There’s a new guy where I work who comes in about 10:30 a.m. “Tomorrow I’m bringing in pizza for breakfast,” he announced at the end of his shift one day. I eat breakfast around 7:00, and since I’m like a baby and need to eat every two or three hours, that sounded wonderful to me.
I was especially excited because in my brief conversations with Bryan, I knew he was a food lover like me. I mentioned how much I loved mushrooms when he said it would be a mushroom pizza. I told him about a meal I had at a Berkeley restaurant in 1990, where the chef made the most incredible pasta sauce from wild mushrooms. I thought he might think I was a little weird, remembering a meal from fifteen years ago. But then he rhapsodized about a meal he made and ate with friends in Michigan in the 1970s after they gathered morels and wild asparagus, and procured fresh eggs from a farmer.
Anyone who can remember and describe a meal he had in the 1970s wins the foodie prize. Of course, any meal I had in the early 70s was likely to be smashed bananas and rice cereal, but still.
Of course the pizza didn’t disappoint. He brought it in a cardboard takeout box, fresh from the oven. The crust was thin and done just right. The sauce was spare, seasoned well and not thick and sweet, just like the sauce on the pizza from street vendors in Italy. And it was covered with mushrooms, which meant that the teenage boys who work with me wouldn’t eat it. More for me!
Bryan’s pizza inspired me to dig out my recipes and pizza stone. Here is my favorite dough recipe, which is also very good. This type of crust needs to be baked on a preheated pizza stone for the best results.
Pizza Stone Pizza Dough
1 teaspoon active dry yeast
1/4 cup warm water
1 cup cold water
1 teaspoon salt
3 cups bread flour
1. Put warm water in a bowl and sprinkle in the yeast. Let it stand for 5 minutes.
2. Stir in the salt, cold water and 1 cup of the flour. Keep adding the flour as you mix. When the dough holds together, take it out and knead it on a floured surface for about 10 minutes, until it is smooth and elastic.
3. Divide the dough into two balls and brush olive oil on each one. Seal the dough in a large container and put in the refrigerator for 12 hours or more (the dough will rise so make sure the container is big enough.)
4. Take the dough out one hour before using.
5. Roll each ball into a circle, top with sauce and toppings and bake on preheated pizza stone at 500 degrees for about 5 minutes.