I don’t know what it is about me and the kitchen. I follow recipes scrupulously, because improvization invariably leads to disaster. Yet, I have some magical quality that makes me choose the lamest recipe any given publication can have to offer. If someone gave me Julia Child’s The Art of French Cooking, I’d find the blandest, most awful recipe in it and make that. It would sound good, on paper, but it would universally be acknolwedged that, indeed, that recipe was not Ms Child’s finest work. And I, not knowing this, would subject my delightful significant other to my experiment.
Last time I made pizza dough, I used a recipe from Fleischmann’s. You know, the yeast people? The people who make yeast? It was awful. This time, I used a recipe from Cooking Light, because they sometmes have some great recipes. I also bought a pizza stone. Not the $45 one at Williams-Sonoma that I’ve been coveting, a $10 one from Safeway that I figured would do the job and would still fit in my 50s-era cabinets (they didn’t have Williams-Sonoma or giant pizza stones back then. Lots of things don’t fit. Like, for instance, my Kitchen-Aid food processeor, which is a millimeter too tall to fit in any cabinet).

I mixed. I kneaded. I punched. The dough rose. I preheated to 500 degrees.

It worked!

The only flaw is that I followed the Cooking Light recipe to a T, and when I pre-baked the dough (as they said to do), it rose like a crazy, bubbly loaf in the oven. So I yanked it out and stabbed it a few times to let out the steam, and it collapsed again. While I was doing that, the cornmeal I used on the stone started to burn. So I got rid of that and put my topping-filled pizza back in the oven, and watched it rise gloriously in my sweltering kitchen for ten whole minutes. At the end, I had a perfectly-browned crust. Though I will confess that it was a little thicker than I’d have liked, and I probably could have made two pizzas out of the one recipe. And may, in fact, try that. I’m also not going to pre-bake the shell next time, because I wasn’t trying to make pizza bread.

But still. Phew. It wasn’t a disaster. Let’s hear it for not sucking. It’s sometimes the least I can ask out of a day.

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But in December, there’s one other thing I love. Things usually die down a little, and I sometimes spell myself off through the day by completing that oh-so-important task that I’d normally scramble to finish once I got home from work.

That’s right. I do my Christmas baking.

The rest of the year, the self-employed workaholic in me freaks right the hell out at the first sign of a slow period. But in December? Well, whatever. After the 15th, I’m happy to work a couple of hours a day, bake some shortbread, do a little more, make a tart, touch up some copy, make some peppermint bark. It’s all good.

Really, really, pepperminty good.

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I don’t have fantastic luck with cooking. I’m getting better with practice, and to Mike’s credit he has choked down a lot of mediocre meals, but I’ve always been kind of afraid of anything that requires yeast, kneading, and rising. Because let’s face it, there’s not much worse than gross pizza. Doughy, cardboardy, bland, floury – you name it, it sucks. Cheese and sauce and redeem many a dish, but not when the base tastes like the bottom of a shoe.

The truly crazy thing is that there is a fabulous pizza place around the corner from our house. You can get a 14″ pizza with unlimited toppings for around ten bucks. They’ll have it ready in five minutes. I just promised Mike that if my homemade version sucks, I’ll buy one from this place to redeem myself.

Why bother making it, then? Well, partly because a couple of weeks ago, I bought a deluxe machine – a Kitchen Aid food processor. It’s fast, it’s red, it slices and dices. It grates, as long as you aren’t a dumbass and cut the pieces too small (not that I know anyone who’d do that….). And it makes bread. I have been dying to try the plastic dough blade since I bought this thing, and tonight is the moment of truth.

God help us if between Kitchen Aid and Fleischmann’s, I”ve just made two-cheese vegetarian cardboard.

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“Method,” I’d say, very slowly. “They’re American. All-natural, biodegradable. Smell good.”

“Oh. No. Never heard of them. Sorry. Maybe the one in Westhills has them?”

The one in Westhills did not have them. Ever. They were even less helpful, never having cleaned anything in their lives. So I gave up, and kept my eyes peeled for some Canadian-made products. I found some at Fruits and Passion – a lavender-mint glass cleaner, and a countertop cleaner that makes my 50-year-old Formica shine. But still, I lusted after The Method.

It’s funny, really, because I am a terrible housekeeper. I lose at cleaning, I really do. For one thing, I hate it. So even though I work at home, it’s the last thing I want to do with my spare time. And for another thing, I hate that faux-lemony smell that everything has when you’re done. And for a third thing, I don’t have a lot of spare time these days, so keeping up with the dishes is a major accomplishment (though I lose at that lately, also).

So it’s kind of funny that I treated myself to two bottles of cleaner today. Isn’t it? They smell fabulous, though, so maybe they’ll inspire me. Maybe I’ll spend the next few days polishing glass, scrubbing floors, and shining things up.

You never know. Stranger things have happened.

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