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May 05, 2003
PizzaVille: Freedom from the ZaMan...
Anyone who's been over to my house knows that guests get two food options. Options in terms of choices I make before people get invited. Either is it BBQ weirdness, usually in the form of wild boar and assorted veggies, or it is pizza. The boar's been harder to get, and since I'm sliding a bit more vegitarian these days, it is less of a motivation, though it is probaby the bestest stuff... Then the za. I've been making pizza for at least 5 years, maybe more. And I'm confident enough to say that I'm pretty good. At least better than any pizza available in Toronto that I know about. If you know better, I wanna go and eat it. The big thing these days is goatcheese cheddar and eggplant, along with the usual (when available) mixed peppers, asparagus, green onions, watercress, all on a bed of pesto, olive paste, and sundried tomato paste, in varrying amounts. Up until recently, I bought frozen organic dough from one of the two healthfood stores, one on baldwin and the other on Augusta, at $3 a unit. With the decline in my employment, I switched to the great bread store in Kensington market. And that's where the problem started. Had a couple over for dinner, and needed some dough... Three would be enough. There was only one. Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. Bought it. Ran to the healthfood store. Their frozen dough was 6 months past its due date. Bought two wizzened bits of yeast. Moan. Then I got this idea. I could make dough! For a while dave used to make dough for me. He's a master cool stuff baker, and the one whose skills with the tools of the trade kept us brewing good beer. But dave moved to England. End of story. So I went to pizza therapy and checked out their dough stuff. Checked the cupboards, and lo! Dave had left me with an unopened yeast container... when he moved a year ago. I'd never touched it. I performed all the ritual magic of making dough, running back and forth to the computer. Yes, it is on a wireless network and is portable, but I was wise enough to keep it away from the flying flower and water... it still works. And at the end of 2 hours I had two units of dough. The frozen dough from the healthfood store had melted into a grey sludge. So I had no choice but to use my twin seething masses of fermenting monstrosity. And the rest, they say, was just making the 'za. Nicely enough, no one could tell which of the three pizzas was using store bought dough... that one good one that I'd bought. Now I have a new calling... pizza completely from scratch.... we have the technology."
Posted by jason at May 5, 2003 07:20 AM