Quite the Passover I'm having

Ever since I watched Jamie Oliver attribute widespread childhood obesity to the fact that some West Virginia elementary school kids eat pizza for breakfast, I've had this on-and-off craving for pizza. Jo and I had some Two Boots last weekend, but that pizza wasn't quite right. The cheese doesn't taste very high-quality (I know, what was I expecting? and it's not as if I haven't eaten at that chain every two weeks or so whenever I'm in NY since it opened maybe a decade ago), and what's with all the cornmeal? It doesn't help that the giant 'crayfish' sculpture in the window of the Bleecker Street branch greatly resembles that which you half expect will crawl by while you're eating there.

Then today, realizing I had a mere $3 and change in my wallet, I used this as an excuse to get pizza again, this time at a (new?) place on West Broadway, just south of Canal. $3.45 for a slice of glorified 'plain' - oh, Tribeca - but it kind of did the trick, and made the walk to campus that much more invigorating. Still, it left something to be desired, the way that by-the-slice pizza at places shooting for 'gourmet' often does.

So tonight I decided to make pizza dough from scratch, from an Epicurious recipe I'd bookmarked around the time of the Oliver incident but not gotten around to. I followed the instructions, except for leaving out the sugar. I did add some sugar to the sauce, whose other ingredients were a can of crushed tomatoes and half of a yellow onion, plus oregano, thyme, salt, pepper, you get the idea. The mozzarella was 'local' from Whole Foods, while the basil arrived each individual leaf on its own private jet.

To avoid having exactly the same dinner as lunch, I briefly considered different toppings, but then I realized I don't mind this sort of repetition, and just went ahead with it. Sure, the process set off the smoke detector twice, but with a food processor, it's nearly as effortless a dinner as pasta, and so much more fun! Best of all... best of all is a tie between 'there's still some left over' and 'this might have been the round that finally satisfied that craving once and for all.' It'll be a while till I want pizza again, but it's tomorrow's lunch, regardless.

Below, a photo of the second and prettier of the two pies: