Watch Yourself, Mr. Illitch

The jolly fat man was good to me a few days ago.  (That sounds awful.  Lets try again.)   

Christmas gifts, were, as usual, very generous.  Lots of good stuff, including cook books, a field guide to houses, a wonderful antique coffee mill, and what is clearly the most awesome gift ever - the gift card.

It absolutely blows me away when I read that 41 billion (with a "B") dollars in gifts cards have not been spent since 2005.  How is that possible?  When I get 'em, my mind starts racing with options.  "This or that? Maybe these or those?"  My head will explode if I don't spend mine in a week.  

So, armed with gift cards for both Crate and Barrel and Williams-Sonoma totaling in excess of 1.9 millions dollars (thanks Mom, Dad, and Becka!), I had some fun....

An egg cookbook. Looks good.  A breakfast cookbook.  Cool.   (I'm gonna fold those omelets correctly if is it the last thing I do, dammit...)

But as some point, a pizza thing took over.  Real pizzas.  REAL pizzas. REAL dough. 

It might have been prompted with a recent conversation.  

A few nights ago, friends were over for pizza. No, not chain pizza stuff.  The homemade stuff. No, not fancy homemade stuff.  Easy homemade stuff. You know... Boboli pizza crusts. They can go a long way.

Neal, a buddy from way back, was asking all sorts of questions (engineers do that sort of stuff).  "Don't you need a pizza stone?"  Well, no. Sure, they're nice, but not needed. Bobolis work on both cookies sheets and the oven rack.

"Don't you need to make the oven really hot?"  Nope.  Bobolis cook at temps any stove can manage.

Neal's questions prompted to me to basically suggest that all that stuff (high temps, stones, etc.) makes pizza making in the home a big pain in the pooper. Who needs all that when I can have Boboli.

So I find it kind of odd that, between the two stores, I found myself getting a pizza stone, a spring-form cake pan (for deep dish pizzas), a pizza pan thingy-ma-bob for easier serving and cutting, and a pizza cookbook, cleverly titled "Pizza".  I can't explain given it my comments to Neal just a few days ago, but it happened.

Oh, this is going to be fun.  

Take Sfinciune, for example.  Sure, the spelling is wacked.  As I understand English, "f" often preceeds "s", but that is not really the point here.  I can't say it, but I think I can make it!

How about the Pizza Bianca  (mozzarella and sage) or the pizza con pere, pecorino, Taleggio, salvia e miele (pear, pecorino, and Taleggio pizza with honey and sage).  Yeah, I'm in.

Sorry Mr. Illitch.  Sure, you own half the sports teams in Detroit, own a pizza empire, and have given generously of your time and money to make Detroit a better place.  

But, there is a new man in town and he's making pizzas........ as soon as he buys a pizza peel...

...and, learns what the hell he's doing.......

(Or maybe I could just use the snow shovel in the garage. It's certainly not getting much use with this mild winter we're having....)