Homemade Pizzas

My daughter was the executive chef at our vineyard restaurant and function center. She cooked her extraordinary delights of rustic French dishes for massive crowds at innumerable weddings we held at our charming property. Julie also oversaw our lunch and dinner service and many other events we hosted throughout the year at the Wineshed.

In contrast nowadays, she’s been Elijah’s fulltime mother and homemaker for her family, but she still continues like a dynamo to create her magical recipes and always goes that extra mile in anything she puts her heart into, which in her case is everything. Being so skilled in every facet of food preparation and specifically the French cooking methods, I find that just watching her do anything with food is enthralling. She’s also an amazing baker of the highest standard and produces the best breads, cakes and pastries I’ve ever had. Her other specialties include Indian dishes, Mexican meals, Italian food, taught to her by an aging nonna, Asian delights—Japanese, Chinese, in particular, also some Indonesian, Thai and probably many others that I’m not aware of.

Julie is a walking encyclopedia when it comes to food and although I’m a pretty good home cook, I defer to her in most instances if I want the best of the best. While much of what I make tastes delicious, her food goes past the stratosphere in all accounts from creating the recipe, making the recipe and plating the recipe.

So I felt great anticipation when she started to put the pizza dough together and then while it was proofing, to see her filling the assortment of containers and putting together the various sauces that were destined for certain pizza combinations that she’d thought up. All I did was observe the nonstop procession of bowls filling up with goodies, huddled on a very comfortable chair, covered in a rather stylish, portable electric blanket to warm my bones, on the very chilly afternoon. Soon I added a bathrobe over the blanket, a wool scarf and woolen hat as I studied her creations manifesting, feeling slightly guilty for not helping, but content that I could at least watch the process unfolding. From 3 o’ clock to half past 6 in the evening, she was in the zone. After mixing the dough for 6 pizzas and rolling them into balls, proofing them in large bowls drizzled with olive oil, then kneading them after they expanded and eventually rolling them into large flat circles, the fun part began as she made each individual pizza with different toppings and sauces. One by one these delectable combination pizzas went into a very hot oven for about 5 minutes onto an awaiting pizza stone and one by one they came out and were cut into triangular pieces of heavenly melted goodness. She’d invited her friends over that I met last week and the man was the friend who’d rescued us from the ditch she drove into. Each pizza was a work of art and we were all asked what we wanted on top, which was then placed on our special order. Elijah and I had one that had half of what he preferred and the rest was covered with my choices. We were all eating double what we’d normally get out, and we couldn’t seem to stuff them into our mouths fast enough. Each one was spectacular and unique. They ranged from peanut sauce, shredded chicken and fresh cilantro to more traditional homemade pizza sauce from a tomato base with mozzarella, pepperoni, sausage, mushrooms, green pepper and everything in between. One of her favorites had gobs of blue cheese on top of pepperoni with roasted red peppers. I can’t remember which one got the pesto sauce on top, but I think it was the divine Margherita since she didn’t have any fresh basil in the garden.  My pick had red onion and Swiss mushroom slices on it and deli meats with oodles of melted cheese dripping. While we were feasting Julie never once sat down. She had to orchestrate the meal and even if we could help her (which seemed doubtful) we’d just get in her way. So we were all waited on from start to finish. All we had to do was line up when our choice was ready to slide onto our plates and then slide that shimmering goodness into our mouths.

Watching her cook and keep up with the conversations emanating from a couple of rooms made me remember her cooking classes we did in the vineyard kitchen, the ones she did on television on Friday mornings at the Canterbury Television network that was decimated by the Christchurch earthquake, the cooking demonstrations she did for locals in Pasadena at the Le Cordon Bleu Cooking Academy where she was in charge of the curriculum for all the students and the classes she held for kids at the Huntington Hartford Museum and Gardens during the summer. Now she’s relieved to be past that phase in her life, which can be all consuming leaving little room for other pursuits or family time. Now she creates these mouth-watering delicacies for the people lucky enough to live near her and with her of course. Personally I’ve missed her so much, on so many levels, it’s hard to put it into words.  But being here now is such a long yearned for treat, and her cooking just makes it all the more special.

Years earlier while we were visiting the States from New Zealand, my sister Joan and I attended one of those cooking demos that Julie did in Pasadena. We were absolutely floored and probably made so many clucking noises like two proud hens that the other people there must have noticed. There was just no mistaking her talents both in the cooking department and the ease she had in such a public forum. It was then that I got the idea to bring her to New Zealand. We were running our Bed and Breakfast at Glenmore House and it was just around the time that we’d also bought the vineyard. My idea was to upgrade the menus and I knew just the person to do that with impeccable flair. My only daughter fit that bill so perfectly—the same girl who would cook dinner for the family and surprise me when I’d come home from work, exhausted from a long day at the office. Every dinner had several courses as she experimented with different foods. Every single thing she made from the time she was very young was off the charts….and still is.

I hear her now chopping something for dinner. Gotta go and see what delicacy we get to eat tonight. With only a week and a bit left on this visit I’m already dreading leaving here…so gotta make good use of my time left. See ya.