Pizza Party

Daniel has been waiting months for me to get it together to make pizza. About 10 days ago I promised we would do it last Saturday. "That's what you always say!" he complained.

"This time I'm serious, Daniel. We're doing it this weekend."

Friday night I made a special trip to the Dominick's up at Belmont to get Boboli pizza shells and pepperoni. I was up north anyway, and I knew if I waited until I got all the way back to my home Dominick's at Ashland and Archer, I would blow it off. Daniel likes pepperoni and mushrooms on his pizza.

I told him he could come over early and make dough from scratch--he finds yeast dough rising an interesting sight--but I told him we were not having Fernando and Oscar over until the pizza was ready for toppings and going in the oven because they didn't care about watching the dough.

After we got the dough started, Daniel mentioned he was hungry. I whipped up a quickie 'za in the toaster oven with a Boboli shell to keep him from starving during the hour the dough rose.

The dough didn't rise as much as we expected, and it was a little work to get it to stretch to fit two baking pans. But it covered the pans in the end. I would also give it a little less baking time next time--it set off the smoke alarm (of course) and one pizza crust was burned on the bottom. But the other was OK. Daniel's mom wanted some pizza, so I sent a lot home with him. Fernando and Oscar took some, but they didn't like mushrooms and they ate more at my house, so there was less for them to take home.

The great thing about spring vs. winter is the kids can go outside and play basketball on the parking pad. Frank and Glen next door loaned me their portable hoop--it's a Fisher-Price hoop for their six-year-old grandson, Damien, but the older boys were happy to have somthing to shoot at. I was grateful that I could just cook pizza. Oscar helped me by throwing a dish towel at the smoke alarm to get it to shut up. "You are King Oscar, Sardine Man and King of my house," I told him. He thought that was funny.