after taking a couple weeks off from my script to work on more pizza-centric projects, i’ve dived back into it. i’m not deep yet, but the second draft has begun.
the distance i put between myself and the story really paid off. i was able to look at the script critically, and instead of thinking “there’s no way i can make this better without it sounding inauthentic”, i was able to slash through whole paragraphs of text with notes like “awkward” or “make better”. and with nicole’s help, i was able to get better perspective on what works, and which concepts need more clarity to really come across to the audience.
but beyond just these necessary surface fixes, more consequential plot changes are rising up as well, and i believe the story is going to be much improved for it. there was a whole aspect to the script that i had come up with and even fleshed out, but written off as world-building, that i now realize a viewer would have felt robbed of when they finished the film without seeing it play out on screen. it needs showing, not telling. and so it is now going to play heavily into the structure of the story. it would have wound up as a completely founded critique of the film that i would be kicking myself for after the fact, and it didn’t even occur to me to include it until now.
this sort of progress is something i only would have expected of a situation where an unwritten concept was revisited years later, re-examined, and morphed into something else entirely. instead, this happened after a short break. and i’m not feeling as though i’m sacrificing something good for something better; instead, i feel like i’m just improving and evolving the idea into its best realization.
after a week of pouring my heart and soul into it, my quest for pepperoni has finally come to an end. it was a long and arduous quest, but at the end there was some pretty okay pizza as a reward, and that’s about all anyone can ask for, isn’t it?
my copious amounts of pepperoni prep (prepperoni) came to a head and i finally chucked those suckers in the smoker. it was a low and slow deal, as smoking typically is, but in this situation it was noticeably minus the smoke. largely uneventful, the process took about three and a half hours, much of which i spent reading online about how i would soon succumb to botulism due to my hubris in thinking i could safely prepare such a meat.
the only real issues with the cooking came near the end; following a bit of boasting about how the sausage was going to be done long before the expected time, my temperatures began dropping. i freaked out a bit and probably overcompensated, but everybody got where they needed to get and nobody got hurt. a win for us all.
the resulting roni was a beautiful red color, just like you see in the movies! the smell was delightful, and when all was said and done, i held in my hands something truly special and meaty. kind of like basil.
tunes of note during the cooking process: prince’s album controversy, nicole’s occasional concertina tunes, and of course notorious b.i.g.’s “big poppa”.
once coming up to temperature, the pepperoni was rushed off to a cold shower, then promptly stowed in the refrigerator to congeal / become a real boy. i would not see it again for another eight hours or so, at which time i helped myself to a bite (after educating nicole on the appropriate actions to take once the neurotoxins began to take effect).
just handling the slimy sausage was enough to convince my that i had worked some sort of alchemy – the grease seemed just right. the flavor and consistency, however, were another story. the flavor was very close, but a bit more aromatic and slow burning, rather than a sharp bite. the consistency was more packed meat than cured slice, which was unfortunate, but it was not so off that it was a problem. it just wasn’t… perfect.
in addition to the pepperoni, i used the remaining pork to create a second sausage – “sausage” sausage. you know, the kind you get when you order a pizza. “italian” sausage, i suppose. this recipe was mostly adapted from serious eats, but i also took some notes from the “sausage maniac” who outlined my pepperoni recipe. with this one, i felt i had a lot more wiggle room on the ingredients, and by the time i was done seasoning the meat before grinding, i had something that i knew would be good based on scent alone.
this sausage was packed with fennel seeds, red pepper flakes, and the music of the clash and the talking heads.
with all the pieces in place (including my simple pizza sauce, kissed with the latin jazz of dizzy gillespie), i was ready to get down and dirty on some pizza making. the plan was three pizzas: one with my pepperoni, one with my sausage, and one with my sausage and store-bought pepperoni. the oven was hot and ready, the cheese had been diced into cubes; all that was left was to make some pizzas. and to throw on some jamz.
my final musical choice would be the defining one for the pizza, a marriage of all the different sounds that had come before into one magical album. i needed passion. energy. intelligence. sex. funk. and horns. i narrowed it down to two artists – the red hot chili peppers, and no doubt. and so i made my decision.
i set to work on my dough, poking and pounding it into submission, constantly flouring it, and whispering sweet nothings into its ear. once i got it to a place where i liked, i set about topping the beast with my weird little pepperonis, and then deftly tossed that thing in to oven onto my hot and ready pizza stone. it… wasn’t a ten point landing. a bit of nudging was required to get that sucker into place. but it was fine. it alllllll went fine.
okay so it looked kind of like a shitty pangea. but looks aren’t everything! it also tasted like a shitty pangea. not really though. it was fine. the crust was a little too thick, an issue which has plagued my pizzas since i began these pizza adventures, but it was not a bad crust by any means. the pepperoni worked well in this context, much better than just eaten on its own. i cut the slices thick on purpose, and i think that suited the pepperoni well.
the second – the sausage pizza – was definitely an improvement over the first. the crust was largely the same, but the browning on the cheese turned out much better. i rotated this pie halfway through, which i had always been too afraid to do in the past (see exhibit a – pangea). the task was surprisingly easy though, with no damage done to the shape of the thing.
but the real star of this show was the hot italian sausage. unlike previous pizzas where i pre-cooked the sausage, i opted to apply this sausage raw and let it cook with the pizza, which turned out to be a huge success. the sausage was perfectly cooked, and i must say the flavor was incredible – any fears i had of over-seasoning were needless. the texture was spot-on, with a slight meaty chew. savory and melty and perfect. it was the perfect pizza topping, playing spicy against the sweet and tangy sauce – you could really taste the bounce of dizzy’s rhythm in every bite.
i prepped the final pizza, adding a brushing of olive oil to the crust to see what difference that might make, tossed it in, and waited patiently.
this one actually was pretty successful. the clear winner of the three. the defining characteristic? besides it being circular, it was the thin crust. i was able to get this one noticeably thinner than the other two, despite this one actually being made from the largest dough ball. thus the pizza was also the largest in size. the sausage and (store bought) pepperoni were a fine combination, but honestly all i cared about was the sausage at that point.
all in all, it was a good pizza experience. BUT i am saddened to say i don’t think any of these pizzas lived up to the last pizza i made, which is the one that convinced me that making restaurant-quality pizza at home is possible. it all comes down to the crust, and i don’t think any of these got thin/crisp enough in the right proportions to get there.
so then what are the major takeaways from this pepperoni quest / pizza adventure?
pepperoni, though achievable in the home kitchen, is not worth the time. you get more bang for your buck with straight up sausage.
cubed cheese does seem to brown better, but it’s tough to distribute properly and tough to avoid over-cheesing. more experience needed.
my sauce recipe continues to work. this particular can of tomatoes was the most acidic and least sweet i’ve ever encountered, so i actually had to sweeten the sauce a bit for once. it worked out well though, and i daresay the more acidic start resulted in a better overall flavor.
the crust was solid once again. the flavor was improved over last time, which i attribute to the additional sugar. it was easy to work with despite being a bit sticky when pulled from the fridge, and i had to deal with very little tearing (which i mostly attribute to bringing the dough to room temperature).
the bottom of the crust was not as crisp as i would have liked. need to get that stone hotter, god dammit!
thin crust. make a thiiiin thin crust.
believe in yourself and anything is possible.
go wacky with flour. it’s not gonna hurt you.
rotate the pizza! be a champ.
didn’t get anything from the olive oil, but i’d be willing to give it another shot.
all in all, a worthwhile adventure. one which i’ll be undertaking again, no doubt. with that, i’d like to leave you with this poem i wrote about pizza:
from all the drugs the one i like more is pizza
from all the junks the one i need more is pizza
from all the boys the one i take home is pizza
from all the ladies the one i kiss is pizza
pizza is my boyfriend, pizza is my girlfriend
pizza is my dead end, pizza’s my imaginary friend
pizza is my brother, pizza is my great granddaughter
pizza is my sister, pizza is my favorite mistress
from all the shit the one i gotta buy is pizza
from all the jobs the one i choose is pizza
from all the drinks i get drunk off pizza
from all the bitches the one i wanna be is pizza
pizza is my beach house, pizza is my hometown
pizza is my king size bed, pizza’s where i meet my friends
pizza is my hot hot bath, pizza is my hot hot sex
pizza is my back rub, my pizza is where i’d like you to touch
despite my impressive behind-the-scenes cellphone photography and rambling explanations on my pizza artistry, i feel like a real look behind the curtain into the process itself is in order. of course, i’m talking about the music being used to infuse the pizza and its various components with love.
any pizza auteur worth their pizza salt knows that the most crucial ingredient in your pizza is not the artisan mozz cheese blend, or the locally sourced heirloom tomatoes for the sauce, but the phat beats or “jams” in which the pizza is conceived. a pizza that was made in the loving embrace of conor oberst’s dulcet tones is going to taste far different from one produced with busta rhymes blasting in the background. that’s basic science. so you can imagine the importance of the various auditory environments in which i am bringing each individual piece of my master pizza into the world. dough massaged by miles davis’ kind of blue? delectable. pepperoni forged in the fires of rush’s moving pictures? complex and sophisticated. mozzarella cheese pulled to the ghostbusters II soundtrack? sacrilege!
so how does one incubate the perfect pizza? difficult choices must be made.
why yes, it was a marvelous night for a moondance. van morrison’s moondance set the scene for my doughcraft. delicate, sensual, open-hearted and intelligent; a perfect flavor profile for the foundation of my pizza. simultaneously light and hefty, this album packs a punch that kneaded my dough into soulful submission. this pie is bound to be laden with the positive vibes of van morrison’s sweet open-mouthed kiss.
pepperoni requires a touch more passion. something hot and raw to stand up against the spiced majesty of the sausage. pressed for time, my fire from the hip choice was janelle monáe’s latest album dirty computer. a sexually liberated romp, packed with funk and hip hop and guest artists, this album contains that essential “fuck you you bloated piece of shit” to trump’s america that traditional pepperoni so desperately needs.
the pepperoni process was lengthy, however, and additional auditory infusions were required. i was looking for something… spicy.
“shake it baby, shake ya titties!” – marvin gaye, songwriter of “what’s going on”
spicy like marvin gaye’s final love letter to intercourse, midnight love. pepperoni requires a passion for love on par with that of the master himself. let’s get it on is too on the nose, and i want you contains too much inappropriate moaning for cooking; conversely, midnight love provides the perfect examination of intimacy through the weary eyes of a middle-aged sex addict with depression. truly, gaye’s music is just as ideal for a night of lovemaking as it is for a pungent stick of meat.
these flavors and more are expected to be evident in the finished product, my most perfect pizza. more musical accompaniment is needed for my 3+ hour long pepperoni slow cooking session, along with the sauce brewing, and of course the final pizza immolation. what other jams can i pack into this pie to perfectly compliment these already great artists? the answer remains to be seen, but good guesses might fall somewhere in the polka or mariachi genres.
what music do you cook in the nude to? tell us in the comments, and don’t forget to like rate and subscribe!
Current Music: “pepperoni pizza is good to fuck” – marvin gaye
i’m makin a pizza and shit got real. real pepperoni. i dedicated my evening to giving painful, romantical birth to three giant logs of pepperoni. triplets. they say parents can’t choose a favorite, but if i had to pick from pepperoni 1, pepperoni 2, pepperoni 3, and basil, i certainly wouldn’t pick basil.
so, in truth, this isn’t going to be 100% legit pepperoni. it’s not going to be dry cured; instead i am going to smoke it (minus the smoke) since i have neither the time nor the resources for dry curing. so it’s kind of up in the air how this stuff is going to turn out. but i feel pretty good about phase one of the production. tonight i did the grinding and stuffing, leaving the cooking to either tomorrow or saturday.
my prep involved cutting up meats, grinding some spices, drinking some wine, and being at the ready with my trusty anus extract.
beef & pork & pork back fat go into this one, at a finer grind than i have been doing with my other sausages.
this is the gross puke slime paste i wound up with after grinding all night long. mixing in the spices, a bit of wine, and the cure give it a nice reddish brown color. the red would come out even more if i were going down the dry cure route, but i’m pretty happy with how it was looking even at this point in the process.
annnnd after stuffing into their natural casings, we have our babies. long bastards. the stuffing process was shitty. lots of air in the line because the meat was like a thick paste. but a little sensual manipulation and everything was packed as tightly as i had hoped.
hard to say how it will turn out. even though i had some left over after the stuffing process, i didn’t cook it to give it a try. it wouldn’t taste the same, and it’s far too late to make any changes at this point anyway. i am mostly interested in how the pepperoni “behaves” once sliced and cooked on the pizza without having undergone the dry curing. we’ll see how close this comes to real pepperoni. i plan on picking up some sliced pepperoni at the store beforehand, for comparison purposes as well as to make sure i’m able to enjoy at least one of the pizzas.
and here are a couple of my dough children. two of the three. i made these yesterday, based on some ridiculous recipe i found on reddit.
after several attempts at doughs based on others’ work and my own adjustments with the incredible pizza dough calculator, last time i made pizza i decided to give some random redditor’s recipe a try based on their pictures, and i ended up making my best pizza to date.
it was glorious. despite the fact that the recipe is thrown together with sloppy volumetric measurements rather than weights, with shit like “just keep throwing flour in there”, it somehow produced everything i have been looking for in a pizza. so i stuck with that recipe this time, the only modifications being a bit more sugar and making use of the finer 00 flour. but even if everything turns out the same as last time, i’d still be happy.
my remaining modifications for these pizzas include altering the cheese by dicing rather than shredding (to hopefully obtain better browning), and making my own italian sausage for topping at least one of the pizzas. gotta find a recipe for that still. should be a lot easier than the pepperoni though.
jesus i want pizza now.
Current Mood: 😴sleepy Current Music: “a girl is a girl” – sexist musical
it took me another week to pull out three more pages, but i did it – first draft is complete. 10 pages. it hardly feels like an accomplishment today, because for the whole weekend i really only had one line of dialogue and some scene descriptions to push through before it all came to an end. there was one little snag i hit that had me struggling to come up with answers for, and even what i wound up going with may be changed in the revisions process. but for now, it’s a script. a lucky bit of revisions today produced what i feel like should be an excellent title for the piece, which is shocking because usually titles are a big challenge for me. i had enough little surprises like that in writing this weekend that i feel very satisfied with where i am.
what’s next? i will do a second draft, trying to iron out what wrinkles are left in the script. then i have a bit of creative work i’ll need to do, while attempting to plan the actual shooting. the initial plan was, by design, to have something that will require only myself and one other to shoot, but now that i’m sitting with a short story that i actually like pretty well, i am considering bringing in an actor to replace myself so i can focus on directing. and possibly an additional crew member. i shouldn’t really get ahead of myself though, because i’m just not there yet. right now, i’m playing the role of screenwriter, and that’s all i need to be concerned with.
managing writing this past week was a bit rough. i should have had this script finished days ago, but the week was busier than usual, and it’s also getting harder for me to stay focused. maybe it was the spot i was writing though. difficult to say. in any event, i am comfortable taking a day or so away from the script, in hopes that a small amount of distance will give me fresh eyes.
in place of writing, for now i will focus on a far more important creative pursuit: pizza.
five days later and i’m five more pages into the script. i hit page seven tonight, which is where i had hoped the story would end, but it’s going to be another four or so. i wanted to get through the first draft by the end of the weekend, but obviously that was not in the stars. i spent a good chunk of my work on the script today trying to nail down some specifics of last third of the story, without which i couldn’t get past the second third. now that i have all of that in place, i just need to trust my characters to get us all there.
my writing pace has been not terrible. i had the luck of starting my return to writing during a week-long vacation, and so i was able to really dedicate my time to it. since i’ve been back to work, my pace was close to a scene per day when really putting the effort into it. this new script is looking more like a page per day. it’s a very different script though, and the writing is less “i will shit whatever sounds funny onto the page” and more “i will write a story with characters in it”. so a lot different from what i’m used to. but the method has been the same between the two – brainstorm and outline specific scenes in a text file, then write my way through the outline from beginning to end in the screenwriting software. this script’s outline, however, is a lot more granular in its descriptions, and is broken more into story beats than scenes given that the whole thing is just one long scene (more or less). the system seems to work for me, allowing me both the structure of a plotted story as well as the freedom to improvise. i think something of my DMing is in there.
much of my day today was focused on making sausages for a cassoulet nicole made for dinner. the whole project was of gigantic scale, and i think it all turned out very nicely. the meal was delicious, and the sausages (toulouse style) were good. sausage making is very rewarding; it feels like you’re creating something out of nothing… something greater than the sum of its parts. and you literally get your hands dirty doing it. i’d never heard of these toulouse sausages before, but they’re very nice. aromatic with allspice and nutmeg and garlic, yet still mild and meaty in flavor.
in doing research for the recipe, nicole turned up a treasure trove of other sausage recipes, which has gotten me really excited. i have been wanting to make another pizza lately, and now i’ve been burdened with the desire to make my own pepperoni for my own pizza. that will be its own adventure.
i “broke the seal” on my new script tonight. two pages in, of what i’d guess will end up being seven or so total. and i’m feeling great about it. i have what i think are pretty distinct voices locked down. the characters are driving the scenes. extra business / life is building itself on top of the outline, and it’s still hitting all its marks pretty organically. it’s going better than i imagined.
getting started on the actual writing has been the hardest part for me in the past few years. i’ve built out full plots and outlines for a number of stories that never got beyond a bulleted list. i think the fear is that once i start putting actual words and dialogue into place, it necessarily has to measure up to my expectations for it; the story can no longer just float around as a vague collection of feelings and imagined scenes, but it actually has to be the first realization of that flawless vision. it’s the same as putting pen/pencil/brush/whatever to paper when attempting to draw something; if it doesn’t line up to what i have in my head, then i become discouraged.
i’ve done a good job of convincing myself that in anything less than ideal conditions, i won’t be able to produce my best work. and then once i’ve created imperfection, that i won’t be able to make changes to it since that is how it was realized. as though something written on the page can only be written down truthfully one time, and any alterations to that will be artificial. these are the lies i have to get past.
the more comfortable i become with taking these leaps of faith, the more productive i will be. the more assured i feel that can make edits and revisions and more than just one draft, the more content i’ll be able to create. i just have to relearn this piece of the creative process.
Current Mood: confident Current Music: st. vincent
