The Pizza Critic

Homemade pizza is something I dearly love. I was raised on thick, dripping, lasagna-sized pies made with Dad's hand made crust topped with Mom's famous red sauce, Italian sausage, pepperoni, mushrooms, olives, bell peppers and copious amounts of mozzarella. Even better than the freshly baked pizzas that filled our house with a warm aroma for days, were the LEFTOVERS!!! I would take a slice to school the next day in my lunch. Mmmmmmmm. Who would have thought that cold pizza could make me so popular? All of my friends who had tasted it knew what they were missing. I once turned down an offer of $10 for a single slice. In 1984, that was big bucks.

Tonight I made pizza for the first time in almost a year. Real pizza, that is. Last winter I attempted to make one using "rice cheese" so Ian could have some. You can probably imagine how well that went over. As a family, we decided to give up pizza that wasn't authentic.

But tonight was different. As we add more dairy back to Ian's diet with wonderful results, it is a joy to renew our love of great food again. The homemade whole wheat crust was soft on the inside and toasted cornmeal crunchy on the outside. Moderate amounts of mozzarella and provolone were accented with thinly sliced crispy turkey pepperoni. This modest pizza achieved great results on the attitude scale, at least for 3 of us.

"What's wrong Ian, don't you like the pizza?" I asked.

"It's too spicy." He said with a crinkled nose.

"But, I didn't put any spices on the pizza," I replied.

"Yes, you did, Mom. Didn't you see the face I made that means that there are too many spices on it?"

Obviously, Ian has perfected the magical ability to add food ingredients with his facial expressions. I wonder if he can also remove undesirable traits from certain things, and if so, would he consider taking the calories out of M&Ms? You know, sometimes this autism gig is really powerful!