Lately I've been operating under this notion that I have to love myself before anyone else can love me, and I have to make myself happy before I can make anyone else happy. I love making things. Yes, I know that is not a very descriptive sentence, but it's true! Hats, blankets, paintings, pancakes, flower arrangements, cookies, paper, bagels, peanut sauce, earrings, keychains, salt and pepper shakers, short films, playdough, haircuts, jeans into shorts, slide shows, people laugh, comic strips, salad dressings, teriyaki tofu crumbles, etc, and the list goes on. These are all examples of things I love to make.
Yesterday was my last-ish day of my summer vacation, so to celebrate I planned a pizza-making, movie-watching, brownie-baking, bellies-full-and-we're-all-happy-and-laughing extravaganza. The past few days/weeks/years I've been experimenting with baking and working with yeast doughs. Measuring cups, ingredients, expert pizza book, and pyrex bowls laid out, I dove apron strings first into the pizza dough making experience. Knowing full well the key ingredient for any recipe is love, I cheerfully activated my flieschmann's yeast packet while singing along to the radio. Earlier that morning I read the entire introduction and first chapter of a cook book my mom has entitled "The Pizza Gourmet" or some malarkey. (That arrogant titled should have tipped me off. These clowns probably don't even know about the pizza I wanted to make.) Feeling pretty confident, I started this whole production around 3:00. Outlined in the book were recipes for even the most novice and inexperienced bakers, surely that's wasn't me! I'm a lightly seasoned professional, I decided. I couldn't have been more wrong!
Although I followed the directions exactly, and I mean to a cussin' T, the dough still wasn't coming together the way I had imagined. I become so frustrated and had to step away from the kitchen for a few moments. Again I attempted pizza dough round 2, round 3, and round 4 tweaking things here and there. More flour. Less flour. More water. More olive oil. More love. Less love. A bag of flour and many yeast packets later, I literally stomped out of the kitchen into my room where I angrily folded the laundry that had been sitting in the basket for a week, cussing up a cussin' storm. After I cooled off, I remembered that I still wanted to have a last huzzah! pizza depart-y. On my second wind of motivation, I went to the store to purchase frozen pizza dough or bread dough that every chump on the food network assures me I can find "right in your grocer's freezer." This was obviously a last ditch kind of effort, so I was already skeptical. But imagine my surprise when I discovered that those foodie jerks lied! I went to three different stores and the only thing I found was some crappy biscuit-esque thin crust crap. It was already nearing 6:00 at this point, so I had to settle.
This turned out to be a bigger mistake because not only did it taste like a biscuit, but it was soggy and floppy like a wet biscuit and tasted like poop. My family was like "No, it's good, Anna! We still love you, Anna." but I knew the truth, I tasted it with my own mouth. Not to mention, but I'm mentioning, when I rolled out said poop dough there was a huge HOLE in the middle. In all my rage I threw that blasted pizza gourmet book on the ground and stomped on it a few times. Yuck, this experience left a bad taste my mouth.
Why can't I make a simple pizza dough? I made bagels for jiminy's sake! and brioche! and banana nut bread. and sugar cookies with little words on them. I thought this would be a snap. As with all things in [my] life, I'll have to try, try again. At least my family will be around to tell me it's ok. Thanks, guys! :)
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