Fulfillment

Last night's dinner with John B. and John J. was fantastic! When they arrived, we quickly strategized our pizzas. I had two with marinara sauce (one was just a mini-pizza with the leftover dough) and one without. It didn't take much discussion really to figure out what we wanted.

We started off with the plain dough topped with a little olive oil to which we added gruyere, sliced tomato, crushed garlic, and chopped rosemary (from my garden). Of the three pizzas, this was both the most visually appealing and the most delicious. Of course, it's really a variation of one of my favorite breakfasts: a toasted everything bagel with gruyere and a slice of tomato. Now I know to add garlic and rosemary to the mix (I'm really going to try this for breakfast!). In any event, the flavors were subtle but also complex. I knew we were going to have difficulty creating a better pizza.

Our next invention was the full size crust with marinara to which we added mozzarella, sliced green olives, garlic, and red onion. We had planned to add basil to this one, as well, but forgot. This was a really juicy pizza and a little messy to eat, but it was really tasty. I especially enjoyed the combination of mozzarella and the green olives (which were high quality olives from the olive bar at Whole Foods). I actually had a hard time deciding which of our first two pizzas I liked the most, although I ultimately decided that this was a close second to our gruyere wonder.

For our last pizza, we made the tried and true goat cheese and roasted red pepper. I'd roasted the red pepper ahead of time (and found one lonely seed inside). This was the least successful pizza, but then how could it live up to the first two? I did like that the crust was thinner--I prefer thin crusts but my recipe keeps giving me big fluffy crust. I've got to figure out why (is it the wrong recipe, my lack of a rolling pin, or the yeast I'm using?). In any event, it was a fine pizza, just nothing memorable.

For dessert, I'd picked peaches from my tree in the backyard, blanched them to remove the skins, and prepared a crumble to go on top. I was disappointed with this recipe (so I won't include it). Although the Johns claimed to enjoy it, I thought the peaches needed to be sweetened and the crumble was just okay. I'll have more opportunities to find a peach recipe that I love.

The whole evening was so much fun. We had a great time designing pizza and sharing our reviews of each one. I also really enjoyed the game portion of the night, even though John B. won every game we played. He beat us at one game of Scrabble and two of Clue. I usually hate to lose at board games, but I was having such a good time that I didn't mind. It was just so nice to share a night with two people that I really care about. The Johns have been part of my life for 8 years, and I feel incredibly lucky to have them as friends.

Here's John's winning Scrabble board. I want a rematch . . . and an excuse to eat together again!

By the way, this morning we tried the chayote greens at Samina and Alex's. YUM! Alex grilled them and they were really really interesting. The texture was a little rough in a really good way, and I actually thought there was a nutty quality to the flavor. I think I'll try sauteing them as well.