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Published On: May 10, 2004 06:50 PM
Total entries in this category:
Published On: May 10, 2004 06:50 PM
Pizza Stone
It's not always easy, living on
freelance, trying to balance definite and sizable monthly bills against an
indefinite and unsteady income ...
It's not always easy, living on freelance, trying
to balance definite and sizable monthly bills against an indefinite and unsteady
income. But when once I'd returned home from California this week, I deposited
some checks for some animation and some web design work I'd done last month,
paid off my rent and my bills and my credit card payment, and lo and behold, I
had a bit of money left over. So I decided to
splurge.
I've wanted a pizza stone for ages now; it just seems like such a cool concept. If you don't know how it works, it's simply a flat stone that lies in your oven, absorbing heat as you preheat the oven. When you put a pizza or calzone or bread on it to bake, it absorbs moisture from the dough, making a nice, crisp crust, not a slightly soggy one like you'd normally get at home. Basically it duplicates the environment of a stone hearth oven.
So one afternoon I zipped off to the Florida Mall, stopped for a liesurely lunch at my favorite restaurant, Buca de Beppo (I had spaghetti with a meatball, garlic bread, and a salad, and had plenty left over for lunch the next day ... I was in heaven), then proceeded on to Williams & Sonoma.
I wonder, sometimes, if I didn't miss my calling in life. Walking into a Williams & Sonoma feels to me probably something like what walking into video game stores or sporting goods stores feel to a lot of my friends and peers. Just a casual walkthrough and I could pluck out hundreds of dollars worth of cooking gear that I never realized before I needed; and that's not even counting the elegant pots and pans that are worth hundreds of dollars apiece on their own.
But I was good. I browsed a bit, but didn't pick up anything else. I was surprised to find the pizza stone I wanted was only $30; I was expecting something closer to $50. So I did splurge a little more and bought a pizza peel (one of those wooden paddles you build a pizza on before slipping it into the oven) for another $24.
My God, what an investment! As soon as I got home, I started on a big batch of dough, enough to split into six small pizzas. All weekend long I've been pulling them out one at a time, rolling and tossing (still getting the hang of that again ... haven't made a pizza since I worked at Little Caesar's in high school almost fifteen years ago), topping with different sauces and cheeses and toppings ... it's like heaven all over again.
Of course as a result of this, I've been perusing online websites for recipes, and slipped into not only pizzas, but lots of other things too ... Italian foods, Chinese foods, eastern European foods (part of my heritage), Cajun foods, Mexican foods ... all my favorites. It makes me just want to cook for a week and try everything.
And I'm supposed to be on a diet.
I've wanted a pizza stone for ages now; it just seems like such a cool concept. If you don't know how it works, it's simply a flat stone that lies in your oven, absorbing heat as you preheat the oven. When you put a pizza or calzone or bread on it to bake, it absorbs moisture from the dough, making a nice, crisp crust, not a slightly soggy one like you'd normally get at home. Basically it duplicates the environment of a stone hearth oven.
So one afternoon I zipped off to the Florida Mall, stopped for a liesurely lunch at my favorite restaurant, Buca de Beppo (I had spaghetti with a meatball, garlic bread, and a salad, and had plenty left over for lunch the next day ... I was in heaven), then proceeded on to Williams & Sonoma.
I wonder, sometimes, if I didn't miss my calling in life. Walking into a Williams & Sonoma feels to me probably something like what walking into video game stores or sporting goods stores feel to a lot of my friends and peers. Just a casual walkthrough and I could pluck out hundreds of dollars worth of cooking gear that I never realized before I needed; and that's not even counting the elegant pots and pans that are worth hundreds of dollars apiece on their own.
But I was good. I browsed a bit, but didn't pick up anything else. I was surprised to find the pizza stone I wanted was only $30; I was expecting something closer to $50. So I did splurge a little more and bought a pizza peel (one of those wooden paddles you build a pizza on before slipping it into the oven) for another $24.
My God, what an investment! As soon as I got home, I started on a big batch of dough, enough to split into six small pizzas. All weekend long I've been pulling them out one at a time, rolling and tossing (still getting the hang of that again ... haven't made a pizza since I worked at Little Caesar's in high school almost fifteen years ago), topping with different sauces and cheeses and toppings ... it's like heaven all over again.
Of course as a result of this, I've been perusing online websites for recipes, and slipped into not only pizzas, but lots of other things too ... Italian foods, Chinese foods, eastern European foods (part of my heritage), Cajun foods, Mexican foods ... all my favorites. It makes me just want to cook for a week and try everything.
And I'm supposed to be on a diet.
Posted: