Calzone Monster

Lest you think it’s always fun and games in Unfussy Epicure’s kitchen, I thought I’d share with you a couple of photos of last night’s dinner.

This impressionistic lava monster crocodile was meant to be a pizza.

I was feeling kind of lazy last night, so I decided to make my favorite standby. Usually pizza is a simple affair for me, as well as a great way to use up odds and ends: throw some ingredients in the breadmaker for dough, roll it out 90 minutes later, toss some stuff on top, bake, eat.

But yesterday, something went horribly wrong. I rolled out my dough, congratulating myself on getting it extra-thin, and transferred it to my pizza peel. Smeared on the sauce, sprinkled on shredded cheese and tomatoes and olives and some lumps of goat cheese, and went to slide it in the hot-hot oven.

Gave the pizza peel a shake. The pizza didn’t move. I was undaunted. I thought, “I’ll reduce the surface area on the bottom by folding the crust edge up over the filling, like they do on the great pies at Taos Pizza Out Back.” I did that. It looked great. But it still didn’t budge.

That’s when I remembered that I always roll out my dough on a piece of parchment paper, so I can slide the finished pizza, paper and all, onto the hot pizza stone. It was way too late for that. And what’s more, my extra-thin (which means extra-delicate, and also extra-large) dough was making this already desperate situation, well, extra-desperate.

At this point Arne noticed my dismay, probably because of my panicky whining and generally apocalyptic demeanor. He helped me lift the edges and sprinkle cornmeal underneath. No dice. Then he wrapped a wire in the end of a piece of parchment paper and tried to use it to carefully worm the paper under the pizza. Moaning, “It’s a disaster” (which I’m sure my sweetie found delightful), I attempted to help by gently lifting the battered pie.

Holes began to appear in the paper-thin pizza dough. It as it this point that I yelped, “Fine! It’s a calzone!” I folded it haphazardly in half and push-rolled the poor thing onto the parchment paper, where it lay like an olive-bedecked, sadly pale lava flow. I dubbed it “the ugliest thing since the invention of dough” and threw it in the oven.

To make matters worse, I took it out too soon, so it remained rather pale and limp. The toppings – oh, sorry, fillings – were still yummy though, so it made an acceptable dinner. I guess.

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