This is what happens when Mr. Food Musings makes dinner

We have a new rule. (Sort of.) At least once a week, Mr. Food Musings is in charge of making dinner.

I say sort of because we've tried it before. Last time, it faded away after, oh I don't know, the first week.

I'm not blaming him entirely, though. I can get a bit mouthy in the kitchen.

But with me going back to work nearly full-time to bring home the bacon, we agreed he's going to have to help cook it. So we made a deal. He'd cook once a week. And I'd keep my mouth shut.

Last night was his first time. I confess, I was a bit nervous. We discussed what he'd make on Sunday and settled on pizza, since I already had the dough ready and didn't feel like making it myself that night. (See also: hangover.) But that was pretty much the extent of our discussion.

And, it turns out, his planning.

About 7:30 last night, he mentioned he thought he'd get going on dinner. We'd just run out for a coffee and we were both hungry. I offered to set out the dough to let it come to room temperature, and to preheat the oven to 500º. I also let him know I had a few tips from my Tante Marie's cooking class that might help him when it came time to rolling it out. A half hour later, I told him things were ready for him to start the prep. I assumed he'd be making a simple Margherita pizza, as I'd planned to the night before.

The hallway that runs from his office to our kitchen is long. He said later that he felt like a Dead Man Walking as he headed stoveward. You see, he realized then that he'd done no shopping for ingredients, and had no idea if there were any in the fridge. Oops!

I walked into the kitchen a few minutes behind him, oblivious to his inner turmoil. His head was buried in the bottom cabinet, and loud banging noises issued forth. "Where's a pan I can caramelize in?" came the cry a few minutes later.

I'd like to pause here a moment. The man knows that you can't caramelize in a non-stick pan? A miracle had occurred. Yes, Virginia -- men do listen!!!

The black skillet found, he set to work. I saw a slab of bacon, an onion, and a green pepper out on the island. I have to admit, I was impressed. It all made sense -- a riff on a sausage/peppers/onion pizza. Though I'd pledged to keep my mouth shut, I decided that was only for opinions. For solid cooking advice, it seemed appropriate to speak up. So I helped him caramelize the onions, noting he'd need butter and oil and some brown sugar to start, and that he'd want to cook them "low and slow" rather than over the mile-high flame he'd conjured on the stove. I cooked the bacon, suggested he mince some garlic, and found the missing mozzarella. Then I offered to help chop.

"I've got it all under control,"  he said. "But you can pour me a glass of wine."

When he tossed the garlic into the caramelizing onions, I was tempted to scream "No!" But I didn't. When he scattered Parmesan cheese all over top of the tomato sauce, I gulped. When he mused aloud about boycotting the mozzarella. I ahemed. (Loudly.) But mostly I stayed out of it until it was time to roll out the dough.

From my class, I knew how to get a cracker-crisp crust: simply divide a standard pizza dough -- enough for one pizza -- in half or even in thirds, and roll out each of several pizzas extra thin. You end up with a great pizza that cooks in about 7 minutes. I also learned that cornmeal (or polenta) really will "grease" a pizza peel (or in our case, a wooden cutting board) and that you have to slide it onto the pizza stone with confidence. If you do, it will slide off easily. But if you hesitate, you'll end up with an accordioned pizza slopped all over the oven. Mr. FM's first attempt wasn't confident enough, and we ended up folding a lip of dough over the pizza to get it all onto the stone, but by the second pizza he had it under control.

What can I say? We've made a lot of pizzas in our house. Some of them look pretty, some of them don't. Turns out, Mr. FM rolls out a mean ball of dough, producing a nice round(ish) circle versus my usual trapezoid. He caramelizes onions like nobody's business, and he has a great sense for toppings. The bacon, caramelized onions, Kalamata olives, and green peppers were out of this world good. The garlic didn't burn. The Parmesan cheese added a lovely depth of flavor and there wasn't too much salt. His pizza had more class, more love -- and a lot less mouth. Honey, you can make dinner any time.

Comments

[shuna fish lydon]

See what can happen when your mouth is shut until the exact right moment?

I'm like this too. If someone is in my kitchen I have to chat with them from a distance. Because I soooo love to have people cook for me, I try to keep my mouth shut until they're putting the yums in my mouth.

[Tiffany]

Oh my gosh, this is so funny. Love the dead man walking image.

I'm awfully impressed at what you have sitting in your fridge at any one moment. Our thrown-together pizza would have cottage cheese, Diet Coke, old chicken, and Gogurts all over it. Yikes!

Bravo!

[sabrina]

I love this story! You and mr. FM are so adorable. I can just picture it all.

[Catherine]

Shuna -- lest you misunderstand, my issue isn't being chatty, it's being bossy! Much worse, I am sure.

Tiffany -- to be fair, we had the dough, tomato sauce, and mozzarella because I'd planned to make pizza the day before. But it's amazing what you can do with a few odds and ends if you set your mind to it. Before he got going, I was desperately wondering how a beet-and-corn-on-the-cob pizza would taste. (Yucky was my ultimate decision.) BTW, I have never mentioned how hilarious I find your addiction to Gogurts. I've never had one and I kind of feel like I'm missing out.

Sabrina -- you are so sweet! Sorry we didn't get to chat much on Saturday but it was good seeing you again.

[Cynthia]

I enjoyed the copy of your post but from the moment I looked at the pic, I knew that Mr. FM kicked (%& (didn't want to be lude on your blog)

I'm not a pizza lover but this, I would definitely want to eat. Go Mr. FM, you rock!

[Jeff]

Dispatch: Somewhere in Afghanistan.

I can't disclose my precise location, but Mr. FM has authorized me to provide clarification on last night's meal planning and execution. (Mr. FM parachuted in earlier from a high altitude stealth bomber, which he boarded shortly after the dinner in question, while Ms. FM slept soundly.) Mr. FM would like Food Musings' readers to know that the meal was not as haphazard as it was described. Sure, Mr. FM made do with what was in the fridge, but it was not because of an oversight or lack of forethought. Rather, he was busy most of the day planning the details of the Afghan mission, Operation Osama Yo Mama, on which he is currently deployed. Further, given Mr. FM's experience in having to be innovative in a time of crisis, facing an ill-stocked fridge shortly before having to make dinner hardly rates as stressful. For example, there was an earlier Afghan mission for which Mr. FM had to train a team of bacteria how to infiltrate a Russian-built defense facility and disable it, so that he could pilot a robotic condor behind enemy lines. Well, the bacteria got sidetracked by a tempting petri dish that the Taliban were using to make meth, and failed to complete their mission. Unaware of the development, Mr. FM flew his condor with confidence, not knowing what potential disaster lay ahead, until the Taliban spotted him and in a fit of meth rage launched 71 surface to air missiles his way. (A bit more stressful than facing an less-than-well-stocked fridge, wouldn't you say? Right.) Thinking fast, Mr. FM used his satellite phone to hack into the remainder of the Iridium system, which was launched by Motorola back in the '90s, and hijack a transponder, so that he could relay a message to a remote controlled meteor. The meteor plunged into the atmosphere, several miles above Mr. FM and then, following Mr. FM's codes, rocketed to a point where it would come between Mr. FM and the missiles, thus attracting the missiles to its heat signature and pulling them away from Mr. FM. As an added bonus, the missiles and the meteor slammed into one of Osama Bin Laden's trusted stashes of Western porn, destroying it utterly and depriving Bin Laden of some of his favorite cave reading materials and one of his best sources of bribe materials. Damn! Would love to continue, but we've just come under attack from suicide rodents. Clever, those Taliban.

[mom]

All I can say is----you guys need to write a book!

[Fatemeh]

OK, so if the post itself wasn't super-cute and funny, the comment by this "Jeff" person (Mr. FM's alter-ego, perhaps??) took the cake!

[Catherine]

Cynthia -- this could make a pizza lover out of anyone!

Jeff -- Your "creative" view of reality keeps me on my toes. xoxo

Mom -- Sure, maybe in my spare time ;)

Fatemeh -- trying to stoke the fires of competition in the FM household, eh?