Pleased to Pizza

For me there is no more perfect food than pizza.  It is bread, dairy, vegetable and often meat.  There are even those that might go so far as to put fruit on theirs.  It is easy to find in every town and available in many varieties from your grocery store.  It is economical and in many places you can even have it delivered to your door.  It can be eaten at any meal (and yes I will definitely have it for breakfast) and it is one of those foods than even when it isn’t great, it’s still good.

I have always liked pizza in its many forms.  Growing up, we had pizza every Friday for school lunch.  This would be one of those times where it wasn’t great but still better than the choices most days of the week.  My mother also made pizza often at home, usually using a store bought par-baked crust or a boxed mix.  Again, not as good as going to a pizzeria but still good enough.

My generation and younger have probably never known a time without so many pizza choices but my mother can tell me about the first time she had a pizza.  It was an event.  The fact that pizza has not been common throughout the United States for any longer than my mother’s generation makes its dominance now more amazing.  We now have television shows dedicated to finding the best pizza in America, debates about thin crust versus thick, Chicago style versus New York, pizza commercials on every channel and pizza joints in every town.

Pizza changed for me in some ways when I learned to make my own.  I was in college earning my bachelor’s degree and living in a with a kitchen area.  I made my own dough but used a jar sauce.  I patted out my dough onto a large sheet pan, slathered it with sauce, laid down a full layer of thinly sliced pepperoni and covered it all with cheese before adding a few more pepperoni to the top.  It was the best pizza I ever ate.  Foods usually are when you take the time to do them yourself not just because of the quality of what you put in but the time you have invested.

I have worked on my pizza perfection over the years.  I enhanced my dough with a garlic-flavored olive oil I discovered when I was in California.  I figured out how to make my own sauce.  I came up my preferred cheese ratio; it takes more than just mozzarella.  I bought perforated pizza pans and a pizza stone.  I don’t use them both at once but the pans are easier sometimes even though the stone imparts a really nice bottom crust you can’t get any other way.

I get great satisfaction from the process of making a pizza.  I have my hands on the dough as I knead it and then let it rest.  I get to stretch it out and decide whether I want the crust a little thicker or thinner.  I have my choice in every ingredient and topping.  And I get to have extra cheese that really seems like extra cheese, I never get enough when I order one out.  Pizza is, of course, not on any low-carb, low-fat or low-anything-else diets but I will never get it completely out of mine.