Talking Sweet About Nothing

After a decades long love affair, and after the past year's serious courtship, I've decided to try my hand at making my own pizzas. Real pizza with homemade dough and sauce. Not that I haven't eaten and loved countless Digiorno build-your-owns, Chef Boyardee pizza kits, and frozen pizzas (Stouffer's French Bread pizza, I'm looking at you), but this is entirely different.

Here are some "proud papa" moments.











They're (obviously) not perfect, but they're good. And they're only going to get better.

Last weekend Katie and I celebrated our one-year anniversary. Luckily, because we were married on May 24, our anniversary will almost always fall on or near a three-day weekend (yay Memorial Day). We spent a couple of days doing totally touristy things around Baltimore. Seeing as how our wedding was all local and independent vendors, it seemed like fun to keep the party in our hometown.

We left our car in Linthicum and took the light rail downtown. A) We didn't want to have to think about parking all weekend, and B) we had the foresight to know that we might spend a good amount of time intoxicated, so we planned on just using public transportation and/or a cab to get around. We arrived at Camden Yards right around lunch time, so we walked over to Little Italy to have lunch at Isabella's.



What a perfect start to our weekend!



Katie finally got to see what all of the fuss was about, and couldn't help but agree that this pizza is tops. I think we'd both agree that we prefer Matthew's, but Matthew's really is it's own unique meal, and as far as an authentic artisan pizza, Isabella's is a standout in an otherwise mediocre pizza town.

After lunch, we walked back to the Inner Harbor to take a harbor cruise. This is that big boat that you see docked right in front of you when your at the stop light at Conway and Light St. as you're coming into downtown. The one that boards right next to the visitor's center building. Anyway, this cruise was totally awesome. Despite the obnoxiously loud speaker with pre-recorded narration, it was really fun to float around the harbor for an hour and a half and see the city from a new perspective.



After the cruise we railed (yes, it's a verb) uptown to our B&B to check in. We stayed at this totally cute rowhome B&B called Abacrombie in Mt. Vernon.


*photo courtesy of Abacrombie

We had an amazing dinner at their restaurant on the ground floor. In addition to a good number of vegetarian options (rare at most fine dining restaurants) all of the meat and produce are sourced from local, organic farms.

On Sunday we slept late, had a relaxing breakfast, and then took off for the zoo. Sunday was the annual Brew at the Zoo, featuring regional beer and wine vendors. Ticket price includes zoo admission, plus a free tasting glass for unlimited sampling of beer and wine.



Before entering the zoo, we spent some time walking around Druid Hill Park. While there we saw this totally awesome bird called a Red Winged Blackbird. We saw tons of them. Katie got this great picture.



After our day at the zoo, we made our way home, where we had wedding cake (Sweet recreated our wedding cake top as an anniversary gift). It was just as delicious as we remembered. Yay!

The garden is looking quite healthy these days. You'll notice I moved the perennial herbs in order to maximize space for our tomatoes and peppers. And as you can see everything is coming along nicely. On the left are all of the herbs. Oregano is has quickly gown out-of-control. I need to trim those afros. And you'd never know I pruned those sage bushes down to stumps only a couple of months ago. On the right hand side are a mix of various tomatoes and peppers. In addition to jalapenos, we have Mr. Stripey, Cherokee Purple, Brandywine, Juliet, and San Marzano tomatoes.

San Marzanos, notably, have been designated as the only tomatoes that can be used for a true Neapolitan pizza. Of course, even then, to be "official" they must have been grown in the volcanic soils surrounding Mt. Vesuvius. Believe it or not, there are actually very specific guidelines, and an extensive certification process if a pizzeria wants to be designated a member of Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana. Me, I'm not that picky. I'm just happy to have home grown tomatoes, even if they are grown in my own, inferior Maryland soil.

Along the back wall, you can see some small sprouts. Those are sunflowers that have just begun to shoot up. We're hoping these will create some shade and absorb some of the heat that bounces off of that white wall.



This window box currently has one small batch of basil and some salad greens. We'll be adding more basil cuttings in the next few days. They're still sprouting roots in our kitchen window. You can also see that we have a few containers for the smaller peppers and tomato plants.



This little patch is at the bottom of our back stairs. You can see the mint is very healthy. It smells awesome. I wish I had gotten a picture a couple of weeks ago. The plant next to mint was in full bloom with dozens of purple flowers. It's called Firewitch (awesome!) The ground cover is called Creeping Jenny, making this part of our backyard totally scary.

Over the last few weeks the online pizza community (you heard me) has been buzzing about the latest addition to our area, Coal Fire Pizza in Ellicott City. I ate there last week and I was so excited to tell you about it. But now I'm bummed. I spent a good amount of time on Saturday typing up my post for Coal Fire, only to have it all disappear without having saved. I'm especially bummed because that post was so good. One of my better entries. Pure pizza poetry. So rather than try to remember what I wrote and re-create it, I'm trying something new. Actual pizza poetry. Here is a series of haiku relating my Coal Fire experience.

Classic or spicy
Tomato sauce made from scratch
Give us one of each

Two pizzas arrive
Anticipation fills me
The first taste is best



Spicy much too hot
Overpowers all toppings
Even black olives

Classic much better
Traditional homemade sauce
My kind of flavor

Simplicity wins
Margherita pizza pie
Eight perfect slices



Coal burning oven
Thin and chewey, nicely charred
Check the crust upskirt



Coal oven goodness
Blackened crust, tomatoes, cheese
Delicious pizza

Friends sharing a pie
The best way to eat a slice
Can't wait to go back