Like most weekends, this one wasn’t supposed to involve much cooking . I was to do all the things that I haven’t done yet. Not a bucket list, or anything exciting. Things like…..I don’t know…..take stuff to the recycling, go shopping, unblock a u-bend. That sort of thing. A non specific, but all encompassing “all”.
I woke with that optimistic Saturday morning feeling. I was sure this would be my weekend. Oh boy, all the things I would get done this weekend. Everything outstanding in my life would be sorted by the end of Sunday.
Then, all of a sudden it was Saturday evening.
I walked back in to a kitchen covered in flour, with molten cheese caked into my newish, but gradually discolouring baking stones and realised Saturday hadn’t quite gone to plan.
I had some mitigation. It was the day of the Royal Wedding, and despite feigning very little interest Min had casually turned the television on and instantly become fixated, giving me free reign on my time.
I wandered into the kitchen and the baking stones, with a picture of four happy people holding untouched pizza and laughing, caught the attention of my subconscious . Not one to miss out on a subliminal message I decided today was a good day to make pizza. I must be an advertiser’s dream.
Some fresh yeast I had bought and some ’00 and stoneground white flour had refused to assemble themselves into anything edible, despite being in the same kitchen, so I had a go. I used a recipe from Richard Bertinet’s book Dough, then made the mistake of asking what toppings people wanted.
They came out well, though the cheese melted and ran from the pizza base and onto the baking without any regard for my feelings, and I managed to burn the temporary breakfast bar with the pizza stone.
The rest was chaos.
You can’t make 4 pizzas simultaneously on 2 pizza stones. Not satisfactory ones anyway. And I’d made too much dough. I’d have to make extra pizzas.
Sheesh, why does everyone want different toppings. Stupid idea pizza.
I started eating a good half our after everyone else, and no one could really be bothered in cleaning up afterwards after the mess I’d made of the kitchen. I could really blame them. I wasn’t keen.
So, to cut a long story short Sunday morning was cleaning up, with breakfast in between. And then after thinking about doing a couple of other things and glancing at the paper I figured I had to start the roast. This roast was going to be my best ever I was sure of it.
Then it was Sunday evening and a sense of not being able to place exactly where the weekend had gone.
Christ. I can’t live like this….or can I? Embrace or deny?