Eating Sunday – Viva Italia

Summer is upon us and I have lately been craving margherita pizza, but really haven’t found what I’m looking for around town. Why not make my own? Granted, I’ve never made pizza before, have uncanny bad luck with leavening agents, and it is guaranteed to handily warm up my kitchen on an already hot day. But it’s just dough, tomatoes, olive oil, mozzarella, and basil. How hard could that be?

Hmmm. About that dough. This is actually attempt number two. Attempt number one involved a complete breakdown in my dough creation skills. Attempt two involves buying dough from the store.

Here is what the dough actually looks like – wholesome and potentially delicious…

And this is its evil twin, thanks to the magic of HDR (same ball of dough).

It looks like something that might come after you in your sleep. Better to bake it until it can do no harm.

Next the toppings…

A quick journey to the center of the oven and you have pizza margherita!

Because there was enough dough for one large or two small pizzas, I got crazy and experimental and made one to take into work tomorrow.

For this I added prosciutto and artichokes…

Pizza to share…

Oh yeah. And Chianti. If only I could take this into work to share.

So now that my place is nearly as hot as my oven, I can sit down to the yummy summer sunday meal. Two years ago, I sat at the edge of the Grand Canal in Venice munching margherita while cute Italian waiters brought on the wine. The meal I just created was not entirely unlike that, but it’s just not the same. Which only means that I will have to get much better or spend more time in Italy (I’m really pulling for Italy).