Real Food Has Curves

Although I'm blogging about a great pie, I'm actually still having that real food discussion, the one that got started on this blog the other day (at this spot and this one).

I've been thinking about it a lot. Pondering what's real and what's not. And trying to come to terms with why I see the high-falutin' pretension of so much of the current foodie world--let them eat grass-fed cake--so darn overbearing, so silly.

Yes, Bruce and I are real-food mavens. Yes, we do such crazy things as buying our beef from a local farm (see it here), our pork from our local CSA (see it here), and our eggs from several little roadside stands near us. Bruce spends most of the summer canning. Witness how many jams and pickles have appeared on this blog.

But then there's the silly stuff, the macho stuff: making your own sauerkraut, killing a wild hog, and showing the world your chest hair. Or the Earth Mother stuff: wearing your Birkenstocks, nurturing your own vinegar, and cultivating your whole-grain pantry. Neither is a real answer to the food dilemmas strafing the developed world.

Here's one of my answers: a real-food pizza that's not a make-it-yourself. Everything here is from the store. Everything here COULD be made at home--if someone had the time. But in the end, everything here is good and real, nothing fake, no chemical chicanery, no excess fat or sugar to mask half-hearted flavors. Just delicious.

First off, Bruce bought a whole wheat pizza dough from our local gorcery store, our local Stop&Shop. It's not a high-end market, per se. No gourmet emporium, that's for sure. But a good, standard, local supermarket, our go-to place.

He didn't buy a pre-baked crust. Instead, he went to the refrigerator case near the cheeses and picked up a whole wheat pizza dough.

He heated the pizza stone for about 30 minutes on the grill grate, not directly over high heat, but to the side of the gas ranks that were turned on. If you like, you could also eat the stone on the oven rack at 400F.

Next, he assembled his ingredients. He'd bought oven-roasted tomatoes (sun-dried would work as well), marinated artichoke hearts, roasted red peppers, and olives from the store's salad bar. He'd also bought a bunch of basil. He whirred it into a simple pesto by using the juices and oils in the container from those ingredients. That's it: basil plus the liquid from the artichokes and such.

He put cornmeal on the pizza peel, then pressed out the crust. (Rather rustic, I might add, if you note that first photo.) Basically, he set the dough on the peel, dimpled it with his finger tips into a flattened circle, then picked it up by its edge and stretched it a bit. He put it back on the peel (shake it to make sure the dough hasn't stuck--if so, peel it up and add more cornmeal).

Don't want to go to all this trouble? Then stretch the dough onto a baking sheet. (You don't even have to use a pizza stone if you use a baking sheet.)

He spread the pesto over the top, leaving a 1/2-inch border all the way around. He diced up the tomatoes and peppers, sliced the olives, and quartered the artichoke hearts. Then he sprinkled these across the pie.

Finally, he topped it with some red pepper flakes and then a light coating of finely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano. Oh, and one more thing--he always shakes the peel, even during the topping process, to make sure the dough isn't sticking.

He slipped the pie onto the hot stone and then grilled it until the crust was browned, the cheese had melted, and the toppings were hot, a little more than 15 minutes, maybe 17 or 18.

Done and finished. And delicious. And (dare I say?) real food.

Although there was one more ingredient, drizzled onto the pie when it came off the grill. Definitely real food, too. But more on that here.