Pizza Night And There's A Bat In My Kitchen !

pizza is my FAVORITE FOOD...and i have been making it for 30 years here in my kitchen..it all started as a tradition for Monday Night Football... plus we always have it EVERY Halloween Night... this one is olive and canadian bacon...

i have made it so many times i think i could make it in my sleep...

sometimes i wonder is this my one millionth bowl of dough and i don't even know it....

on a warm day i walk into my kitchen and can smell that yeasty dough rising...

i know those pans look scary...i have gotten some strange looks when i whip them out...they are REALLY old..but they make the crispy kind of crust that we like...i either sprinkle them with cornmeal or line them with parchment...i go back and forth as to which method i like best...

i use a mixture of cheese...mozzarella, gruyere, provolone...this and that...whatever is around...

there is my breakfast for this morning..nothing could be better...

i couldn't help myself..i had to hang this little guy up the other night... whiskey and dande love it !

GOLD STRIKE !

So I am over at our local natural foods store this morning..waiting to pick up Buddy's cough syrup prescription at the pharmacy next door......and I am cruising in the produce isle and there they were. PURE GOLD ! Right there next to the lettuce. Chanterelle Mushrooms. I could hardly believe my eyes. There were only 3 of them. So I grabbed a bag and scooped them up. I could feel my heart race. I would rather have these than a bag of diamonds.

And what perfect timing. I was planning on pizza for Sunday night as the storm slams in from the Pacific Ocean. With El Nino out there...we are suppose to have a real downpour.

I saw the produce guy and asked where they came from...just as I thought...Big Sur.

When we lived in Cambria..which is about an hour and a half south of Big Sur on Highway One, a kid who worked for John knew where the "special secret spot" was in Big Sur. John went with him one time and he said they walked back into the woods for an hour... although no forager worth his salt would ever tell the truth about where to look....unless he's a really good friend.The kid would sell them to restaurants up in the bay area...he told me he used to sell them to Alice Water's restaurant Chez Panisse. The mothership..to be sure....

Julie and I have eaten there a few times...and it is all they say..and more.

To tell you the truth, the kid's name was Jim, but I called him Zipper. I have no idea where that came from either. But Zipper would show up at my back door when we lived in Cambria with bags of freshly picked chanterelles. I usually just kept it simple...I would make some fresh pasta...saute the mushrooms in butter, add a little cream or chicken stock, salt and pepper, add the pasta to the mushroom skillet, grate some parmesan over the top and serve. That was it. Simple. And it was GOOD !

For our Sunday pizza night....I will roast the sliced mushrooms in the oven with just a toss of olive oil and sea salt, then scatter them over the top of the pizza with just a simple tomato sauce ,gruyere cheese and a sprinkle of fresh chopped parsley from the garden.

We'll build a fire in "woodstove",make our pizzas, light some candles..and wait...for RAIN !At Last !

See any Halloween?

Hint Hint...the light in the window is a witch.

Pizza and Syrah

We're LUCKY ! We live in the Paso Robles wine region and we have some beautiful wines here. It really starts to feel like fall when John and I open one of the big red wines. They taste and smell of autumn in the woods. All earthy and jammy and winey. We have been making homemade pizza for Monday Night Football for nearly 30 years.And now we have Sunday Night Football so our new pizza night is Sunday. Any excuse, really. I made the dough in the morning and let it sit on the drainboard all day. When I walked by I could just feel the yeast growing..and it smelled so yeasty and lusty. By evening we opened our wine and rolled out the dough. I sauteed some mushrooms and we put on a few olives. Sometimes I buy "special" cheese....and sometimes I use what we have. Tonight was what we had. And it went pretty well. I had some mozzarella and some leftover fontina and some of the parmigiano-reggiano we had grated for the tagliatelle night.So we sipped our wine, rolled our dough, heated the oven and baked pizzas. We sat in our little cozy living room enjoying pizza and wine.

I told John, we have had pizza all over the U.S. And at some of the "it" places, but I don't know how you could beat this. Maybe it tasted so good just because we were.....HOME.

Pizza Night

Well, we were tired after the birthday party, but we did manage to make a pizza.John likes sausage and I like plain cheese..so we split it. I always wonder how much of that sausage grease runs onto my side, but I never say anything. But it was good. And it makes us happy to make it.