slinging hash: pizza

Homemade pizza is having a moment. I spotted it last month, in the New York Times Magazine, and a few days later on Michael Ruhlman's blog, not to mention in this month's issue of Martha Stewart Living.

Although I go through phases, I've been making pizza for dinner about once a week for many years. I like playing with yeast; there was a time, many years ago, when I used to cultivate wild yeast spores in my kitchen for my amusement.

Making pizza does not require special equipment (Really!). You do not need a pizza stone. A pizza peel and cutting wheel are useful if you are going to do this a lot, but a cookie sheet makes a fine substitute for a peel, and a chef's knife, or pair of kitchen shears will cut slices adequately. You do not need to master fancy technique for stretching the dough; no spinning and flipping required!

While it may sound counter intuitive, I find pizza to be a quick meal that requires little advance preparation. I used to start the dough in the late afternoon, after my kids got home from school, and since pizza dough only needs one rising, it would be ready by 5.00 for topping and baking. I have since streamlined the preparation even further, after I learned on The Kitchn that while the dough's flavor may benefit from rising, it is not necessary! (I find the difference in flavor indiscernable.)

Perhaps pizza's biggest appeal, though, is that it is a rare dinner that exceeds my two out of three guideline, sort of. While everyone in my family likes a Neapolitan pie, everyone also has their personal topping preference, and someone is usually apt to complain if I don't make it their way. My sons like it plain, in the Roman style, with olive oil and salt. My daughter likes it with thinly sliced potatoes, rosemary, and a grating of Romano cheese. David and I like all of the above, but we also like it topped with olive oil and zatar, or caramelized onions and feta or goat cheese, or our current favorite, sauteed broccoli rabe and gorgonzola.

For a while, I made things a real pain in the ass for myself, by making many individual pies, with customized toppings for everyone. Why did I ever get into this habit? To amuse my children, who enjoy rolling and topping their own pies. That's just what every mother wants to do in the thick of dinner preparation, yes?

A few weeks ago, I said fuck it, and began streamlining things. Now I make two larger pies, two toppings. One that everyone (aka the kids) will like, and one for David and myself.

I did this last night, for Mother's Day. We'd gone out to dinner with my mother Saturday night, so were eating at home. That was a present to myself; a dinner that no one would complain about. But yet...

I decided on a Neapolitan pie, because I had some sauce already made, and one with broccoli rabe, because I also had that cooked in the fridge. Sarah came into the kitchen and asked what kind of pies we were having, and when she found out there would be no potato pizza, she had a minor episode of righteous indignation because I NEVER MAKE THE KIND THAT SHE LIKES.

(I made it last week.)

There is a parlor game I play with friends sometimes; informally called, What Puts You on the Couch? In it, we try to imagine which of the many, many mistakes we make as parents will be the ones that send our kids into therapy. If this is what eventually puts Sarah on the couch, that her mother made more of her BROTHER'S favorite pizzas, and not enough of her favorite potato pizza, I will consider it evidence that I did a pretty good job.

Homemade pizza dough
(adapted from The Kitchn)

This makes enough for four approximately twelve inch pies; the dough keeps well, in a sealed ziploc bag for up to a week.
*Lately I've been making the crust with a combination of all-purpose, and white whole wheat flour, in an approximate 2:1 ratio.

1-1/2 cups water
1 teaspoon of active-dry yeast
4 cups (10 ounces) unbleached all-purpose flour*
1 tsp salt

30 minutes to 1 hour before baking, pre-heat oven to 500 degrees.

In a small bowl or liquid measuring cup, heat the water until barely lukewarm. (I do this in short 30-second bursts in the microwave.) If you used a measuring cup, transfer water to a bowl, sprinkle the yeast over, and let stand a few minutes to allow the yeast to dissolve. It will take on a creamy appearance.

Add the salt, and then flour one cup at a time, until you have a wet, ragged dough.

Turn this dough out onto a well-floured counter or cutting board (I like to use a large silpat mat for this), and knead in flour a bit at a time until the dough forms a smooth, cohesive ball. Go slowly, as if you add too much flour, the dough will be hard to roll.

Tear off about a quarter of the dough, and place on a lightly floured piece of parchment paper about 12-inches wide. (At this point, I place the parchment on top of my pizza peel.) Lightly flour the top of the dough, and press it out to a flat disc. Working from the center, roll out until it's about a quarter inch thick.

Lightly coat the now rolled dough with a sprinkling of olive oil and salt, and top as you wish. Slide the pizza, still on parchment paper, into the pre-heated oven and bake approximately ten minutes. I try to remember to rotate the dough about halfway through at which point, I slide it off of the parchment paper to finish cooking.

roomba, RIP

It is with some sadness that I write today that me and my Roomba have parted ways.

I have something of a mania for vacuuming. Although one's dharma changes over time, for at least the past decade, vacuuming has been an important element of mine. It began when I was a newly married graduate student, yearning for a companion during my solitary hours of study, but not ready to commit to a dog. (I'm still not quite ready for that one.) So we got cats, the perfect pet for the commitment-phobe, although I am allergic to them. I adored my cats, but oh, the shedding! It was very hard for an anal neat freak to bear. But, I reasoned, as long as I took allergy medication, and kept the rugs and upholstery scrupulously clean, I'd be fine. It also seemed like the right thing to do as a hostess; who wants to see a guest rise from your couch with their ass covered in your cat's hair? So began a daily regimen of vacuuming.

I didn't really mind. It turned out, I find vacuuming enormously therapeutic. It's aerobic benefits should not be overlooked. I run cold (body temperature; not cold-hearted bitch; I hope), and in the depths of winter, when we try to resist turning the heat too high and a sweater is just not helping, I've been known to take the vacuum out for a few laps to warm myself up. Plus, the crackly sound of crumbs being sucked up by the rotating brushes and into the hose is one of those great satisfying sounds, akin to the whoosh of opening a soda can, or the pop of a champagne cork.

I've never read Joyce Carol Oates, but when I read her mention, in an interview in the New York Times Magazine a few weeks ago, "The cleaning is something I use as a reward if I get some work done. I go into a very happy state of mind when I’m vacuuming. I think some of my male colleagues, like Philip Roth and Don DeLillo, are completely denied this pleasure," I recognized a kindred spirit, and realized I should start reading her work AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.

My vacuuming habit has outlasted my cats, because not only because it is so finely ingrained, but because I now have children, and we all know the messes they generate. By the time I had children and multi-story house, the lugging of the vacuum, sometimes with a small child in one arm, up and down a flight of stairs from the broom closet, began to seem a bit hazardous, to my baby, not to mention my back. Although I don't like to duplicate appliances, it seemed like a second vacuum might be in order. When some friends mentioned they had gotten a Roomba, and it really worked, my pulse quickened with the possibilities.

The Roomba and I began dating about a year and a half ago, and like all doomed relationships, it started off swimmingly. It was a beautiful thing; I could press go, walk the kids to school, and come home to a clean floor! It was so amusing to watch it work, stumbling around like a blind dog eating your crumbs!

But once you've gotten to know one another a bit better, at about the point where you're leaving a toothbrush at each others apartment, flaws inevitably begin to emerge. At first, it's just little things -- how he never puts his clothes in the hamper on the way to bed, or consistently misses that pile of crumbs in the corner of the rug -- but you love each other, so you can live with it!

The first indication that things are doomed is when you begin to believe it's you, not him, that is the problem. Maybe I didn't arrange the chairs correctly, for maximum vacuuming efficiency? Perhaps I had unrealistic expectations, and clearing the rug of the dried grains of rice was just too much to ask of a vacuum?

Or perhaps, we just had a defective model? I exchanged it for a new one, and for while, it was like that reconciliation after the breakup; we were so happy, and didn't understand why we'd ever parted. But then the same old patterns began to emerge. Either David or myself would set the Roomba to go, and then chide the other one for not running the vacuum, because the rug looked just like it did before we started. All this, despite the fact that as long as we owned the Roomba, we emptied the filter regularly, and kept the brushes as clean as possible.

So my husband and I began to have that difficult conversation about whether it was time to put the pet down. As anyone who has ever had to say good-bye to a beloved furry friend knows, this is a difficult decision to make. But after one too many nights of me running the Roomba, then David running it, the answer became clear. I brought it back for a full refund. (It turns out, as long as you save your receipt, Bed, Bath and Beyond will give you your money back. Since I'd owned the vacuum for almost a year, I would have been satisfied with store credit, so kudos, Bed, Bath and Beyond!)

And because I was so happy to have all that cash back in my pocket, I bought a new vacuum for the first floor, a Eureka Optima. It was extremely inexpensive, at $60. It weighs about 12 pounds, so I could conceivably carry it up and down stairs. It's bagless, which I like, and has a telescoping handle, which appeals to my kids, because they can shorten the handle and actually vacuum, as opposed to pretend to vacuum. So much more satisfying than the toy Dirt Devil they currently (But that Dirt Devil is still one of the best presents ever given to my kids; thanks, Sharon, you know me so well!)

I have a friend who is a devoted bread baker; every week he makes his own baguettes. When I mentioned to him how superlative No-Knead Bread is, he was interested, but not eager to try it himself; after all, kneading is part of the fun. So it is, for me and vacuuming. Sometimes, you still have to do the hard work for yourself, and you actually enjoy it.

Adieu, my vacuuming robot; I will miss you, but not too much.

chick flick

My daughter was home sick yesterday, and both boys were at school, so we had the morning free. Normally I'd suggest a cooking project, but yesterday, a rainy day when you just wanted to huddle under the covers, I asked if she wanted to watch a movie. It seemed appropriately decadent, since I'd never turn the television on for myself during the day.

Sarah is at that in between place where childhood entertainments are beginning to seem to babyish, but the next step, which has her endlessly intrigued, is still a little too...tarty. We settled on Bride Wars. Who doesn't love a bride? It promised promised hijinx! And pratfalls! And blue hair! So we huddled under a blanket on the couch together and ordered it up on pay-per-view.

I generally don't like chick flicks, and would have never chosen to watch this on my own. The plot was facile, the comedy too broad, the characters were caricatures. I know that is the point of a formula film such as this.

But the experience of watching it with my daughter, on a day when she was supposed to be in school, made the experience so...delicious, that I found I enjoyed, if not the film, certainly the experience. Letting my critical, intellectual faculties go, taking at face value that this was a mindless entertainment, not high art, liberated me.

I'm sure the company helped. Perhaps the inclusion of a companion--even who who is still a bit too young understand the phychological nuances--is the appeal of the chick flick, and the essential quality which has eluded me all these years.

The quiet time

I adore silence. I like to ease into my day slowly, and if it were up to me, no one would speak to me for an hour or so.

I enjoy gabbing, but I could go hours without speaking and be utterly happy. When I went on retreat during my first yoga teacher training, we would have silent mornings, where we did not speak from the time we woke until after breakfast, when the day's lessons began. This made some people uncomfortable, but oh, the joy it brought me!

I didn't know this about myself until I had children. My, how they talk your ear off! And while so much of what they say is adorable, and fascinating, at a certain point in the evening, I JUST WANT IT TO STOP. I try to wake 30 minutes before my children, to have a cup of coffee, and soak in the silence. I listen to less music than I thought I ever would at this point in my life, not because don't enjoy it, but because given life in a household of five, the opportunity for complete silence is rare and beautiful.

Tonight, as I was cleaning up dinner my son was flummoxing me by trying to make me solve relatively simple multiplication problems in my head. Maths have never been my strong suit, and all the calculation was making my brain ache. But when Gabriel gets tired, his chatting switch flips quickly. When he's in that woozy zone between wakefulness and sleep, he will turn to me and say, "Can we not talk anymore?" That's my boy!

My daughter, on the other hand, can talk a blue streak. And I mean indigo, moving into violet. Tonight, she regaled me with the plot of an episode of the Simpsons she'd been watching, in TREMENDOUS detail. Sarah is old enough to now to understand that as the day winds down, I simply run out of wind for conversation. She can sense this, and sometimes will ask me, mid-stream of consciousness, "Is this time when you can't speak anymore?" But she can't quite help herself, because even as I nod yes, she resumes her story. She's learning.

Because she knew I didn't want to talk anymore, tonight she left me with an assignment; in the morning she wants me to explain the difference between furthermore and fluidity.

Right now the roomba just finished cleaning the dining room rug, and my son is snoring sweetly next to me (sometimes he passes out on the couch during reading time).

Aside from that 30 minutes alone in the morning, the time I look forward to most is when the children are all asleep, and I can sit on the couch with my feet on David's lap reading in companionable silence. Then at some point, we will look at each other, gesture toward the stairs, gather our books and move to the bedroom, hopefully, without saying a word.

slinging hash

I am a housewife. Some people may call me a stay-at-home-mom, I prefer to call a spade a spade. I am highly educated and intelligent, and I like being a housewife. It is my trade, and my dharma. Like many jobs, housewifery can be extremely dull. The financial renumeration sucks, but it is also the most satisfying, rewarding job I've ever held. So in addition to the child care and cleaning, and diplomacy, one of the things I do to amuse myself, which also happens to be an essential part of the job description, is to cook.

Although I think she would deny this, my mother hated to cook, so I did not learn at her knee, but from books, when I was in my twenties, after I set up my own household. Marcella Hazan and Laurie Colwin were my constant companions. I had a lot of time on my hands for such pursuits, as a graduate student in art history. And while I loved my studies, in retrospect, I found the work I did in my kitchen, after my schoolwork was done for the day, far more engaging. Art history taught me about the sweep of history, while cooking taught me how life is lived.

It is many years later, and I have three children now. I prepare at least two hot meals a day, 6 or 7 days a week. (There are packed lunches for school, which my husband takes care of, to my great appreciation.) My children usually get a hot breakfast; pancakes, or french toast, a quick bread, oatmeal, cocoa. There are toaster waffles and english muffins, and cold cereal in rotation as well. But the truth for me is, it is that while cooking from scratch may be messier, it is not much harder to prepare most of these items from scratch than from mixes, and since I do not have to run to catch a bus or train after taking my kids to school, I have the luxury of being able to clean up the mess, at my leisure. As long as its done by lunchtime, I'm happy.

When other mothers hear what I make for breakfast, I am frequently confronted with reactions of intimidated disbelief, which is not at all my intention. I do not think I am a better mother for cooking this way; it simply brings me great satisfaction. I do find it curious that as someone who cooks for their family, I am the exception to the norm, that cooking from scratch, one of the most ordinary of things, has taken on overtones of a radical choice.

Our family sits down to dinner, in the dining room (the kitchen only seats four, and I find it much more relaxing not to look at the prep mess), while eating. We do not answer the phone during dinner, much as it makes my children squirm. We light candles and use cloth napkins.

It sounds very serene, and perhaps insufferable? In reality, we have as many moments of tranquility as bursts of savagery. We frequently have to remind our younger patrons that this is not a clothing optional establishment; we will serve you without a shirt or shoes, but we do draw the line between your bare ass at the table. I often have to scramble to clear the folded laundry off the table so as to set it for dinner. The savage, AKA the three-year old, spends a good portion of the meal under the table, which we've taken to calling his lair, eating off the floor. We sometimes yell at the children, but more often, we talk; about school or politics or current events. We play parlor games, and try to teach our children about the give and take that is the art of conversation. All this in about 20 minutes; we've learned through trial and error that it is unrealistic to expect children to sit for much longer.

Dinnertime is both delightful and exasperating, but I believe the family meal is central to family cohesion. Food is one of the best, most primal ways I know to express love. Were I to try, I could probably track the dissolution of my parent's union to the timbre of the family meals. By the time I was in high school, everyone prepared their own meal, usually involving something boiled in a bag or heated in the microwave, and we ate in staggered fashion You sat when your meal was ready, rarely ate the same thing that the person sitting next to you was eating, and when you were through, you cleaned up after yourself and went on with your business. Even as an adolescent, this struck me as sad.

The exception was Sundays, when my did cook, and when she served the meal, she often did so with the caveat that she had now completed her weekly obligation, and we could eat the leftovers until the next Sunday. Needless to say, this did not make me feel very loved, but more like an albatross, as if cooking for us was a terrible burden. In hindsight, I have come to look on this with more empathy; such is the lot for those depressed, and unhappily married.

I don't cook complicated things--my customers are ages 10, 6 and 3--and while I believe we are doing children a huge disservice to assume all they will eat is pizza, hot dogs and chicken nuggets, I have found that there are limits to what their palates will tolerate. Rare is the occasion when all three of my children are uniformly happy about what's being served. If two out of three like it, I call it success. And no matter how you slice it, clean-up is a bitch--my husband and think long and hard before serving rice; have you ever spent the later part of the evening plucking dried grains from the rug? By the time dinner is over, we are desparate to move you children along to bed.

I have a few guidelines as to what makes a reasonable meal with children. The key is to manage expectations; with dinner as a paradigm for so much of life, my golden rule is not perfect, but good enough. Where dinner is concerned, this translates to my two out of three rule. At this point I find it too challenging to cook a protein, starch and vegetable for one meal, so usually, there's two out of three, preferable protein + vegetable. One-dish meals are a great option, and I try to do these often. If it's not a one-dish meal, there is generally one item I spend a good amount of time on, never two or three. I try to limit our meat consumption to 2-3 times a week. Vegetables are usually prepared very simply, and are often frozen. I have come to rely greatly on frozen vegetables, cooked in the microwave and seasoned with a bit of salt and butter. The truth is, Trader Joe's frozen Haricot Verts are pretty good, and when last week, for the first time since last spring I served fresh green beans, my 6-year old rejected them. If my kids eat two out of three items on their plate, I am satisfied (although I am frustrated internally). Similarly, if two of my children enjoy a meal and one rejects it outright, I consider it a success. When everyone likes the entire meal the heavens open up, and there is much rejoicing (quietly, on my part; if I were to let on how pleased I was, it would surely ruin things the next time.)

A case for intermarriage.

Passover is my least favorite holiday. Seders are lovely, but I loathe the eight days of eating matzah. Any gentile will tell you how delicious matzah is with butter and salt, and while that may be true, bread and butter is infinitely more so. Not only does matzah taste like cardboard, it is notoriously binding. All I'll say is two weeks out from Passover, and my system is still recovering.

I was reading Molly Wizenberg's lovely book, A Homemade Life while cooking for the seder, and came across a recipe for Fruit-Nut Balls, a favorite Christmas cookies. The recipe is extremely simple; a mixture of walnuts, dried fruits and a splash of Grand Marnier, rolled and coated in powdered sugar and topped with a chocolate cap. It didn't appeal to me much, but I thought it would make a good haroset, as it's very similar to Sephardic preparations.

Haroset is one of the symbolic foods on the seder plate, a paste of fruit and nuts, sweetened with a bit of wine, and meant to symbolize the mortar used to bond bricks while the Israelites were enslaved in Egypt. I grew up eating a traditional Askenazi haroset of apples, walnuts, wine, cinnamon and honey. Shortly after I was married, my mother gave me Joan Nathan's Jewish Cooking in America, where I learned there is a whole world of haroset out there.

Sephardic harosets are heavy on dried fruits, so I decided to use Wizenberg's recipe sans the Christmas gilding, and serve the paste on its own. It made an adequate, if not exciting, filling for the Hillel sandwiches (haroset + horseradish on matzah), and a lot of leftovers. When the seder was over, I put it in the refrigerator for the night.

The second night we had an impromptu seder with our neighbors, and when I broke out the haroset, my neighbor's first comment was, "Oh, Sephardic haroset!" I got a kick when I explained; "Yes, but it's a bastardized Christmas cookie." We ate it at our second seder, still didn't make much of a dent, and back in the fridge it went.

It wasn't until the next day*, when I came across a mention of Charoset truffles on the kitchn, that the tide turned for me and my haroset. Oh, the power of a name; I mean, what would you rather eat, a ball, or a truffle? For truffles, the haroset is rolled and coated in granulated, not powdered sugar, and...oh my lord! I served them with tea to my Irish friend, and we could not eat enough of these. The contrast between the grainy crunch of sugar crystals and the sweet, soft fruit was irresistible. Call them what you will, the shiksa haroset was delicious. Good things happen when Jews and Gentiles mix.

*That that the mixture had now spent two days macerating is not insignificant; this is the kind of food that gets better with age.

Shiksa Charoset Truffles, or Fruit Nut Balls
adapted from A Homemade Life, by Molly Wizenberg

1 cup walnuts
1/2 pound each, pitted:
dried cherries
dried figs
dried apricots
prunes (is it redundant to say dried?)
1-2 T liquor, such as Grand Marnier or brandy
(The cork in my bottle of Grand Marnier, which was a divorce spoil from my parents unravelling, making it...I don't know how old, turned to dust as I tried to remove it, so I had to use Calvados. If you were more letter than spirit of the law, you'd use Boone's Farm a sweet Passover wine like Manishevitz.)
granulated sugar for coating

Pulse the walnuts in the food processor until finely chopped, and remove to a bowl.
Pulse the dried fruit in two batches and add to the walnuts.
Add a the liquor a bit at a time until the mixture holds together well when rolled.
Let sit overnight, or roll into approximately 1-1/2-inch balls, and then roll in sugar.

Ten

It is hard to imagine how it is that you're turning ten today, though indeed you are. There are few times when it seems your life begins again, and that was certainly the case when I first held you in my arms and became your mother.

I am not good at documenting milestones. You will likely never have a baby book; many of our family photographs (when we still printed stills), are in a box in the study, awaiting placement in albums. I have always imagined writing each of my children a letter on their birthdays; as you begin your second decade seems as good a time as any to start. Not a day goes by when you don't amaze me.

In honor of your birthday, here are just a few things I adore about you:

1. You slip into our bed at night like you are on a clandestine operation. Who knows how long you've been there when I finally notice you, but you are so cozy that I don't always have the heart to kick you out.

2. You always choose homemade over store-bought. You chose to spend your birthday at home instead of at school.

3. You were concerned last week that we were taking advantage of our next door neighbor when we asked to borrow a cup of sugar, but in actuality, wound up with closer to two or three.

4. You worry about the health of strangers smoking cigarettes.

5. Your ability to write spontaneous poetry and prose.

6. How beautiful you look in your swimsuit, and your natural grace in the water.

7. When you go to the foot of the stairs, clap your hands, and call to your brothers, "Boys, dinner, now," they come running.

9. You help me get Sacha ready for school in the morning.

10. When I asked you last week what you wanted for your birthday you couldn't think of anything.

And one more, for good luck:

11. You have short, middle and long-range plans, and a counter-argument for everything.

Happy Birthday, Sarah. You are my joy.

Love,
Mama

PS: Check your email to find out what your present is!