turns up, I’ll give it to C.) My interest to make homemade pizza was piqued once again last week when a full page article by Sam Sifton appeared in the NYTimes food section. In the online article, there was a video that showed a Brooklyn pizza maker handling the dough (gently,) putting on tomato sauce (sparingly) that was made just from canned tomatoes, not a prepared salty-full-of-additives-and-preservatives-jarred-pizza sauce; and thin slabs of fresh mozzarella cheese. Fresh basil leaves were placed on top of the baked pizza after it came out of the oven.
an online margherita pizza photo
Simple tomato/cheese pizzas (Margherita) are my favorite kind of pizza, I think–just very simple and clean, chewy but not heavy. So this morning, I followed the NYTimes recipe for pizza dough that combines Italian pizza flour (00) and regular flour with yeast, water, salt and olive oil. Jim Lahey just uses all-purpose flour.
The key to making tender pizza dough is the same instruction for making tender scones, rolls or bread: handle gently and as little as possible. When you push out the dough, or let it stretch to make the pizza later on, you’re supposed to handle it “like a baby.” Gently does it. A very little bit of tomato sauce is added, then fresh cheese. Flour the surface that you make the pizza on so you can transfer it easily onto a wooden or bamboo peel (a flat surface with a long handle.)
fresh basil and pizza dough
In the meantime, a pizza stone is gradually heating up in an oven turned up from an initial heat of 350 degrees to 400 and then finally to 500 degrees. Open the oven, stand back and slide the pizza from the peel to the heated stone. Some recipes say to turn off the oven and turn on the broiler on high to “broil” the pizza (Lahey) if you have an electric stove. Sam Sifton in the NYTimes article says to just let it bake at 500 degrees for five to eight minutes, watching it carefully. When the pizza is baked, use the peel to remove it from the stone and onto a board where you can add fresh basil leaves and cut it into serving pieces.
I guess it seemed daunting to make pizzas from scratch because of the equipment required: having to bake it on a pizza stone so that the crust would be light and crispy; transferring it with the use of a large peel, etc. etc. In fact, dear reader, the stone was about $15 and the bamboo peel cost about $12 on amazon.com with free shipping (I have Amazon Prime.) Oh, and I ordered the special Italian pizza flour (00) last week online too. These three ingredients/tools are what I have been waiting for to make pizzas that will hopefully taste like those $18-$22 babies in specialty pizza restaurants (of which there are NONE in the working-class town that I live in–but I have been treated to them in Minneapolis when I visit family there.)
When it came time to assemble the pizzas, I was surprised (chagrined) to find the plastic wrap sticking to the dough. I had to peel it off and knead the dough a little with some extra flour. Then, the hardest part was getting the “baby” yeast dough to thin out and stay stretched out rather than shrinking back again as soon as you let go of it. So, I ended up with a pizza about ten inches in diameter, not twelve. I added a little tomato sauce made from pureeing San Marzano tomatoes with a little olive oil and salt in the Vitamix. There’s plenty of this tomato “sauce” to use later in the week on cappellini pasta with shrimp or to decorate another round of eggplant parmigiana.
The pizza on the stone in a 500 degree oven didn’t bake as fast as the experts said it would. After fifteen minutes, I turned off the oven and turned on the broiler to finish cooking the mushrooms and cheese on top of the pizza. Meanwhile, there were crumbs, flour and basil leaves decorating the front of my clothes and all over the kitchen floor. By the time G. returned home, I was more than a little cranky, mollified later only by the clean taste of the pizza once we got it off the stone and onto a board. Half a glass of ice-cold Miller Lite beer helped a little too. Was it worth it?
Sort of, I would respond, knowing that there’s another pizza dough resting in the fridge for a second trial run at this sometime later this week!
a slice of mushroom pizza . . .
mulberryshoots 