Weekly Photos: Pizza Making Day

It was a beautiful day, sunny and bright. One of those days where I envision putting on a pretty sun dress and sun hat, pedaling my bicycle, that has a huge basket in front, and going to the market for some fresh flowers and a baguette.

Lovely, isn't it?

Instead, I put on a pretty skirt, top and sunglasses. I dropped off my daughter at school but my son's preschool class was cancelled so I had him along. We drove down to the Italian Centre and bought all sorts of supplies. Can anyone every leave there without buying more than they intended? Not I. Fresh breads, tonnes of pasta, freshly cut deli meat and a pizza paddle the size of an outdoor winter shovel.

Pizza paddle you say? Why yes.

I have been wanting a pizza stone for a very long time but not the circular one. I wanted a rectangular one, since I usually make my pizza's oblong. My hubby spotted one at the Italian Center, when we went for coffee there one morning. I didn't see the pizza stone but my hubby did and bought me one for Mother's Day.

I forgot to mention that when I was having coffee with my hubby, we walked by the big box of pizza paddles and I made a joke about them. Something about, one must look rather silly having such a large paddle in their kitchen and that I didn't see the point of having one.

I promised the kids pizza-making day. I was all set and excited to make pizza with my new pizza stone but soon it dawned on me... how in the world would I ever get such a large pizza on and off the stone? I would need a pizza paddle. Of course. The paddle I joked about that my hubby didn't buy to go with the stone I received for Mother's Day.

Sigh.

Where am I going with all of this? Sundress, pizza paddles, Italian Center, lovely day...

Oh yes, back at the Italian Center, with my son, picking up a ton of supplies and a pizza paddle. Let me tell you, I have never got so much attention as I did that day. A cute kid sitting in the shopping cart, waving a large shovel-sized pizza paddle like it was a flag throughout the store. Let's not forget the sound effects to go with is ... whoosh whoosh, beep beep beep... you get what I mean. Lots of smirks and comments.

But, now I am quite happy that I have the paddle. Though there is a learning curve with this pizza stone and paddle. My daughter's mini pizza ended up cheese-side down on the pizza stone as I tried to gingerly slide it off the paddle. Not only did I get burn marks on my forearms from the top heating element, as I was scraping off all the burned cheese off the hot pizza stone in the oven, I ended up with cornmeal all over my kitchen floor as I dropped the paddle. (Need to have cornmeal under the dough so it will slide off the paddle and not stick to the stone).

But the pizzas turned out delicious. I'm hoping that I'll get better the more I use it. Just you watch out, I'll be begging for a pizza oven outside next summer :)

And you are more than welcome to make all sort of paddle jokes now. I know I sure am.

Have a great long weekend!