And now for the long-awaited results of the aforementioned pizza, as well as other amusing sundries regarding Things That Have Happened With Food during the past week.
1) The Famous Pizza.
Let me remind you that this is all from scratch. Now purists out there might argue, The Man did not grind his own wheat, or make his own cheese, but neither did he knock-up the cow to produce the calf that made the milk. Nor did he plant the fields, or create the universe in general (though he may act like it sometimes). In short, scratch means I bought flour and cheese, and all the rest is fresh veg from our great local produce store.
The Man has a good touch with dough, where mine tends to Dwarf Bread. The crust was very simple, flour, yeast, salt, water and rose to a fluffy soft, elastic perfection. Topped with a sauce of fresh Roma tomatoes, garlic, basil, various classic pizza veg, smoked farmers sausage and mozarella. It was pizza from the Gods. The Young One was given the test pizza topped with scallions, green pepper and anchovies, as per his instruction. Only nine and already he has a thing for anchovies… The innovation was to cook it in a cast iron frying pan so the bottom gets crustillitious.
And thus began a week of pizza gluttony. Bales of Dough sat in the fridge waiting for the moment when they would be chosen to be converted into more and more pizza. These were glory days with no end in sight.
“Lets eat Pizza forever”, we said.
Alas, for our greed, The Man was punished. Perhaps, rather than being from the Gods, it was meant for them, since the pizza betrayed him in the End. It happened innocently enough, while removing the final pie from the oven. The handle of the Cast Iron pan was not entirely covered by the oven mitt, and a slight slip caused the handle to come in contact with skin. 450 degree cast iron is hot and burns instantly.
Now The Man is sporting a Burn Bubble the size of a quarter, and nursing within his soul, the ultimate hurt that the pizza did not love him as much as he loved it. The pizza burst his bubble. Lets hope it leaves the burn alone.
2) The Wierd
I decided to dabble in baby octopus again. Not having ever eaten it when it was made by someone who is competent at cooking it, I am not sure if I suck at it, or what it is supposed to taste like. I draw on my calamari experience and decide to coat it in corn starch and fry it in my wok. I think they were O.K. Greasy, crunchy things sprayed with lemon rarely go awry. They had an appropriate fishy flavor that was reminiscent of fast food fish house. Fun, rubbery and suited my non-meat mood. It probably worked because of the tartar-style sauce of Mayo (yes, store bought, and yes, I can make it myself), terragon, garlic olive oil, and dill pickles. The Young One certainly liked them, and I have had much worse at a so-called seafood restaurant.
Would I serve them to a customer? Probably not until I tweak the recipe, perhaps braising them first would be better to tenderize the meat a little.
Will I try again? Absolutely yes, they are just so irresistably cute....
(not as cute as quails, but much less tragic.)
