Homemade Fast Food

So it’s been a long day.  Long week.  Long month.  I’m pretty exhausted and overwhelmed by all that’s been going on, not to mention all the work that waits for me.  What was supposed to be the last week of a low-key summer has turned into one giant list of things to do and pay.  I came home to a scant fridge, but my mission to save money kept me from ordering take-out.  Instead I turned to pizza.

Pizza is an all-around comfort food; homemade pizza is comfort food with the added fuzzy feeling that comes from a meal cooked in your own kitchen.  When I was younger, my mother turned pizza-making into an art, including fresh dough, caramelized onions, and special homemade pizza sauce.  The last time I made homemade pizza was after a day of apartment-hunting with an old roommate and her boyfriend.  They came back to our house for dinner and I pieced together a pizza and a salad while we chatted over wine.  I felt like my mother, who is always throwing together something delicious in a pinch, and I wondered when I became the cook, the one who makes sure everyone is full and happy.  We ate dinner on our porch by candlelight, the warm evening closing in on us.  The moment was almost elegant, yet familiar and warm.  We felt as if we were children acting like grown-ups, pretending to have a dinner party with our yummy pizza.

Pizza is fast to make and very customizable.  Tonight we bought dough and mozzarella and used leftover sauce, pepperoni, and mushrooms from the fridge.  I shooed the Boyfriend from the kitchen so I could relish the process alone.  Cooking is my favorite therapy.

As I went through the motions of dinner, I focused on the task at hand; the chaos of the day and stress of the week were insignificant to the moment.  I murmured things occasionally to the cat and the dogs, my wordless kitchen companions.  To make quick work of shredding the cheese, I put together my food processor, like a child with her favorite puzzle.  While the pizza bakes I sit in the hot kitchen to take off the chill of the day.  I steal these last few minutes to write, to sit, to be silent.

In a bit I’ll cut up the pizza and two of us will bring glasses and plates into the living room and catch up on a show.  Side-by-side we’ll sit on the couch, thankful that, in these zany, sometimes distressing moments, we have each other.  And we have dinner.