Now Thatza Pizza!

As I wrote in "The Art of Scrambled Eggs", I have a few cooking mentors.  Last night the friend who taught me the egg whisking vortex method, made pizza for us, and tried to teach me along the way.  Being from the East Coast, this guy is a true pizza snob, and I say that in a good way.  We've had this guy's pizza before, but maybe I wasn't in the right mood, because even though that pizza was good, the pizza last night was possibly the best pizza ever.  I'm not much of a salesman, but I could sell that pizza.  Until last night, I never understood what the big deal was about East Coast Pizza.

Well, here's the big deal, as I can tell.  The crust is thinner and gets a crisp on the bottom, and the sauce is a bit sweeter and just tastes more fresh.  For me though, the crust and the crisp was the key.  We made 2 types of dough for the crust, a warm water dough that was a bit thicker and a cold water dough that was wafer thin.  While the warm water dough was easier for a novice like me to work with, the cold water dough was my favorite.  I pretty much botched my attempt at rolling out the cold water dough, but we salvaged it and it turned into a good pizza anyway. 

A few other tips I picked up:

1 - More basil, less oregano in the sauce.
2 - My pizza oven has never been hot enough...gotta get it over 500 degrees.  We were cooking at 525 last night.
3 - The baking stone has to be in the oven when you start...preferably for 20 minutes, so it is nice and hot.
4 - I need to get a pizza peel.
5 - Toppings don't matter if the sauce and crust is right.
6 - Anchovies are really good, but use the sparingly.

I also learned to toss a pizza last night.  I think I was successful on 5 of 6 attempts.  So, not bad for a beginner.  I'll have to try making pizza at home and see if I can come close to duplicating what I learned last night.  I also have to figure out how to do something really well so I can teach my friend something...maybe I can help him with his golf game.

A Shaqtastic Career

My favorite basketball player, Shaquille O'Neal, announced his retirement yesterday.  After 19 seasons, 4 titles, 15 All-Star Appearances and about 200 different nicknames, "The Diesel" is done.  At 39 years old, his body just can't do it anymore. 

When Shaq broke into the league at 20 years old, I was in my middle school years.  Shaq was this larger than life center who broke backboards, ran the fast break, and did it all with a smile.  He quickly became my favorite player.  In an era when it was Jordan this and Jordan that, I liked what Shaq brought to the game.  He looked like he was having fun!  When he went to the Lakers in 1996, it was a dream come true for me...the Lakers were my favorite team.  These days, I root for players more than teams, but back then, I was a Lakers fan.  Shaq won 3 of his titles with the Lakers, and 3 NBA finals MVP awards.  He would pick up 1 more title with Dwayne Wade (my new favorite player) and the Miami Heat in 2006, but I'll always remember Shaq as a Laker first.

Some of his critics will say that Shaq underachieved, because he was injured a lot, often started the season overweight, and never led the league in rebounding.  Even as a fan, I have to agree with that, but that's Shaq.  Basketball was never the end all be all for Shaq, it was just a means and a forum for what he really wanted to do, which was entertain.  In an era when athletes often wear a scowl and look miserable, it was refreshing to see someone out there who realized he was playing a game for a living.

I'll miss Shaquille O'Neal, but I'm very glad I got to witness his entire career.  In tribute, here are the top 5 Shaq nicknames (most of which he gave himself).

5 - Superman
4 - The Big Shaqtus (when he was traded to Phoenix)
3 - Shaq Fu
2 - The Big Aristotle
1 - The Diesel

Some More Reviews

I've had a few reviews pile up here.  None of these deserve their own post, so I'll roll them all into one.

"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1":  I was actually somewhat let down by the first movie in the Harry Potter finale.  "Deathly Hallows" was my favorite book, and I was excited to hear that they were making 2 movies so as not to leave anything out.  What I hadn't counted on was how the first half of the book is really tough to make into a movie.  It ended up being long periods of boring, followed by a few moments of riveting excitement.  Whereas the book could tell the introspection going on inside the characters heads, the movie failed in that regard.  All the other Harry Potter movies have been 4 or 5 stars, but this one is only a 3 star movie.  I'm sure Part 2 is going to be excellent...and pretty much non-stop action. 

"Castle, Season 3": Sorry about the picture.  Netflix changed how it does TV series...it's highly annoying.  Anyway..."Castle" continues to rival "Psych" for being the best show on TV (that's right Nuke, I just said that).  In season 3, Richard Castle (Nathon Fillian) continues to help NYPD Detective Kate Beckett (Stana Katic) solve some more offbeat murders.  With playful banter, and just the right amount of "serious" episodes, "Castle" kept me interested all season long.  The season finale was one of the better cliff hangers I've ever seen, and I am really looking forward to next season.  Another 5 star season for the "Castle" crew. 

"The Event":  NBC's new show should have been kept to 1 season, and NBC realized that, but the producers and writers did not.  This series, which pits Americans in and out of the government against aliens from an unknown planet had so much potential, and sometimes it lived up to the hype and sometimes it did not.  What we ended up having was a 3 star TV series that would have been 4 stars if the show would have ended, rather than cliff hangered.  NBC has cancelled "The Event", so the producers are looking for someone to pick up the 2nd season.  I expect SyFy or USA or something to pick it up, but in my opinion, it could have just ended.  What's wrong with having a great 1 season run?  Oh well...if there is a season 2, I might tune in to see where things go, but I also may not.

The Real Story of Alyss in Wonderland

So, apparently Lewis Carroll totally botched it.  Luckily, Frank Beddor figured it out and now tells us the real story of Alyss Heart, heir to the Wonderland Throne, who ended up stranded on earth for a few years and told her story to Carroll, who twisted it into a children's story.

In "The Looking Glass Wars" we meet 7 year old Alyss, just before her evil aunt Redd takes control of Wonderland.  The women of the Heart family are gifted with a powerful imagination, so powerful that they are able to imagine objects into being.  As Redd is attacking, the Queen's bodyguard, Hatter Madigan, takes Alyss through the pool of tears to earth.  They become separated and Alyss is eventually adopted by the Liddell family and comes to think of her prior life in Wonderland as nothing more than a dream.  That is, until she reaches 20 and it is learned she is alive on Earth.  Queen Redd promptly sends assassins to kill her niece, but her allies in Wonderland save her, and they hatch a plot to retake Wonderland.

I won't give away much of the follow-on books, "Seeing Redd" and "Arch Enemy" except to say that "Seeing Redd" was the weakest of the 3 books.  Overall, I really enjoyed these books.  I found them to be a fairly light read and books that I could easily put down and come back to later.  This series isn't on the level of "Harry Potter" or "Percy Jackson", but is a good, quick, entertaining read, that you don't have to really focus on to enjoy.

One complaint I do have is that there seemed to be quite a few typos in "Arch Enemy", and I thought the editing in the final book was a little off.  Basically, things resolve themselves too quickly...almost as if they had to hit 370ish pages, so the author and editor made some weird choices to end it on time.  Still though, these books were worth the time I took to read them, and I'll never be able to look at "Alice in Wonderland" the same way again.