Zen and the Art of Pizza Making

I got my start in life as a pizza girl in an amusement park. It was quite possibly the very best job I ever had in my life. And let me tell you one simple thing: you can take the girl out of the amusement park, but you canNOT take the amusement park pizza out of the girl!

If there is one thing that I love to do, it is to make pizza. When I was a pizza girl at Knoebel's in the mid-80s, I was counter help, taking orders and money, and handing people their food and drink. Only when things were slow did they let us back where the pizza boys were, back by the big ovens, spinning pie.

My husband asked me for a pizza on this day and I was happy to oblige.
For it is a Zen sort of experience for someone like me.
Let me tell you how it goes.

First, you clean your working area and your hands.
Get your ingredients together.
Get out your pizza pan. Your pizza cutter. Your bowls and utensils.
A bit of oil on the clean pan, spread it all around.
Are you ready to make some pizza?

My ingredients:
A pizza crust mix.
Pasta sauce.
Tomato sauce.
A six-cheese shredded Italian mix (mozzarella, provolone, Parmesan, Asiago, fontina, Romano).
Shredded cheddar cheese.
Parmesan/Romano shake mix.
Three vegetables: onion, green pepper, and black olives.
Two meats: pepperoni and baked ham.

Mix hot water with the crust mix. Let it rise in a warm oven.
With your hands, roll out the crust onto the pan. Knead, knead, knead!
Poke the crust with a fork. Holes: here, there, and everywhere!
Now bake that sucker! All right, all right, all right!

Out comes the warm crust.
On goes the tomato sauce and pasta sauce, swirl, swirl, swirl. Ah, like so.
On top of the sauce, the cheeses. Handful after handful.
Then the diced veggies. Onions. Green pepper. Olives.
And finally the meat layer. Ham. Pepperoni bits. Not too deep now.
A last layer or two of cheese. Cheddar this time: go lightly, friend.
And a shake or two of Parmesan and Romano on top.
Into the oven it goes!!!!
Hooray, we have made a pizza!

The soundtrack song is this one: Glenn Frey, with The Heat Is On.