Pizza Sunday

Ah, I really do love a whole weekend off.

I've gotten some of the things done today that I wanted to. I slept until 9, and then went to Starbucks, Target, the New Balance store, and the gas station. I got some of what I needed at Target (cannot get out of there without forgetting something), although I was disappointed in their selection of bedrolls. I've decided, as I think I mentioned a while ago, to start sleeping in my office when I'm on call. So I've been looking for something to sleep on. I don't want an air mattress, I really am fine on the floor. I'm thinking maybe a sleeping bag would be nice. Possibly a mat, or one of those egg crate things. Target was heavy on air mattresses. I tried to stop at Great Outdoor Provisions, but they were closed. I also struck out at the New Balance store (my shoes, in my size, are on backorder).

So then I came home, and realized that the party tonight is catered, so if I want something to take to work tomorrow, lunch was going to have to involve cooking. So I looked in the fridge (haven't made it to the grocery yet), and decided to make White Pizza.

White pizza is merely pizza without a tomato-based sauce. Some places replace it with alfredo, some with just olive oil, but there's this place in Chicago that uses a garlic butter base that is worth lusting after. So that's sort of the idea I use. In case you were feeling inspired, here's a step-by-step guide you can follow at home.

1. Dig around in fridge and find premade pizza crust. Using premade dough, or actually making your own, is an acceptable - if crazy - alternative.

2. Preheat oven to whatever the package says.

3. Melt some butter in the microwave. You know, enough. Like, a domino-sized chunk. It depends a little on how big your pizza crust is. Then crush two cloves (or so) of garlic and add to the butter. Mush. Add some Parmesan cheese. You know, the Kraft sort. Add enough until it's a fairly thickish paste.

4. Set the crust out on the counter. Grumble about how you have no counter space.

5. Smear the garlic-butter-cheese paste on the crust in a pretty fine layer. You don't want to dump this on like you would with Marinara.

6. Add whatever sort of cheese is on hand. I like a good layer of mozzarella, and then some goat cheese, and this Whole Pantry shredded three cheese blend. But I had no goat cheese today, which is sad.

7. Be sure to drop some cheese on the floor for the dog.


8. Smooth everything over and wait for oven to finish preheating. Remind dog that no matter how cute she looks, you're not giving her anything else.


9. Wonder why dog never listens.

10. Stick the pizza in the oven.

11. Go back and rewind the same 10 minutes of SVU you've been trying to watch for about an hour.

12. Realize that you forgot to set the timer.

13. Make a vague guess about how much longer the pizza should cook.

14. Play with the dog and attempt to watch those 10 minutes of SVU.

15. Walk into the kitchen when the timer goes off and wonder why the damn smoke detector, which goes off at the feeblest hint of smoke, is silent and the kitchen is full of smoke.

16. Open back door.

17. Cue smoke detector.

18. Remove pizza from oven. Begin to stick head into oven, noting that there seems to be no obvious source for all the smoke.

19. Realize that you're about to stick your head into the oven. Stop that.

20. Lay pizza out on non-existent counter to cool.


21. Cut pizza into some pieces. Eat them. Makes two to three to four servings, depending on how hungry you are.

22. Remind dog that no matter how cute she is, no matter how hard she tries her Jedi-dog mind tricks on you, you're not going to give her the pizza.


It's a good thing.

I did manage to make a few non-pizza acquisitions today. One was this:

Known in the business as a decoy ring. Deliberately chosen for its maybe-it-is-a-wedding-band-maybe-it-isn't ambiguity (not to mention its $12 price tag, as this is, after all, an experiment). Because I'm not married. But if my patients should choose to think I am, well, that's up to them. And one more subtle boundary between me and them. And maybe my patients will stop hitting on me, grabbing my ass, and asking me out.

You'd think a thick layer of blubber would be enough. Apparently that's just enough to attract wayward Aleutians (if anybody asks, this harpoon is just a new piercing).

I also found a couple of new additions for the Blogroll. One is Day by Day, which is penned by Allison, one of my friends from college who married another one of my friends from college and then they had an unbelievably cute little guy. Who looks really adorable in a laundry basket.

My favorite Allison story? She stole a stop sign for me for my eighteenth birthday. No, now, no lectures about how that's illegal or heartwrenching tales of how your cousin was killed because of a missing stop sign. It was one of those rural, middle of a dead end dirt road, nobody pays attention to them anyway stop signs. I still have it. It hung over my treadmill for a while in college, and then in my office in Chicago, then over my bar in New Hampshire. Now it's hiding under a bunch of boxes in the den here. Cracks me up every time I remember her coming in to Chemistry lecture all mischievous and like, "Happy birthday. I stole you a stop sign."

Heh. Ah, back in our impetuous youth...

I also discovered Mariska Hargitay's blog. Whom you all know is one of my personal heroes, partly for her passion in her continuing role as Detective Benson on Law and Order:SVU (I was recently watching this interview with Christopher Meloni, who plays her partner, talking about a letter he'd gotten from a man who was molested throughout his childhood. He told Meloni that once he started watching the show, he often thought about how it would've been different if Benson and Stabler had been real and fantasized about them swooping in to save him as a little kid. And I thought, wow, you know, what victim wouldn't want someone like them on their side? What survivor hasn't thought about someone dashing in to save them? And how much do we all cling to the hope that those out there still being victimized have someone like Benson and Stabler to protect them? And they do...there just aren't enough of the real-life Bensons and Stablers to go around). But mostly for her real-life efforts to raise awareness and rally support for the victims and survivors that still exist after the credits roll. She speaks out, fundraises for charities, and does great work. Way to go, Mariska.

Hey, look, I'm late...