What We’re Eating and Drinking: Pizza and Planeta La Segreta Bianco
We’ve done some tweaking to our pizza-making since the last time I wrote about it for our inaugural Friday Night Dinner post. Tweaking mostly because we’ve been able to share pizza nights with Michele and Dan and Walker from time to time and Michele adds creativity and a vision to this classic food that I never do (changes that my grandmother, who taught me how to bake pizza–bless her conventions and simplicity– would be mortified by!). We make a couple of the classics, of course: simple pies covered with tomato sauce and mozzarella, topped with cured meats or eggplant or mushrooms and they are always delicious. The experiments in deviating from tradition, however, have led us to unique flavor combinations of toppings such as baked and pureed cauliflower, roasted potatoes and herbs (sometimes with harder, sharper cheese, sometimes with no cheese at all) that I’m surprised to say I love. The kids usually choose slices from the regular pies, but I’ve become partial to the combination of baked dough covered with the rich, meaty, tastiness of roasted cauliflower. Yum. To start the evening this week, we’ll open a bottle of Planeta in your honor–the bianco this time. (Yum, also!)
Gina:Ah Pizza! There’s been none of that this week either. The different combinations are reminding me of Sullivan Street bakery’s Soho, and their potato and zucchini pizzas with thin crispy crust. These were a staple of our house when we were in New York! The warmer weather and all the food tasting we’ve been doing this week has us thinking about summer guests and dinner menus… homemade pizza will definitely be on the list so I’m going to need some more details about this cauliflower pie!
What We’re Talking About: It’s Springtime and Noah is So Busy I Feel Like a Taxi Driver
This spring it seems like Noah has signed up to participate in everything and he has one hundred and thirteen things going on this week alone. As I’ve mentioned previously, he and I are headed to Knoxville, TN over Memorial Day weekend for the Destination Imagination Global Tournament. It’s going to be a blast (for the kids anyway) but fun comes at a price, of course, and the cost of travel and room and board to attend said tournament is not cheap. So, we the parents have been commissioned to organize a few fundraisers to help raise some dough to offset costs. First off is a raffle for which we have to sell at least fifty tickets. We’re also planning a bake sale (boy do I need your big kitchen at the old Garrison house in order to bake a dozen banana breads and pies), a car wash and some canvassing of local businesses for cold cash donations. Also, of course, the kids have to improve and rehearse their performance piece so they are meeting at least once week to do that. In addition, Noah auditioned for the middle school play (Midsummer/Jersey) and was cast in a small part but also as the understudy for one of the main characters which means pages of lines to memorize as well as rehearsal three times a week. Noah is also playing baseball. (Dontcha love the throwback photo of the two boys from a few years back?) I’m sure you remember the practices and ceremonies and multitudinous and endless weekend games that come with that sport. And this is all on top of regular school and the state tests that are still ongoing (requiring hours of review homework), and the wonderful reality that the weather here has warmed a bit, if inconsistently, and some days we don’t want to be driving to a baseball field or school but want to be outside, just hanging out. I know you have to cart kids around to stuff (times two!) and live further away from town that we do–I can’t imagine the time suck. It makes me even more excited for long, lazy days of summer with nothing going on. Sounds like heaven.
Gina: Oh my. I’m winded just reading this. I don’t think our Spring schedule is going to be anywhere near this hectic, but I’m in a vacation haze at the moment, with no concept of what’s going on next week, let alone the rest of the month, so I’ll get back to you on that one! But I do know that Zo is not playing a sport that requires weekend games and evening practices, so that makes a big difference. I love that Noah enjoys all of these things though, and is good at all of them too. At least it’s just a few months and then… summer. (And I love this photo of them in their baseball uniforms, probably the only part I miss about the little League season!)