smitten kitchen

Much to most New Yorkers’ aggravation, television screens were added the backseat of most taxicabs last year, effectively poisoning the one place left in the city not already inundated with a constant media blitz. Whenever I get in one, and yes, the television is always on, I immediately hit mute, but then find that I’m watching the images broadcast on the back of the front seat and not this gorgeous city whizzing by and then usually force myself to turn it off completely and restore my view to the window, frustrated that the choice has to be so complicated. I don’t like them one bit.

But. There was this one time, I think I was zipping out to Jocelyn’s this past winter and I still remember exactly what street the cab was on–Houston–when I had to drop everything and turn the volume up because what I saw before me was too awesome to resist: Jim Lahey making Pizza Bianca for a Time Out New York segment. And hoo boy, did I ever fall hard for it.

A little background: Jim Lahey’s name may be familiar because he’s the guy who teamed up with Mark Bittman of the New York Times in November 2005 to show him the No Knead Bread-Making Technique Heard Around the Internet. In New York, he’s famous for his work at Sullivan Street Bakery and in my tiny corner of this city, he’s famous for teasing us for months about opening a pizza place so close to our apartment, I feel certain he’ll be cooking me dinner several nights a week, which is still plywooded despite a promised mid-December opening date not that I’m counting the days, minutes, seconds or anything.

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All right, this is just not pizza. I mean, maybe it is pizza-like or pizza-esque or even pizza-ish, but I have a terrifically hard time calling it pizza. In fact, when I saw Giada DeLaurentis make this on her Food Network show last weekend (I seem to have broken a seal with her, no?) all I could think was “that’s not pizza!” and then hmm, that would be a fun Sunday night dinner. So, I did the only rational thing: I decided to not call it pizza. In fact, as soon as I started to think of this as a flat bread, an open panini or an assembly of some of my favorite things, the deliciousness near-overwhelmed me.

So, let us take this apart, shall we? We start with a thin layer of pizza dough. You can use my easy-as-sin one, though I have myself moved onto the just as easy wine-and-honey version I updated a few months back. If you don’t feel like making your own, I’m really not doing my job here, but nevertheless, feel free to pick up one from your local pizza joint (what, you don’t have one on your block?) or grocery store. The recipe calls for a one-pound dough, though my homemade one clocked in at 13.5 ounces and, lo, the world did not end.

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Are you in town this weekend while all the good people of the US and A have jetted to some, any edge of the country? Do you not feel bad because it is so gorgeous out, you have to pinch yourself to believe it is so, and now that the city has emptied out you have it the playground all to yourself for once?

Fine, as usual I am talking about me, me me, but it doesn’t mean that I don’t hope you have it this good. Walking around the city on these three off-days of the year when all the sidewalk-cloggers had the good sense to scatter elsewhere is a dream. You can make pretend, once again, that the land is yours alone, and you’ll put your house right there and your boat tied to that pier and when you’re hungry for a snack, you’ll climb into the cave at Murray’s and whittle yourself a little something to schmear on a tear of a Balthazar baguette. You won’t have to share the swing set with any short people and when you go the Union Square Greenmarket, you won’t be knocked into even once. At 4 p.m., good tomatoes will remain.

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5 p.m. yesterday found me in the kitchen, chopping carrots into snack-sized sticks and trimming the ends off uncooked green beans so that we could have a snack. And then I laughed because what could be more of a New Years cliché but raw crudités and the promise of a healthier tomorrow. Yawn. Or, at least yawn to the traditional notions of health food; I actually made us pizza and an enormous salad for dinner.

But first, a small detour. Alex and I went to brunch at a friend’s apartment in the Upper East Side yesterday, stopping at Eli’s on the way home for provisions. Despite it’s unseemly pricing structure, I used to love this store but yesterday it just left a funny taste in my mouth as I realized that I’m just not the customer they’re after. Pre-made cookie and dinner roll dough? Pre-chopped vegetables? Day old chocolate cake? I suppose if I was frightened of my kitchen and had endless funds at my disposal, this place would be a godsend. But instead I just felt like pleading to their customers: pizza dough is so easy to make! Lately this has become like my battle cry, trying to convince people not to be so afraid of failing at a recipe that food choices are instead left to companies who possibly have their best interests in mind, but most definitely not before their bottom line.

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I’ve heard so many people say that they don’t understand the purpose of wedding registries. “Can’t we just have the cha-ching?” they ask, “Who needs all that crap?”

And I’m here to say, “I do.” Yes, to the Kitchen Aid. Yes to the carved oak salad bowl set. Yes to the entire Cuisinart family from the Griddler and Food Processor to the Ice Cream Maker and Hand Blender. Yes, I find satisfaction in a well-outfitted kitchen and I am not ashamed to admit it.

I don’t blame these registry nay-sayers, we’re just different sorts of people. They don’t harbor secret fantasies about Williams-Sonoma stores and an unmonitored personal slush fund; they probably don’t get intoxicated with 6″ cake pans and ceramic pie weights at the Bowery Kitchen Supply; the prospect of a 9-color sugar sanding kit has probably not once ever made their entire week; and I’m sure their higher income bracket daydreams don’t include an entire web page of Kitchen Aid accessories.

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