Seventh Grade. Kakiat Junior High School. The Board of Regents of the State of New York assigned all boys to a half year of wood shop and girls to Home Ec, food preparation skills. We traded notes. Each course had its central project. I made a note roll dispenser of no utility. The girls made a pizza of transient utility. A much better roll paper dispenser can now be had for a pittance from a store that sells tchotchkes manufactured in Asia. Pizza could be had then from the local pizzeria, now from megachain enterprises that are as much high-tech conglomerates as they are sources of sustenance. Neither the wooden curio nor the girls' pizza really required that much skill. For some the electric saw or the manual cheese grater in that pre food processor era would offer a respite from more tedious math classes. For a few, the shop or kitchen would emerge as livelihood. For most of us as adults, it became a means of coping with home repairs or daily nutrition. For a subset, myself among them, a valued recreational outlet, though my XY genetics forced by into less desirable and enduring shop classes.
I had last made pizza in my own kitchen in the mid-1970s. As a medical student with my own kitchen for the first time, meals needed to be cheap and quick. The National Supermarket where I shopped offered pizza kits from Chef Boyardee It came with a flour mix. Put that in a small aluminum saucepan, which I still have, add a measured amount of water, let it sit for a while, then stir into a dough. Not a lot different than quick-crust quiche dough that I make now. When a little elastic, spread it on a pan. The kit came with a small can of seasoned tomato sauce. Spread it on the flattened dough. It also had a little paper packet of grated cheese. Not mozzarella, but the kind of romano or parmesan that people would shake over their spaghetti. I added that, but after one or two tries, f igured out that adding a slice of sandwich cheese enhanced the pizza. My interest in Chef Boyardee home pizza faded very quickly. Frozen home pizza was easier and better. Later toaster varieties. And the chains for quick access to slices were starting to emerge. No reason to make your own, when the Best and Brightest university graduates can create the ultimate sensory taste blend in a lab and offer it to you.
When our kids were little we would occasionally keep a frozen pizza in the freezer. I've not bought one in years for several reasons. Going out with my young family offered an economical treat. We had our favorite place, and a secondary option or two, now mostly blessed memories. I preferred small regional chains to national ones. The outing would invariably entitle me to a frosted mug of beer, usually a national brand. As the kids went their own way, whether camp, university, or self-sustaining, there were occasions for pizza nights out as a couple. Still are. As technology and innovation advanced, pick-up and delivery replaced many of those quiet evenings out. The frosted mugs with a handle got replaced by craft beer in glassware shaped to enhance the sensory experience of the more styled brew. As a personal respite, sometimes after making late rounds at the hospital, other times when on a day trip, some pizza establishments would have all-you-can-eat pizza buffets. For a nominal price, I could sample standard fare of many varieties, one slice at a time. Whether dine-out, pickup, or delivery, there was still no reason to make my own pizza in my own oven from its raw components.
Temptations to try home pizza cropped up periodically. Several years ago, places that I shopped commonly included pizza stones in their print advertising. I did not know what a stone was, only that my oven never duplicated a pizzeria pizza from my frozen one, partly why I stopped buying them The stones were made of earthenware. I bought one for about $10, the commonly advertised price. Its box got promptly recycled, while the earthenware disc found a longstanding home on a shelf beneath the microwave, supporting more frequently used springform pans of different sizes. It went unused for years. However, its availability and publicity for purchase suggested others also considered either trying to make their own pizzas or enhancing their frozen ones.
Next came an evolution of interest in one's personal kitchen, something that captured me in a big way. I had always amassed cookbooks from various sources. With a substantial annual bonus, I arranged to remodel my kitchen cosmetically, though did not change the appliances. As the internet expanded, access to recipes done with targeted searches and general categories became available. Most of my elegant dinner creations now include menu components both from traditional books and online. More recently, my two principal supermarkets began offering premade pizza dough, which I could freeze until needed. So now all components in place. An oven, a stone. Dough that was probably better than what Chef Boyardee sold decades earlier. It needed only thawing and shaping. Mozzarella cheese goes on sale in some brand pretty much every week, as does spaghetti sauce. Figure $2 for dough, $1 worth of cheese, a nominal cost for a couple tablespoons of jarred sauce, a tad of oil, a shake of oregano. A small fraction of the cost of getting one from Domino's. I had to give it a go. I did. What I neglected to do was read anything about using a pizza stone in advance.
Start simply. I have a granite pastry board that I use frequently. Preheat oven. I know pizza needs a hot oven. Put stone on top of the range. It has two sides. On is a flat surface. The other has ridged circles to indicate the diameter of the pizza place on top, if properly centered. I used the measuring side. Next flatten the thawed dough. Not difficult. Less elastic than I anticipated from other experience with yeasted bread dough. Pizza dough needs stretching. The guys on the pizza videos transfer the dough between their fists to get it to spread evenly and thinly. Others toss and catch their dough, thinning just a bit more with each updraft. Transferring between fists seemed safer. I found it more tedious than expected, and not terribly effective at generating that thin disc that the pizzerias create. Instead, I ended up stretching gradually. Final shape more a polygon than a circle. Put it on the pastry board. Having made macaroni and cheese not long before, I still had ample mozzarella which had not been used. It had developed a small crust, easily cut away. I grated the rest with a hand grater. At this point I transferred the disc of dough, with its freeform shape, to the cold stone, creating a ridge around the edge. Next, extract some jarred marinara sauce from the fridge. It had been opened a few weeks before to enhance frozen then boiled cheese ravioli. No hint of spoilage. I took a tablespoon, placed enough sauce to coat the surface of the dough, smootjing it with the back of the spoon. Next spread the freshly grated mozzarella. I have shaker type parmesan but left that in the fridge. Dried oregano occupies my pantry as a culinary staple. A few shakes of that. Then into the 450F oven, with timer set for twelve minutes. Then surf the web on the smart phone until the timer signals. At twelve minutes the pizza looked underdone, at least the crust appeared too pale for a pizzeria to serve and the cheese had not yet fully transformed. I added another five minutes, this time on my smart watch timer. At the wrist buzz, I reopened the oven. Its appearance to my liking, I removed the stone with two pot holders, put it back on the range top, an older electric model that had steel induction coils as burners. Then I thought it should rest a few minutes.
The pizza stone came with a pizza cutter, which I had placed countertop in an old coffee can with other implements. I took it out, making a valiant attempt at four slices. My pie was neither rectangular nor round, but closer to rectangular. Thus my effort yielded two larger slices and two smaller slices. All adhered to the stone, despite my having prepared it with a dusting of flour. I scraped the pieces as best I could with a metal spatula. One large, one small piece on each of two plates, one for my wife, the other for me.
Not a crisp, professional crust but still with good taste. I found it hard to handle, requiring a knife and fork, though I've experienced this with pizzeria pies as well. Sauce more than adequate. Cheese perhaps a little better than I am used to with take-out. I used good commercial mozzarella, making me wonder if the large chains that create their own blends have additives or other preservatives that my store-bought mozzarella does not. It melted just right, also just right. No salt, no black pepper this time. And the amount produced seemed ideal for two diners without ravenous hunger. Maybe that same level of accomplishment that my 7th-grade young lady classmates had when they gobbled their creations in Home Ec class, now sixty years ago. They had an advantage over me. A certified teacher guided them.
My learning curve on making a pizza comes with more difficulty. After the stone cooled, I tried to scrape off the residual crust with a spatula. Only a few shards separated from the stone. Maybe soak it. I put the stone into the dish tub, filling it with water and a generous squirt of emerald green Palmolive dish detergent. It covered just under half the crusted surface. The following morning, I returned to the kitchen to discover that the overnight soak had transformed the adherent crust to slidable pap. A quick wash, then rotate the earthenware disc to soak the rest. The same result a few hours later. Unfortunately, much of that now dissolved, really mushy residual crust found its way to my sink strainer, clogging it. Water in the sink filled up around the tub. I removed as much as I could by hand, then removed the strainer, dumping the off-white blob into the kitchen garbage can. The sink drained with the help of a few seconds with the disposal running. Stone cleaned, I let it dry in the dish rack for a few hours before returning it to its assigned place, supporting my spring form collection.
Only at that point did I do what a person with multiple university degrees and considerable kitchen experience might have done in advance. I did a Google Search on how to use a pizza stone. Apparently, it goes into the oven while it is preheating so the pizza goes directly onto hot earthenware when assembled. I learned why the guys at the pizzerias all have wooden spatulas with very long handles to transfer and shift their pies in their commercial ovens which get hotter than mine. Users of frozen pizza, which I am not, either use a baking tray, which compromises the crispiness of the crust as I learned decades ago, or they place their pizzas directly on the preheated wire oven racks. I do not have one of those properly designed spatulas. However, instead of using a pastry board, I can assemble the next pie on an inverted baking tray. This should allow me to slide the pizza onto the stone without undue injury risk.
That assumes I might want to have a second try. It did taste good. I benefited from the challenge and the learning. Saved a few dollars over delivery or going out. Created a valued sense of ownership, both of the creation and the kitchen as my domain. I do not know if the alumnae of Kakiat Jr HS Home Ec ever went on to make subsequent pizzas or if any parlayed that young teen experience into a livelihood. For me, it remains suitable recreation.
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