Off The Hook

Noah and Deanna stopped over on their way back to Brooklyn which gave me the perfect excuse to try the pizza dough recipe from Local Bread. Not only is it the new book from our local bakery founder, but the recipe comes from the very place in Campo dei Fiori in Rome where I used to go for bread and pizza rossa almost every day (though truth be told, often I wouldn't get that far since there was another, closer place with equally good pizza- but inferior bread.) Someday I would love to write a guidebook for walking tours of the pizzerie rustiche of Rome, with favorite little churches and less famous sights thrown in.

This is an insanely wet dough, but stretchy, so I did manage to get it out near the edges of the peel. We made two: the first with cherry tomatoes and fresh herbs all from the garden, and the second with potatoes from the garden and black trumpet mushrooms from the woods. The crust was a winner, and I was transported back to those magic times spent eating this perfect food while leaning against the fountain in Piazza Farnese. I also made a crudo of wild salmon and sautéed the last of our escarole to make room for spinach in the fall, and we made the tomato and cucumber salad that we have almost every day. We started with rosé, then moved on to a 1997 Soletta Cannonau Riserva which was quite rich and still young. For dessert, we had Roquefort and Stilton with a 1996 Château Theulet Montbazillac.