mozzarella sticks

surprisingly easy.
1. chop up mozzarella.
2. dip in batter (1 egg; 1/4 C milk; 1/2 C flour, salt & pepper, oregano).
3. dip in bread crumbs.

4. fry.

5. eat!


these really have that diy look to them, yes?

humphry slocombe

another ice cream shop enters the fray. humphrey slocome specializes in the weird and wonderful: malted dulce de leche (coats-the-mouth creamy, toothache-sweet and delicious), mcevoy olive oil (tastes like it should, and reminds me of otto in nyc, but would be better with actual olive oil drizzled over the top, and some crispy sea salt as punctuation), salt & peppa, balsamic caramel, coconut sherbet, blue bottle vietnamese coffee, milk chocolate passionfruit, secret breakfast (bourbon and cornflakes, from what i can tell) ... yum. plus it's right near philz.

superbowl pizza

normally i make lazier pizza dough. this is because (at least so far) i seem to prefer the flavor of dough that has mellowed out in the refrigerator for a day or two. martha stewart's baking handbook has a good recipe (i even give it extra time after the first rise to chill out); i also really like this one at 101 cookbooks and (for sourdough) the one from mike at sourdough home. but, we had just returned from the phoenix open at 1:00, and had folks coming over for sports and snacks at about 3:00, so i used this quick and easy dough recipe from epicurious. total bonus that it's apparently the dough recipe from pizzeria bianco in phoenix, which i desperately wanted to try during our visit there, but nixed as we couldn't stomach a four-hour wait. i mean, think of all the better things i could be doing with four hours in phoenix?

ingredients
for the dough; makes 4 pizzas:
2 packages active dry yeast
2 C warm water (nice hot tub temperature)
2 t salt
about 5 C unbleached all-purpose flour

for the sauce:
whole peeled tomatoes
oregano
olive oil
salt

for the toppings:
pepperoni
torn basil leaves
mozzarella
parmesan
or whatever!

directions
mix together yeast, 2 T flour, 1/2 C warm water and let stand about 10 mins in an unheated oven until creamy/frothy.
stir together salt and 3 C flour. add yeast mix and the rest of the warm water, then stir in another C flour.
knead until smooth.
here, you're supposed to divide the dough into balls, put balls in separate bowls, cover w/ plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place for about 1 1/4 hours. i put the balls on a cutting board until they doubled in bulk, then scraped the dough off and put in the fridge until i had time to make the pies. and they turned out just fine.
heat oven as high as it will go. my ancient 1920's style oven gets up past 600, but that's the only nice thing i can say about it.
stretch out dough into the shape of a pizza crust.
put crust on preheated, olive oil'd pan (i broke my pizza stone a couple of months ago).
top with sauce and toppings.
cook for about 10 minutes.