Recipe: Pizza Dough (baked on the barbeque!)

The weather is looking good (20 degrees+ from here on in!) and we have neighbours that cook everything on the barbeque. If you are outside enjoying the weather, you are also smelling their dinner. So we decided to top their hamburgers last weekend with pizza on the barbeque. We went with our standard pizza dough recipe with a few twists.

Besides getting that slightly charred thin crust, I love pizzas off of pizza stones (or ideally from real pizza ovens) for that grainy flour texture on the bottom of the pizza and the sound of the paddle removing it from the stone. It reminds me of my parent’s restaurant, sold years ago now, where pizzas came fast and furious from the ovens. There’s something about the smell and sounds of pizza straight from the pizza oven that is ingrained in my memory and heart. Trying out our new pizza stone on the barbeque brought back memories and brought the neighbours over to ask what we were cooking!

Pizza Dough
40 grams of yeast (or 2 packages of instant yeast)
1 cup of lukewarm water
1/2 teaspoon sugar
3 cups flour (plus extra for dusting)
1 tsp salt
3 tbsp olive oil (plus extra for rising process)

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Italian-Canadian sausage making – a photo essay

In the Italian-Canadian year, because it is marked by big events, January and February are sausage season (and capicollo and soppressata season). In truth, I’m not the biggest fan of cured meats. Though I’ll eat my share, what I like best about the whole process is that it becomes a big family get together. And, of course, we make things from scratch and we know exactly what is in the food we are eating. Here are a few photos from the yearly process.

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Old photos, new life

With two grandparents passing away this year, there has been a lot to think about and a lot to sort out, mentally and physically. While doing just that kind of sorting, my family found this photo of my great grandfather in New York (where he originally landed from Italy and had a shoe repair shop) from 1947. I love it. From his smile to what the women are wearing behind him…it makes me wish I had been the one there taking the photo. It definitely makes me think about where I’ve come from and the new life I’m starting this year too. Old photos, new life, all the same here.

Shurabetta – my grandfather’s winter dessert

Whenever the first snow falls, I am reminded of my grandfather. Clean fresh snow layering the backyard and roofs, whatever is left in the garden (if there is a tomato stalk or two) and lining the patio stones making them look gleaming white. It’s usually a surprise from overnight, but early fresh snows meant a special treat that I haven’t made, and don’t know if I will make, in years.

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MacLeans: When Italy met Canada

My family meeting Canada

So there’s definitely more of us out there thinking about what it means to be Italian-Canadian and how Italian that is. Last month, MacLean’s magazine published “When Italy met Canada”, a short article about how Italian immigrants settled in Canada in terms of culture and traditions and how we are not exactly like our cousins still living in Italy. Covering the typical tomato plants in the backyard, plastic on the couches and huge weddings, it suggested how shocked modern Italians would be of our culture here.

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New books – new thoughts

This year was the first time in many years (thank you paid employment) that I was able to attend Toronto’s Word on the Street. I’ve never had that weekend off. This annual festival of books, magazines, readers, writers and general literary folk has long been calling my name – I love to read and most of all, I love a good deal on a book.

Quite by accident I came out with the two books above only to realize on the way home that they are exactly what I’ve been about all year. I didn’t buy them with that purpose, they were just the two I loved on the table in front of me, but they are two things that this blog is all about.

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Lidia’s right

I just finished reading Karen von Hahn’s article about Lidia Bastianich in the Toronto Star and couldn’t help feeling even closer to the kindly woman I have taken to watching on TV so often.

In the article, Lidia talks about our connection to food and why there is a North American fascination with Italy. Among the things she says that rings true to me is the how she learned to make everything from the land and by hand. It makes such a difference in our appreciation of food and our enjoyment of others. Here’s a sampling from the article.

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Tomato time

Our neighbours bought at least 10 bushels, I’m sure of it. They were out in the garage from 11am to midnight, last time I checked yesterday. Mine are just coming from my backyard. We’re jarring them as they are ready – more time consuming this way, but way fresher. Plus, I prefer these tomaotes, sweet, fleshy and huge (not the tiny Romas).

I can’t remember a summer not doing tomatoes in the backyard with family – accompanied by wasps buzzing around every tomato-splatter pot, pan, apron and chair on the back patio. Even in the heat, hearing the bubbling sound of the canning pot was a familiarity and a tradition.

There is something to be said for the tradition and culture of growing, preserving, canning and doing it all together. What can I say about it? I miss my grandparents out in the backyard at dawn doing it. I miss the huge meal we would have in between to get us through the day. I miss everyone together – laughing over the clinking jars, squirting seeds from overripe tomatoes and the line up of jars at the end of the day, proof we had gotten something done.

This year’s tomatoes are from my garden, which is great, but without a back patio, I’m in my kitchen. Alone and yet joined by years of tomato time with everyone else. In my head, doing tomatoes has never been so quiet.