Reflections On Pizza Night

This is the backdrop story to the pizza party the other night. Friday night I was going to take Geri out to dinner, but earlier in the afternoon I checked the inside of the pizza oven, which hasn't been fired up in 4 months, only to discover that the floor of the oven, along with the leftover ashes from the last fire, was wet.

Earlier in the day the podiatrist had stuck a nice needle in my between what was the cartilage in my big right toe to mitigate some pain I've been having there, and filled it with as much cortisone as it would take.

So, I swept the ashes out and built a low grade fire, 200 degrees, which I kept going for 5 or 6 hours. I had noticed that there were areas on the outside of oven's stucco that were darker than the rest of the oven, indicating moisture, but I didn't think it would be getting onto the ceramic floor of the oven, wrong again. This is another reason I never liked stucco houses.

I was very worried because if I fired that oven up to 1000 degrees I might have destroyed it. It would have boiled, expanded, and cracked either the floor of the oven or the concrete forms. The power of steam should not be underestimated. I'm sure Stanley would agree with me. That would have been a small fortune down the drain, plus I would have looked like an idiot to my friends.  I don't know which one is worse.

Saturday when I was cooking Tom and Brendan noticed there was a place on the back of the oven where steam was coming out. I've always covered up the chimney, but never the whole oven, but I will from now on. In fact I'm going to have a cover custom made for it. I did order a new cover.

Speaking of looking a little foolish our friend, and my former instructor from Culinary school, Erwin showed up a day early with his relatives from Austria and Norway, while I was curing the inside of the oven. The good thing is they came back Saturday night, the oven was ok, and I will have to keep it covered from now on. Erwin cooked some rocking ribs, which I didn't get any of, and made a killer salad and cole slaw.

The Austrians know their swine.

That's it today. The toe was killing me Sunday and today after cooking all day Sat. No work yesterday, today, or tomorrow.


Peace,

Make Food/Not War

whiskey & weed

asparagus, basil & bubbles

Michael David Evans

Bendan  & Mabel

Food Consumption Today:

Breakfast: 4 Farm fresh eggs w/asparagus, and red bell peppers, from Brendan and Mabel's chickens  
                 and two pieces of toast

Lunch: Leftover pesto pasta

Snacks:  couple of pieces of Genoa salumi

Dinner: leftover pesto pasta, cole slaw, toasted cheese sandwich

Exercise: Nothing...gottat watch that foot... 1/4 mile walking