Alphabet Dinners: A is for...

Ashleigh and Abby with antipasto, Alaskan Amber, artichokes, montepulciano d'Abbruzo, amaretto, aranciata, angostura bitters, arugula, apples and anise

A night was Awesome. (O day was pretty good too.)

Steve and I weren't exactly sure what to expect -- this was our first alphabet dinner in a new town in a new house with new friends -- but the depth of research and level of enthusiasm were humbling. Even before the first bite, Dan and Abby had suggested extending the series to 52 meals (26 of foods beginning with the letter, and 26 of foods ending with the letter...hooray for unemployment).

First, "apizza" is what they call it in New Haven, CT, where even bad pizza is good.

Second, we have a sneaking suspiscion that Dan and Preston took bartending classes in college.

Finally, a few words on Steve and Ezra's Philosophy of Apizza:
Pizza is the ideal food. To make a real pizza, you need a brick oven. If you don't have a brick oven you need a pizza stone or two, and you need to push your little domestic cooker to its limit. (A source suggests that some tampering will allow you to cook pizza on your oven's autoclean setting. This sounds like an obvious fire hazard, but it's tempting...) Preheat the stones for as long as you can in order to "charge" them. Once you're sure the stones are hot, assemble the pies on a paddle covered in cornmeal -- the cornmeal acts like mini ball bearings, allowing you to slip, slide, jiggle and otherwise coerce the dough off the paddle and onto the stone. If artichoke juice soaks though the dough and counteracts the cornmeal so that everything is hopelessly stuck to the paddle, get angry (especially if it's A night.) Curse loudly. Throw things. Say the night is ruined. Try for a calzone. If the calzone also fails, go for an amorphous blob -- it's all going the same place anyway. If you set off the smoke alarm, remove the batteries. If it still continues to beep, ignore it. Serve the pizza on a lazy susan. Try to feed a slice to your cat. Enjoy!