Homemade Pizza, Anyone?
Mamacita says: Pizza was originally a quick and easy dinner for a busy Neopolitan housewife on baking day. She saved out some dough from her family’s weekly bread and made a quick, nutritious dinner for her family by adding sauces, meats, vegetables, and cheeses. Homemade pizza is easy to make, and much better for your family than frozen or even restaurant pizza. When my son was in high school, he and his friends used to request my pizza and eat it as if they hadn’t had and wouldn’t be likely to get a good meal for a long time. I’ve been getting requests lately for my homemade pizza recipe, so here it is. I hope your family enjoys it as much as mine did.
Dough:
1 teaspoon dry yeast (about half a square packet)
1/2 teaspoon sugar (must be real sugar – not artificial sweetener)
1/2 cup warm water
1 3/4 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt (don’t leave it out)
1 tablespoon oil
In a large bowl, combine the yeast, sugar, and water. Mix well. Allow to stand for about 10 minutes. It should bubble and expand.
Add the other ingredients and mix well. Remove the dough to a well-floured board (I just use the kitchen table) and knead very hard for about 20 minutes. Add droplets of water or pinches of flour if you need to in order to make a smooth, slightly moist dough.
Put the dough back in the bowl, cover it, and set it in a warm place for about two hours.
After the dough has doubled in bulk, you’re ready to make the pizza.
Sauce:
There are all kinds of pizza sauce recipes out there. I never had time to simmer any of them all day, so here is how I did it:
1 can tomato sauce
1 small can tomato paste
Oregano to taste
Toppings of your choice
Mozzarella cheese, shredded
Preheat your oven to 425. Remove the dough from the bowl and knead again on the floured surface. Place the dough on a well-oiled pizza pan and start pushing it out in all directions. You’ll think there isn’t enough dough to cover your big pizza pan, but there always is. Remember, you want it to be thin, and it will rise a little bit more in the oven.
Cover the dough with tomato sauce and sprinkle with oregano. Place your toppings to your liking all over the tomato sauce. If you want a cheese pizza, you won’t need any other toppings. (duh)
Bake on bottom oven rack for approximately 12 minutes. After 10 minutes, check regularly. When the edges of the pizza crust start to brown, remove from oven and spread the shredded cheese all over the pizza. Put dots of tomato paste all over the cheese. Return to oven for about 6 more minutes, or whenever all the cheese has melted.
Let the pizza “set up” for just a few minutes before slicing. Sprinkle with Parmesian if desired.
Enjoy.
P.S. I’ve tried a ton of pizza dough recipes in my day, and this recipe is the easiest and the tastiest. It’s the only one I use now. Once you get the hang of it, it’s super simple.
Analogy: 2 Points for Every Player?
Mamacita says: Everybody on the basketball team is trying really, really hard. Some of them are displaying amazing skills, while others aren’t quite up to the same level of competence. Some of them can hit almost every basket; others on the team will hit maybe one basket out of ten or more attempts. Some haven’t made a basket yet. One player’s specialty seems to be fumbles and fouls. A couple of players can’t stop double-dribbling. Even though most of the players know what they’re doing and are really putting a lot of effort into the game, they are constantly thwarted by those few players who either can’t do it, or who could obviously do better but don’t care about the outcome. All of the players, however high or low their skills may be, are necessary because, according to the rules, the team MUST have a certain number of players in order to be a team at all. The winner will be the team as a whole, not the individual players according to their personal skills and attitudes. Those players who can play well will always be handicapped by the players who can’t/won’t, and those players who can’t/won’t will always be necessary to make up the numbers. And sometimes there is a miracle, and a player who hasn’t done anything all season will score the winning point with an amazing mid-court throw. Good coaches never stop trying.
The score is determined by the number of points made, and the points are made by throwing the ball THROUGH the basket. Whichever team can throw 
the ball through the basket the most, within a certain time frame, wins.
I don’t know all that much about sports, but I do know this: the rules are set and only a fool would ask for exceptions. It just isn’t done. In sports, the score is what it is, and the score is determined by how many points a team makes, and the team’s points are made by individuals. Each individual either makes a point, or he doesn’t. There is, as Yoda says, no ‘try.’ The team’s score is calculated by adding up each individual player’s contribution.
In the middle of a game, someone suddenly stands up and runs down the bleachers, screaming. This person marches up to the scorekeeper and DEMANDS that a certain player receive a point even though his ball did not go through the basket.
“It’s not his fault that his skills are not as well developed as the players who made most of the points! All players should be given credit for SOME points, even if they didn’t actually earn them! It’s bad for their self-esteem to have a zero in the stats; don’t give them full credit, of course, but they should be given half, at least. It’s not their fault that they can’t perform as well as the kids who actually got the ball through the basket. Every member of the team deserves to get a point for each attempted basket, whether the ball went through or not. The scorekeeper has the power to give points; why shouldn’t the scorekeeper be the one who actually receives the credit or the blame for a team’s total points? It would be so easy to award ALL the individuals who make up the team; how could the scorekeeper be so cruel as to deny any player a point when the player tried! He TRIED! Isn’t that worth at least one point? Shame on the scorekeeper! Shame! It’s not fair that only the players with better skills get all the points! Maybe it WAS the kids who listened and tried and practiced above and beyond the coach’s directives who really won the game for the team, but it’s not fair for them to get all the awards when the kids who didn’t practice, didn’t obey the coach, and just plain didn’t have the ability were, um, THERE, too! The players who TRY should get a point for each attempt.”
Now, imagine that this is your mom making this scene. Could anything ever even approach the humiliation of that moment? What would she be THINKING? Doesn’t she understand that you only get points when the ball goes THROUGH the hoop? Didn’t she see that none of your throws went through the hoop? Why would she even imagine that you should get points when you didn’t make any? Why, in the sports stats, a kid who didn’t make a single basket might still be credited for ten or more points per game! A player who got the ball through the hoop several times wouldn’t have as many stat points as the kid who got none! How ridiculous would that be?
Can any of you imagine yourselves making this scene?
Of course not. We all know better than to demand exceptions, and points-not-earned, when it comes to athletics. How absurd.
So, then, why are some of us so ready to march to school and demand at least a FEW points for our child, when the child didn’t do anything to earn any points?
Some schools have a rule that even a child who earns a zero will still get sixty points, because to give a child a zero would be bad for the kid’s self esteem. In some districts, 60% is a D-, and with a D- a student will be promoted, legitimately, to the next grade.
In other words, a kid who doesn’t lift a finger all year, and who, if the stats were kept accurately, would have a string of zeros after his name because he didn’t earn any points, ends up with more points recorded than a hardworking kid who just isn’t very smart who EARNED, maybe a 55% or less, and who won’t be promoted because he hasn’t earned enough points.
Well, in today’s society, both students would probably be promoted no matter how few points they earned over the course of the school year. Don’t get me started on that one.
My point is, to get points, one must earn points, and to earn points, one must actually demonstrate competence in something, whether it be getting a ball through a hoop, or spelling “ball” and “hoop” correctly, or counting how many tries it took to get the ball through the hoop, and if there is no competence demonstrated, then there are going to be a lot of zeros after this kid’s name, unless the Self Esteem Police have dictated that a kid who earned nothing has in fact earned a lot more than a kid who earned something.
And a parent who comes to school demanding that his/her child receive points for NOT doing the work is no different from the parent who comes to the gym demanding that his/her child receive points for NOT getting the ball through the hoop.
Yoda rocks.
Quotation Saturday: C+
Mamacita says: I used to file my quotations away in alphabetical order, until I realized that a good quotation isn’t really fileable that way. A good quotation contains too many variables, some obvious, but even more that are so subtle we aren’t even sure what they are.
The subtle variables are why the good quotations have such an effect on us.
1. I do not love him because he is good, but because he is my little child. — Tagore
2. One of the best things about a very little child is that he never thanks you for doing things for him – he is so sure you want to. — Maurice Horspool
3. In the little world in which children have their existence, whosoever brings them up, there is nothing so finely perceived and so finely felt, as injustice. – Dickens
4. The “C” students run the world. — Harry Truman
5. We most always change, renew, rejuvenate ourselves; otherwise we harden. — Goethe
6. Consistency is only a paste jewel that cheap men cherish. — William Allen White
7. Through the survival of their children, hay parents are able to think calmly, and with a very practical affection, of a world in which they are to have no direct share. — Walter Pater
8. One laugh of a child will make the holiest day more sacred still. — Ingersoll
9. If at some period in the course of civilization we seriously find that our science and our religion are antagonistic, then there must be something wrong either with our science or with our religion. — Havelock Ellis
10. People who complain that they don’t get all they deserve should congratulate themselves. — Unknown
11. It takes as much courage to have tried and failed as it does to have tried and succeeded. — Anne Morrow Lindburgh
12. Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple – that’s creativity. — Charles Mingus
13. Chance is the pseudonym of God when He did not want to sign. — Anatole France
14. This is an age in which one cannot find common sense without a search warrant. — George F. Will
15. There are many intelligent species in the universe. They are all owned by cats. — Anon.
16. There is nobody who totally lacks the courage to change — Rollo May
17. The whole difference between construction and creation is exactly this: that a thing constructed can only be loved after it is constructed; but a thing created is loved before it exists. — Gilbert Keith Chesterton
18. Creative minds have always been known to survive any kind of bad training. — Anna Freud
19. Only one man can do anything. One man interacting creatively with others can move the world. — John W. Gardner
20. Creativity is the art of taking a fresh clean look at old knowledge. — Unknown
21. Curiosity is a willing, a proud, an eager confession of ignorance. — Rubinstein
22. To comprehend is to forgive. — Henrietta A. Heathorn
23. Cynicism is intellectual dandyism. — George Merideth
24. If you want to see what your children can do, you must stop giving them things. — Norman Douglas
25. No change of circumstances can repair a defect of character. — Emerson
26. Loving a child doesn’t mean giving in to all his whims: to love him is to bring out the best in him, to teach him to love what is difficult. — Nadia Boulanger
27. When you blame others, you give up your power to change. — Anon.
28. If you haven’t any charity in your heart, you have the worst kind of heart trouble. — Bob Hope
27. Calculation never made a hero. — John Henry, Cardinal Newman
28. If you don’t control your mind, someone else will. — John Allston
29. Man is not the creature of circumstances. Circumstances are the creatures of men. — Disraeli
30. Everybody, sooner or later, sits down to a banquet of consequences. — R.L. Stevenson
31. An unhappy crew makes for a dangerous voyage. — Unknown
32. Character is a victory, not a gift. — Try Square
33. Old and young, we are all on our last cruise. — Robert Lewis Stevenson
34. Man loves company even if it is only that of a lighted candle. — Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
35. People have a custom of excusing the enormities of their conduct by talking of their passions, as if they were under the control of a blind necessity, and sinned because they could not help it. – Cumberland
36. On the human chessboard, all moves are possible. — Miriam Schiff
37. Conditions are never just right. People who delay action until all factors are favorable do nothing. — William Feather
38. He who leaves nothing to chance well do few things ill, but he will do very few things. — Lord Halifax
39. Every calling is great when greatly pursued. — Unknown
40. A fool must now and then be right by chance. — William Cowper
41. Those whose conduct gives room for talk are always the first to attack their neighbors. — Moliere
42. In America, nobody says you have to keep the circumstances somebody else gives you. — Amy Tan
43. Those who complain about the way the ball bounces are usually the ones who dropped it. — General Features Corp.
44. He who does not enjoy his own company is usually right. — Coco Chanel
45. We don’t need any more well-rounded people. We have too many now. A well-rounded person is like a ball: he rolls in the first direction he is pushed. We need more square people who won’t roll when they are pushed. — Eugene Wilson
46. Consistency is contrary to nature, contrary to life. The only completely consistent people are the dead. — Aldous Huxley
47. Courage is the power to let go of the familiar. — Raymond Linquist
48. Changes are not only possible and predictable, but to deny them is to be an accomplice to one’s own necessary vegetation. — Gail Sheehy
49. Do not wait for ideal circumstances, nor the best opportunities; they wil never come. — Janet E. Stuart
50. Avoid, as you would the plague, a clergyman who is also a man of business. – St. Jerome
51. A creditor is worse than a master, for a master owns only your person; a creditor owns your dignity, and can belabor that. — Victor Hugo
52. In the final choice a soldier’s pack is not so heavy as a prisoner’s chains. –Eisenhower
53. There is not in the universe a more ridiculous, nor a more contemptible animal, than a proud clergyman. — Henry Fielding
54. Character is like a tree and reputation is like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing. — Lincoln
55. Crime expands according to our willingness to put up with it. — Barry Farber
56. Cunning is the dark sanctuary of incapacity. — Lord Chesterfield
57. Criminal: a person with predatory instincts who has not sufficient capital to form a corporation. — Howard Scott
58. If you want others to be happy practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion. — Dalai Lama
59. It is not easy to be crafty and winsome at the same time, and few accomplish it after the age of six. — Unknown
60. One day posterity will remember this strange era, these strange times, when ordinary common honesty was called courage. — Yevheny Yevtushenko
61. Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live, taking the form of a readiness to die. — G.K. Chesterton
62. Choice is what separates the artist from the common herd. — Mordaunt Shairp
63. Character, that sublime health which values one moment as another, and makes us great in all conditions. — Emerson
64. Every one of us has in him a continent of undiscovered character. Blessed is he who acts the Columbus to his own soul. — Unknown
65. Fame is a vapor, popularity an accident, riches take wing. Only one thing endures – character. — Horace Greeley
66. It is right to be contented with what we have, never with what we are. — Mackintosh
67. Copernicus did not publish his book until he was on his deathbed. He knew how dangerous it is to be right when the rest of the world is wrong. — Thomas B. Reed
68. Make no judgments where you have no compassion. — Anne McCaffrey
69. All men are alike in their lower natures; it is in their higher characters that they differ. — Bovee
70. The dead are always popular. I knowed a society wanst to vote a monyment to a man an’ refuse to help his family, all in wan night. — Finley Peter Dunne
71. Ah, the clock is always slow; it is later than you think. — Robert W. Service
72. We are inclined to believe those whom we do not know, because they have never deceived us. — Samuel Johnson
73. Only the suppressed word is dangerous. — Ludwig Boerne
74. Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted, counts. — Einstein
75. The great law of culture is: Let each become all that he was created capable of being. — Carlyle
