Pizza

Let's talk about pizza.

I don't think this is a topic I would have ever brought up on my own. Pizza is good. Pizza is fine. I will eat just about any brand or style of pizza, without many complaints. You know when pizza is appropriate? On moving days. You invite your friends over to help you move, and you give them pizza for lunch. Or you order pizza on a movie night. Or you get pizza for a kid's birthday party. These have always been my pizza thoughts.

Then I met Manfriend.

Manfriend loves pizza. Not only does he love pizza, but he knows a lot about pizza. He's a pizza fiend. When visiting different cities, he gets on his computer and hunts down that city's best pizza. He writes pizza reviews. Say what? Yes. He writes pizza reviews for a very large website. He uses words like "char", "undercarriage", and "notes of..." to talk about the appearance and flavor of pizza. Where did this guy come from?

Well, I don't really care where he came from, but he's here, and all of a sudden I know more about pizza than I ever did before. In fact, just last week Manfriend was visiting a restaurant to write a story about a special kind of pizza topping. He shadowed the pizza chef (are they called chefs? I don't even know), wrote notes, took pictures. When we tasted the pizza afterward, the pizza chef (who already knew Manfriend) asked me, "So are you now along for all of the pizza adventures?" I responded that yes, I now know more about pizza than I previously did, and how I can somehow distinguish whcih restaurants I like better.

One day I may even begin to formulate a reason why I like a certain pizza better other than "Ummm, it was good." 

On to the story: So Manfriend likes experimenting with homemade pizzas, and while we were at his place in Seattle, he made a very tasty Sicilian style pizza. What's Sicilian? I don't know. But it was good. 

He made the dough, using this recipe. It was fairly simple, and made easier with a stand mixer and a dough hook. It had to rise for two hours. If you don't have a stand mixer, you can still make it, but it will take 9-10 hours to rise. However, we did not use the sauce listed with that dough recipe. I'm sure that one's fine, but we used another recipe.

The sauce (New York style) was also pretty simple, much simpler than I had anticipated. And yes, the onions cook like that. 

We topped the pizza with parmesan, fresh mozarella, and fresh basil. It didn't need anything else because it was so delicious. 

While Manfriend was preparing this scrumptious pizza, I actually thought to myself "I wish my blog had the ability to transmit smells, because this smells so amazing."