Tuesday, April 15, 2014

The Internet Made Me Do It

When Melody posted about making pissaladière–a south of France dish made with caramelized onions, anchovies and ripe olives on a thin, pizza like crust–I started getting nostalgic about the time I spent living in France and eating things like pissaladière and pizzas baked in wood-fired ovens.

Then I read Lori's post, with a review of the book, Almost French: Love and a New Life in Paris by Sara Turnbull, and how the author married a Frenchman lived in France for 8 years, adopted many French customs, but never became French.  More nostalgia ensured and I thought about how my own life in France was a long time ago and only lasted three years, but has had a lasting effect on me.

Over the weekend, Kate shared something new for dinner, a spinach, egg and pecorino pizza ... which got me thinking about my favorite pizza when I lived in France. It had a thin crust and was topped with a tomato sauce, lardons (a style of bacon), eggplant and an egg.  For lunch today, my pizza had these, along with some mushrooms.

Pizza

My pizza crust wasn't as thin, but had a nice crisp bottom (thanks to the cast iron pizza pan) and my pizza was piled high with the veggies in a very UN-French way, and I don't actually remember whether there was cheese on top way back when and next time I'll try it without,  but all the flavors from my memory was there and it was a nice culinary trip down memory lane.

The only thing missing was the pili-pili–an oil infused with chile peppers and herbs.  In Provence, where there's pizza, there's pili-pili in a bottle, sitting on the tables, to be drizzled on top of the pizza.  I had completely forgot about it until my pizza was sliced and on a plate and I realized it was missing. I'm going to try making some–this recipe from the New York Times looks like the stuff I remember–for the next time the Internet makes me nostalgic for my favorite French pizza.

5 comments:

Glen QuiltSwissy said...

Oh, it looks wonderful. I wish I could have joined you for lunch!

Paulette said...

That looks amazing. I so very much miss a good pizza crust. Nothing in the gluten-free realm comes close.

Elaine M said...

I so want to make this. Love eggplant. How did you prep the eggplant for the top? I love eggplant.Oh, I said that before.LOL.

Kate North said...

Yum. Looks even nicer than it sounded when you described it...

Anonymous said...

That was all French to me. =) Paul was the cook, so cooking doesn't excite me a whole lot - thought I dearly love eating!

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