I recently hatched the idea that I was going to start making pizza. Still a young and impressionable food mind, I’m embarrassingly susceptible to trends publicized in the food magazines that I read.
It didn’t seem like it would be that hard. Get the proper equipment, and start baking. And the capital outlay didn’t seem like so much either: just that heavy stone that hangs out on the bottom of the oven.
My first effort took place about a month ago. I didn’t get very far. Not only am I an inexperienced pizza maker, I’m also a novice baker. Specifically, I’d never tried to make dough rise before. And, sure enough, on this first attempt, thanks to general ignorance about the process, I failed to flag a couple of early missteps. The result: my dough didn’t rise. Or at least it didn’t rise enough for my satisfaction. It went into the oven to make some half-decent breadsticks, and the onions I had been melting all afternoon long wound up dressing the pasta.
Undaunted, I tried again yesterday. Making something new is a learning process, right? Who am I to think that I’m a culinary savant? And I did get farther along this time. With a little supervision (thanks, Katy), the dough rose properly. And I managed to equip myself properly for the whole process. I not only had the stone, but I also found a pizza peel in my parents’ basement– essential for getting the pizza on and off the blazing hot stone.
With one caveat. This maneuver apparently requires some finesse. And yesterday, I didn’t have it. I stretched out the first dough (perhaps a little too thin in the center), stationed it on the peel, and distributed my toppings. Next stop, the oven. Well, the wheels got caught in the mud. A thin crust and a poorly floured peel meant that my pie wasn’t going anywhere. I fashioned it into a crude calzone and hoped for better results with the second one.
This time around, I exercised greater caution with stretching the dough, but to no avail. Timidity in flouring the peel led to a similar result as the first time.
But I won’t be stopped in this mission. I got closer this time than I did during my first attempt last month. So, I’m declaring Winter 2009 the season of pizza. I will master it. And there will be pictures in this space.
