Pizza Friday

This week, my first week back to school--sans kids--, might have been one of the worst starts to the academic year in my twelve years of teaching. Hurricane. Damages. Estimates. No hot water. Meetings, meetings, meetings. No time to plan. And then the piece de resistance, on the way to work yesterday my beloved car (which is only 2 years old) turned on the check oil light and then immediately after that, the ugly check engine light. She then proceeded to make clunky noises that no car, especially a new(ish) one should make. So, she was towed to the dealer who said they might not have a loaner car. Fortunately, they found one for me and I'm driving a blue version of my car until they figure out what Gidget needs to be happy.

Gidget's almost twin.

(Image here)

Gidget is a very expensive girl. Making her happy is always painful to me and my bank account. I hope everything is covered under warranty. I know that the rear brakes she needs are not, but if that is all that needs to come out of my pocket I'd be pleased. It is always a little scary when the service manager calls you before the car comes off of the tow truck to tell you things not related to the original issue need to be fixed. Bad sign indeed.

The weekend plan involves a wine festival with mom today, school tomorrow (to do all of the things I couldn't get done all week because of meetings and interruptions) and then hopefully Monday can be spent getting our house back in order. I'd really like to be able to squeeze some pool time in there somewhere, too! Then Tuesday, I go back to having a job. Sigh.

When I got home last night, I wanted something yummy and homemade. I wanted my super-fantastic pizza. Since the oven is still out (I'm waiting on an electrician to tell me why the flood took away half of my kitchen electricity), I didn't think I'd be able to make pizza. I decided, though, that it was time to grill pizza. See, I've always said that in a perfect life I'll have an outdoor kitchen area that has a wood fire pizza oven, but I've never actually cooked pizza over an open flame. If I can perfect the grilled pizza, perhaps someday I will have a legitimate argument for one of these:

(Images here, here, and here.)

Since I don't have any of those outdoor kitchens, I made a quick crust, fired up the grill, let it get up to about 475 degrees and then put my very geometrically avant-garde pizza on the pizza stone and on the grill. I was so looking forward to this meal that I forgot to take pictures at the beginning. You'll have to use your imagination.

When the crust was ready, I smeared pesto and an artichoke pesto all over, covered with artichoke hearts and kalamata olives, and covered with six Italian cheeses. (Mozzarella, Provolone, Parmesan, Fontina, Romano and Aged Asiago.)

That delicious burst of flavors looked like this before going back on the grill:

While I don't think any local pizza parlors are going to hire me for my dough skills, the recipe is pretty yummy. Twelve minutes later, I got this.

Paired with a nice glass of Francis Coppola Diamond Collection 2008 Zinfandel, it was a lovely end to a not so lovely week.

Excitingly, there is enough left that I can have cold pizza for breakfast today to start a week that needs to be better than the last.

Wine festival news to come later. Fun!

Do you ever feel like no matter how organized your plan, something(s) always seem to go wrong? How do you cope?