The great pizza experiment

Naples is the birthplace of pizza. It's better here than anywhere else in the world. I have heard that it cannot be replicated in other places. Something about Italian flour and the water... So armed with the right flour and water and a pizza-making class (3 months ago), we decided to give it a shot.

"Put flour on counter, make a volcano, and put all other ingredients in the crater. Mix by hand." Sounds easy enough, but when I started to mix it, our volcano erupted, sending oil and yeast all over my kitchen. Oops. We finally got it all mixed and dough-like, but the house was too cold for the dough to rise. Oven to the rescue!

The pizzas were finally assembled, one Hawaiian and two personal-pan vegetable pizzas. We had been longing for a Hawaiian pizza. Italians put many things on their pizzas (eggplant, seafood still in the shells, lettuce, corn), but apparently pineapple is not one of them. For all the trouble we had with making the dough, they came out very yummy! The crust was a little flat and extra-crispy, so I think it would be better if we let it rise more or made it thinner or... I guess I will just have to keep playing with it. This has been a very valuable experience. If there is one thing I want to leave here knowing, it's how to make a good pizza.

And so it begins...

Hello everyone!

Welcome to the Lindsay's blog. We hope to make you extremely hungry. Maybe we won't always talk about the interesting food we eat, but also our adventures as we explore Europe.

As a faithful narrative of all our dealings with food, let me begin with looking back at our time so far in Italy. It all began in July with eating ox in Germany and kebaps in Austria. Then in August a trip to Tuscany left Tim with a craving for wild boar. We have eaten a lot of pizza and a lot of gelato since being here. In October, we attended the EuroChocolate festival in Perugia. That was heaven! Chocolate everywhere!


Chocolate ravioli with strawberries

Then there was Venice with the "muffin" flavored gelato. It didn't taste like muffins, but we weren't sure what it was. November had the 20 pounds of mashed potatoes for Thanksgiving, and how could we forget the Thanksgiving pizza?





Thanksgiving pizza, with all the fixin's!

Christmas had a combination of struffoli, a traditional dessert made of little dough balls coated in honey and sprinkles, and baked dentice, a fish that translates into English as dentex. The potato gnocchi and lasagne of New Year's Eve was a hit.



Merry Christmas!

Finally, (and unfortunately there is no picture) Tim ordered "mixed fried seafood" for dinner one night. It came out as a plate piled high with several small, whole fish breaded and fried, with their pathetic little eyes looking at you and their crisp little tail fins crackling. Tim ate them happily, I might add.

Are you hungry yet?