Rich, back in HK until late November, is enjoying his sole day off of the week by sitting by the pool. It's 28C in Hong Kong but the fashionistas have already started wearing their fleece-lined, fur-collared ski vests with chic jeans and boots.
Funny to speak to someone twice a day, exactly 12 hours apart and million miles away. Seems it's often around food: me, drinking my morning coffee; he, eating sushi for dinner, but both of us present in that shared moment.
Tonight I was inspired by trailrunner on Gardenweb to try making ciabatta style pizza, and was just tackling the very wet dough when Rich called. As he drank his morning Starbucks, I struggled to stretch sticky dough onto parchment paper, slide the gooey circle onto a baking stone and cut up toppings. The dough wasn't wet enough - instead of stretching to nearly the edges of the stone, it shrunk in on itself, protectively yielding a scant 9" circle.
The pizza is baked twice - once to set the crust, and then again with the toppings. All in all a 20 minute process, just about as long as we chat on these twice daily check-ins. The pizza was ready after we had hung up the phone, so of course I had to call back and report on the results.
Eye appeal: A
Lightly crusted dough, perfectly melted cheese and just right charred toppings - yum!
Crust: B
Rustic "holey" ciabatta-like appearance, but just too darn thick. Like a calzone disguised as a pizza. Gotta get the dough to spread more!
Taste: well, I'm biased :-)
I mean, who would say no to a homemade pizza dinner that looked like that? And it was pretty damn good for a first time out.
Still and all, a great meal alone is ... a lonely thing. As I eat my solitary meal, I'd trade that perfectly browned crust and my glass of Chianti for any old morsel with Rich. Sigh.
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