Domesticity

Yesterday I found myself in the exciting position of having a few free hours and some leftover pizza dough.

Anticipating a nice meal, I inventory my fridge. So...it will be a little odd (cheeseless, with mushrooms and ground veal), but fine for people like me, who came to pizza later in life and are open to the unconventional.

I even remember to preheat the oven, noting that when I made the first half of the dough, it was a snap. Because I've been steadily getting better at it, right?

As soon as I take the dough out of the bag, I sense something wrong. I shake it off, and start stretching the dough--which promptly tears. And tears. And tears. I reflour, I reknead the dough, I'm doing everything I can think of, but all I have is flour everywhere, hands coated in sticky bits of dough, and a crust that just...isn't.

Wait, I think. This is only half the dough, but I'm trying to make it the same size as the last pizza. Shouldn't it only be half the size? I am cheered until I recall that the other pizza in question was made with the first half of the dough. By which I mean to say that both balls of dough were, well, the same. And it doesn't matter anyway, because the only thing I can create that doesn't have a hole in it is a giant round sphere of dough. The second it deviates from that shape, it tears.

After about 15 minutes and some increasingly inventive language, I drop the thing on the foil and roll it out by force with my hands--I'm not playing around anymore, particularly now that my entire apartment is rapidly approaching 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

I hastily spoon some marinara over the mess, using a too-small spoon for the nearly-empty jar, so that my hand gets covered in it. My hand is not alone: I manage to get sauce all over the foil I'm using as a pie pan.

Around then, it occurs to me that I have forgotten to pierce the dough to keep it from bubbling. This is particularly problematic since my stubborn crust is over an inch thick in places. I stab it half-heartedly through the sauce.

Next comes the veal (by the way, although I love that a supermarket near me sells ground veal, I am mildly terrified that they sell it for less than $3/pound). I almost pick up the bit that drops on the table before I recall that this is the Contaminated Table*.

*When something such as a pigeon flying into my apartment and sitting on my dining room table occurs, I cannot imagine that the table will ever really be clean again. The table has, of course, been disinfected. Repeatedly. In time, I might even be ready to eat off of it again.

Now for the mushrooms. This has already been such a disaster that I decide not to cause further stress by dragging out the cutting board for something as minor as a few mushrooms. Moments later, as I contemplate the tiny beads blood welling up on my thumb, I consider the possibility that my agitation made free-handing mushrooms unwise.

My subconscious concludes that the only way to round off this experience is to overcook the whole thing dramatically. Apparently, I am okay with turning dinner into a Frisbee®, but I would sooner starve than be inconsistent.