recipes: moral-laden pizza

Trying to cook for yourself comes with many lessons. Sometimes it's the cooking part, and sometimes it's what comes long before the cooking part, and even before the grocery shopping part. Since my boyfriend is visiting for the next couple of weeks, he decided to make dinner for me and my parents one night, with help from the sous chef: yours truly. We decided to just go to the store sans list because the ingredients for making pizza should be pretty simple, right? Not. The base for the sauce we bought was terrible, all of the eggs in the refrigerator were cracked, and oregano was nowhere to be found in the pantry. This supposedly "simple" dinner required six trips to three different grocery stores and much sighing and odd looks from cashiers that had seen me maybe four times in the span of two hours. While my parents and my boyfriend had regular versions of the pizza, I had great gluten-free pizza that was some of the best I have ever had post-Celiac diagnosis. While everyone loved the pizza my boyfriend made, I couldn't help but think that there was a lesson or two to be gained from aforementioned grocery store fiasco: 1) Make a list. 2) Make sure you actually have the ingredients you need, and that they have not gone bad. These may seem like obvious things, but I thought I would pass the message along. However, it was all worth it, because it resulted in a really, really good pizza for me.

Moral-Laden Pizza 
makes 2 servings


Ingredients: 
One package of Bob's Red Mill Gluten-Free Pizza Crust Mix (just follow the directions on the bag to make the dough)
4 slices fresh mozzarella
Small spoonful of pizza sauce (use whatever kind you like - I'm normally lazy and just go for some marinara)
Small handful basil
1/4 cup of pitted Greek olives
1/4 cup shredded Italian cheese mix

Directions: 
1. Prepare dough according to instructions on bag, and preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. After making the dough, spread out over a floured surface. I made a 10-inch crust, about 1/2 inch thick from this dough, but you can definitely make more if you spread the dough out more to make it thicker.
3. Bake just the dough for 12 to 15 minutes or until golden.
4. Take out the crust, and layer with sauce, shredded cheese, mozzarella slices, tomatoes, basil, and then olives. Bake for an additional 8 to 10 minutes, or until cheese is melted.

how to water a cactus.

So, let me start off by saying this post isn't actually about how to water a cactus. Rather, it is about why someone would ask me how to water a cactus. A former colleague this week asked my boyfriend to ask me how often one should water a cactus. My first response was just to laugh and wonder why somebody would ask me how to water a cactus. But  then it occurred to me - I'm from the desert, where there are cacti, therefore I must know something about them. This led me to think about the assumptions we might make about people based on where they're from, and vice versa.

This is the kind of cactus that seems to be everywhere at my house - prickly pear.
http://bit.ly/zkoGSp

I then realized after my laughing fit that I might ask my boyfriend's parents - born and bred East Coasters - about the best fish and the best way to cook it. Wouldn't you ask a local anywhere the best place to eat, or anything that pertains the their town or state? Is it crazy to assume that people from Aspen might have a little more knowledge than most about the best skis? Now I know this is a generalization, but at some point we have all assumed this about someone else and someone else has assumed it about us. Rather than saying "Why would someone ask me that?", I will now take it as a point of pride if someone does ask me about succulents or other desert plants. After all, I do love where I am from and (mostly) everything about it.

P.S. For future reference, water a cactus every 1-2 weeks when the soil is bone dry, and water it a little bit at a time, without soaking the soil, until the soil is pretty damp.

letdowns.

It never feels good when you let yourself down, but it always feels worse when you let someone else down. Such is the case during the state debate tournament last week, when my students came in third overall. The disappointment was rampant and I felt so terrible because I felt like I could have done more to help them win. However, this did provide a very good life lesson, one much needed for both the students and myself.

Although these such tournaments encounter variable judging quite often, as well as long hours, and some less-than-peppy coaches, the students usually do pretty well. However, there were a few more obstacles to overcome at this tournament, including favoritism, even longer hours, and a coach (that would be me) breaking down over the variable judging. It seemed to get the best of me, and my students. Well here is where the good life lesson comes in: do not let these little things get to you. Although judges making you lose because they dislike your school, or things running late because there is a lack of judges, these are things that sometimes come with the territory of high school debate, and truth be told there is not much that can be done about it. Such is the way the cards are dealt, and this is something both my students and I had to learn.