June 17, 2012
Watertown, MA. September, 2011
When Hurricane Bob blew through New England in August of 1991, Nick and I were in Provincetown, MA, “Hurricane Central.” The weather was wild, the leaves blown off all the trees and shrubs and pureed against walls all over town. (Lilac bushes, suddenly bare and experiencing the same amount of sunlight as in the spring, were fooled into blooming again!) We lost power, but had a gas stove, so Nick decided to try to approximate the pan pizza we both loved at Boston’s Galeria Umberto. Success! I’ve been making what I call “Nick’s Ptown Pizza” ever since. For the real deal, check out Nick’s How to Bake. For my quick take: Start two tablespoons of dry active yeast in two cups of hot water to which you’ve added a teaspoon of sugar. When it’s bubbly, add two tablespoons of olive oil, 3/4 teaspoon of salt, about six-seven cups of flour and mix and knead (by hand or KitchenAid mixer, dough hook) until you have a silky, workable dough. Cut it in half, store under plastic wrap or in Tupperware and let the two halves rise to double in size. Then push and pull each into an oiled jellyroll pan until they remain in place. Topping for each pizza: One-half of a 28-ounce can of Pastene crushed tomatoes (“chunky style”), three tablespoons grated Romano, some oregano, a little salt, a few red pepper flakes, four ounces shredded mozzarella. Put the pans on two shelves of a preheated 425-degree oven for 30 minutes, alternating them (top to bottom, front to back) on the shelves halfway through. Cool on racks. Do all that and you’ll have what you see here.
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A memorable (and mouth-watering) image of the time another Bob blew into town.
ReplyDeleteI just "pinned" this on Pinterest and saw that you have about 6 other photos there, some pinned by Cenk, other but people I don't know.
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