Since I was young my dad has been the one to cook for our family. I always felt as though I was a bit different from my friends beacuse it was my dad that did the cooking, not my mom. I was so spolied I still to this day remember being taken to 500 Blake Street for my birthday. Everyone was raving about how amazing their brunch was. I can say with totally honestly that I was not impressed. My dad still thinks I am crazy because of that. I was formed into a food snob, and I revel in it! It is from my dad I have grown such a love for cooking and baking. This is not to say that I am great at it, but I love to feed people, it makes me happy. Friday night here at the casa is pizza night. My dad will either make his own dough from scratch or he will buy the ready made dough and roll it out for the crust. This particular night my dad began by making his own dough. He carmalized onions, sliced meatballs, everything for this pizza. He was doing a bit of an experiment with the shape of the pizza. Tonight it would be rectangluar. The use of an airbake pan was employed given the shape of the pan. A choice Icarus himself would have decided against.
My dad figured out to make a homemade pizza more like that of your favorite pizza joint; you need to get the crust nice and crispy. To do this he cooks the pizza almost until it is done. About 10 minutes before it is ready he removes the pizza from the pan and bakes it the rest of the way directly on the rack in the oven. When he tried this time to remove the pizza from the pan he realized the pizza wasn't done on the bottom. He gave the pizza another few mintues and tried again. Still not done on the bottom. What could be wrong? This is the same method he has always used, sans the shape and pan.
Finally he had had enough and figured come hell or high water he was going to get this pie off the pan and onto the racks. He gathered his weapons of choice and began moving the pizza off the pan. My mom and I had the best seats in the house to witness this event. The moment he removed the spatulas and laid it on the rack it began to drip through the oven racks. For my mom and I think was a wonderful moment, given the comedic value. For my dad, he was mad to say the least. It turns out our chef had chosen the wrong pan. An air bake pan helps you to ensure you don't burn your cookies. The pan is two layers with air inbetween the layers again, so you get even baking on your cookies. This was the wrong choice for a man that wanted to delveop a crust on his pizza. The poor guy was really looking forward to this pizza! He had spent so much time on his mise-en-place. With a choice curse word and snap of his fingers he was off with my mom to cry into a black and tan at Fridays, damn that air bake pan, dammit to pizza hell!
