Calzone

Our local grocery sells pretty good frozen pizza dough, which on principal I'm against yet in practice find myself buying occasionally since it's so damn easy and rolled out super thin tastes good too. (Thick it just turns to ghastly white bread.) But for times like this, when reaching the bottom of the fridge, and with the regular rhythm interrupted by a fancy meal out, it's a perfect time to bust out the calzone. In this case, the reminder of the onion soup reduced until thick and not too wet, some broccoli, some mushrooms, and a can of tomatoes quickly cooked with onion, garlic, and herbs for a sauce all got folded up in the dough and baked up really nicely. Doesn't need cheese at all, and the extra sauce goes on top. Quite good with the 2003 Torbreck Woodcutter's shiraz, one of my favorites right now. And the fridge is pretty much empty so tomorrow a big shop at the coop.

A note on cheese: normally we don't eat much dairy, since it exacerbates Christine's athsma and makes for a lot of phlegm when you have a cold. But once in a while, we enjoy some really beautiful stinky artisinal cheese at a dinner party or some such. As with any other decadent treat, I think it's better to enjoy a small amount of something pungent and beautiful than to simply grate soulless brick cheese on everything. We do like the good yogurt, and bread and butter has its exalted place. Again, the key is to make it a special treat rather than a baseline which can desensitize your palate and make you just crave fat for its own sake.