Congratulations to Me

Oh how I love Sundays when we have class. There was only one class and it wasn't so bad. Recently the students have found the joys of making mechanical pencil guns with the springs. They wouldn't stop shooting each other with pieces of eraser. A girl even shot at me as I was helping a student but they are just looking for a reaction so it's best to respond as if their actions were petty skin cells shedding off the body. There was a lecture in the afternoon which I actually enjoyed. Usually the Japanese is understandable for awhile during lectures but I soon grow tired and stop trying to understand. The man who came told us about a natural cleaner people can make with yeast, soy beans, yogurt, sugar, and water. Supposedly it's great for getting rid of bad smells and cleans many things well without harmful chemicals. We all got 20oz of the concoction at the end. I might try to make my own with the directions we received. But to test the effectiveness I filled my bathtub up and dumped a few ounces in. I'm going to see how well it helps clean the rest of the tub and lid. For some reason I want to get the tub cleaned despite the fact I probably won't even use it. I think I'll hand wash some blankets and pillows in there so that might be good enough reason in itself.

I spent most of the day thinking about making pizza. I was happy that I restrained myself from using the dough last night. I knew it was for the best. When things don't work out the way I want I'm usually of the mindset to at least try again. This is more than true for pizza. As soon as I arrived home I broke open my new box of charcoal and got the fire chimney ready. I wonder how I'm contributing to rain forest devastation with the charcoal I buy. It says its from Indonesia and I'm suspicious of that. At least I thought about it, right? I looked up the word grill tonight and found that its usage appears prior to the word barbecue. Grill is defined as cooking over metal grates whereas barbecue is meat suspended above a pit of coals. British English has greatly confused the matter. Ask a New Zealander what a grill is and they will think it's a metal hot plate. I understand grill came from griddle but just use that word then. Everyone seems to be confused about grill and barbecue. Where do I even begin to explain anymore?

After getting the coals hot I dumped them out, put the grate on, and then laid my baking stone on top. I left the lid off for about 10 minutes to keep the coals highly oxygenated and then closed it up to make things very hot inside. I waited about 1 hour for the stone to heat. A fire chimney worth of coals is probably good for several pizzas. I was still a bit unsure how well it would work. I've cooked pizza on a gas grill but that has more consistent heating. But I figured the charcoal would do just as well. With the remaining onion and sausage from last night I dressed the final pizza dough and slid it on the grill. I baked for about 7 minutes, giving it a slight spin somewhere in the middle to help it cook more evenly with hot spots on underneath the stone. It smelled wonderful as it was cooking. I'm sure if anyone smelled it they would have wondered where such savory smells were coming from with great earnest but they would never know.



Well that looks just as good as last night but watch the video below for the real verdict on all this madness!



This might be my best and favorite pizza ever. It's truly the replica I always wanted to make!