Let's start a pizza farm

In a comment on one of the posts of this blog, Jane made mention of Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. Have all of you read it by now? What a book, huh? I wish she was our friend.

After reading the book, Kira and I were inspired by her family's weekly pizza nights, so we thought it would be fun to establish a similar tradition at our house. Tonight was the first night we actually got around to it, however. My mom and Kira travel to Wabash nearly every weeknight now to rehearse for "Hello, Dolly." Mom mentioned yesterday that she might swing by Mr. Dave's and get some dinner and eat it at our place before rehearsal tonight, so in the name of "Eat Dinner Together Week" I suggested that she and Dad come over for supper (and James Hersch, too, who is town performing for the week, but he had a prior engagement). Tuesday night party!

As we all know, it's not a party unless you learn something (ok, that's not true, but I needed a transition). I learned tonight that Gorgonzola cheese freezes pretty well. I put some leftover wedges from the wedding in the freezer to see how they'd do. I transferred one to the refrigerator earlier today, and it was soft by dinner time. After crumbling it up, I put some on fresh greens from the garden, along with apple pieces from a local orchard, cashews, and a balsamic vinaigrette. The texture was a little different, but it still tasted pretty good. The real lesson, however, is that frozen-then-thawed Gorgonzola seems to better suited for pizza then "fresh" Gorgonzola. Now, Sam, I know I'll need to put this up for peer review before it can be called fact, but tonight the cheese was more firm as it baked (rather than slide all over the pizza like it usually does). Kinda cool.

So, we had a Gorgonzola/pineapple pizza, a pizza margherita, and a pizza with some of Dave's tomatoes, mushrooms, and green and yellow peppers from the garden. I started another batch of tomato sauce to use tonight, but it wasn't ready in time, so I just put it in the freezer when it was done.

I've been a bit obsessed lately with the idea of an entirely local pizza. Soon (hopefully) I'll be making my own mozzarella with milk from a neighboring farm (I've been making my own yogurt...delicious!). Tomato, basil, and other toppings from the garden, obviously. I'm also looking into planting some wheat, or getting some from a local farm, for the crust. I suppose you could use a sourdough culture to leaven the dough. The only thing I can't figure out is salt. Any suggestions? Maybe extract some from my sweat?

Because of this obsession, it was serendipitous that Sam sent me a newspaper article about a farm in rural Wisconsin that hosts "Pizza Night" every week, serving up pizzas made with produce from their farm. It sounds great and I hope we can all go some time. And, if you ever want to start a similar project, please let me know. (I've already started talking about it with my dad.)

Anyway, I hope you guys are still having fun with this. We're having a blast!