Pizza Margherita

Ten years and a few days ago, I was in Naples for an afternoon. I remember a couple distinct things about it. One, the men were  everything I heard they were: attractive and inappropriate. They eyed me up and down as I walked past them, at which point I stopped making eye contact with any of them, though I really wanted to. And two, the pizza was delicious. I wish I had more pizza experience at that point in my life, and for that reason I don't feel I can say it was the best I've ever had. But no matter; I knew even then that eating pizza margherita in Naples was special. 

In honor of that decade milestone and how quickly time passes, I made pizza margherita tonight.

I love pizza. Pizza is among the top reasons I work out. While there are a couple places I frequent for a good pie here in town, I have really grown to love making it myself. The dough is easy, and my no-recipe sauce is something I've become a little bit proud of. I cook down some canned tomatoes and some of their juices with wine, herbs, salt and a little sugar. But after tonight, I've learned a new great way to make sauce that's a bit more fresh. I'm sold. It's from the Smitten Kitchen cookbook and it calls for pureed fresh or canned tomatoes, some red pepper flakes, garlic and salt, stirred together. No simmering required. I feel like I've been making things so complicated, until tonight.

I also used Deb's recipe for rushed pizza dough (also in the book).  Which was great, because as I said, I work out for pizza, so I came home, made the dough, stuck it in a warm oven and did my exercise routine in the half hour it took took to rise.

I had plenty of basil leftover from last night's pasta, so it was a perfect night to make this.

Pizza margherita is just tomatoes, basil and mozzarella, and on this pizza I sprinkled a small handful of Pecorino as it came out of the oven, per the Smitten Kitchen recommendation. Win win win.

On this 25-degree day in Spokane, when hoarfrost iced each and every tree branch and laced the edges of dead leaves, I sat in my toasty little house and remembered when I was 20 and looked out over the Mediterranean and thought about how my life had led up to that very moment, feeling warm and well-fed.