The first time I had this was probably 50 years ago. Oh my goodness, do I feel old writing that! The recipe, if you can call it that since it’s nothing more than a couple of ingredients, is from my friend Linda’s mother, Van (Linda is a childhood friend that I still see once in awhile, and she still lives just a few doors from the house I grew up in, in San Diego). Anyway, Linda’s parents are both deceased now. But her dad loved to fish, and he caught hundreds and hundreds of pounds of tuna each year. The family would have a tuna-canning-fest. I can still remember being given a couple of the short, fat Mason jars packed full of tuna, garlic and onion, as I recall. I don’t believe it was smoked tuna, but just “canned” tuna. Van had a big canning kettle and I vaguely remember the family all complaining about the big job it was, to can dozens and dozens of jars of tuna.

Tuna isn’t something we eat with as much regularity anymore, what with the amount of mercury in it. On Wikipedia I found this statement about tuna: Due to their high position in the food chain and the subsequent accumulation of heavy metals from their diet, mercury levels can be high in larger species such as bluefin and albacore. Also, according to Wikipedia, a can of StarKist brand tuna contains about 10 TIMES the amount of mercury as other similarly labeled grocery-shelf tuna.

I’ve told you, my readers, about the albacore tuna that I do buy online, though. It’s by Carvalho Fisheries. They catch young tuna, and as such, younger tuna haven’t consumed enough metals in the sea to have as much measurable mercury in their flesh. I’ve been buying Carvalho’s tuna for about 8-9 years now. Each time, I buy a 12-pack of regular low mercury albacore in its own juices. Last time I ordered I also got some salmon and some smoked albacore. That’s when I started using the smoked version in this simple-easy appetizer.

First, though, you cut up half of a red onion, cut that half in half, peel it and remove the ends, then  thinly slice the onion. As thin as possible. Into a bowl those little slivers go. I add water to cover, then add a jolt (probably about 2 T. ) of vinegar or red wine vinegar and let that sit for 30-60 minutes. What that does is remove the harshness of raw onion – soaked onions make that raw onion taste mild and sweet. If you’d like it actually “sweet,” just add a little dash of sugar to the brine and you’ll have sweet onions. Phillis Carey shared that tip with one of the many cooking classes I’ve been to, and it’s a great little trick.

There you can see one of the crackers (I prefer crackers to bread, but it’s completely up to you) with a little bit of the big flakes or shards of tuna with the onions on top. Makes two delicious bites per Vinta cracker. Nothing else is needed – no sauce – no mayo – no nothin’. It’s just good the way it is.

When I make this I start an hour ahead, soak the red onions and leave them out on the kitchen counter. Then I open the can of tuna, put it on some kind of tray or plate, the onions in a small bowl and surround it with crackers. How simple is that?

There’s a photo from Carvalho’s website of the Coastal Albacore. It’s a traditional tuna-sized can. I still have several in my pantry at the moment, just waiting for my next tuna recipe. My favorite is the Sicilian Tuna Salad. Pasta, herbs, a delicious lemony dressing, and the tuna.

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My friend Cherrie and I had been on a short hiatus from going to cooking classes. They took a trip and so did we, and for a variety of reasons including date conflicts, we just couldn’t fit in any fun cooking class get-togethers. But we’re back on track again, going to our favorite cooking school, Great News, in Pacific Beach (San Diego). Most often she and I seek out classes taught by Phillis Carey. She’s just tops on our list of great cooking instructors.

This class was all about main dish (summer) salads, and you’ll see all four of the salads up here on my blog eventually. I’m not going to post four in a row. That would be a bit too much, I think. This salad, though, was my favorite of the four that Phillis prepared. I do love ahi tuna, for one. And the cannellini beans too. So good. And the dressing. Well, everything about it was good.

First Phillis soaked the red onion in acidulated water to take out that harsh onion-y taste. That little tip works like a charm. The tuna is seared quickly – you know – you want the tuna to be still red in the middle like you see in the photo at top. If you cook ahi all the way through it’s much too dry and hard to swallow. Just buy it from a reputable fish market. There’s an olive oil and lemon juice dressing. There are herbs (thyme and parsley), there’s garlic, tomatoes and red bell pepper. And there is arugula on the bottom. You could also make this with shrimp, Phillis suggested. I loved it with the ahi, I’ll tell you. If you used shrimp, make more dressing and marinate the shrimp briefly in that extra dressing before grilling it. And be sure to give the top of the salad a good grinding of freshly ground black pepper. It needs it.

What I liked: everything about it. Refreshing for summer. Healthy (well, except for the mercury in the tuna – just don’t eat this often). Lively flavors.
What I didn’t like: nothing at all. Loved it all.

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What you see here is NOT the way a Pavlova is supposed to look. There’s not supposed to be but a hint of brown on the meringue – it should be a swirled cloud of white foam, baked to perfection in the oven and left to sit for hours or overnight, then just when you’re serving it, you add the bed of whipped sweetened cream and fresh fruit.

It was many long years ago that our friends Jean and Jack made a Pavlova for one of our annual book group meetings. I thought I’d died and gone to heaven it was so good. Feathery light, with the whipped cream swirled around the inner-indented center, and it was piled high with cut strawberries, kiwis and blueberries. So colorful. And SO good. I’ve made it several times since then. I should have gone to my file and found their recipe for it. I was just lazy.

In this instance, I was reading someone else’s blog (I won’t embarrass her by saying which one) and reading her recipe for a Pavlova just got me hankering to make one. It would be a great use of some of the peaches I have on hand. I glanced at this particular recipe, didn’t think much about it, followed it and after 20 minutes in the oven I knew there was a problem. The meringue was already brown. I turned the oven off at that point and left the shell to sit overnight. I emailed the other blogger and asked – oh, she apologized –  she’d made a mistake – as written, her recipe said heat oven at 400° instead of 200°. Big difference, and I should have known better. It’s just that it’s been years since I made a Pavlova and my mind went blank, I suppose.

When I removed the shell from the parchment paper it immediately cracked (it was over-baked, of course). But I pieced it back together and made do. You can see one of the cracks in the front center of this photo. I made the shell with Splenda instead of sugar, that way my DH could have a couple of nice wedges of it. He thoroughly enjoyed it. So, this recipe below is the adjusted one – corrected for temperature. The calorie count assumes you use sugar. If you use Splenda the calories go down by half. I can’t say that I could taste the difference using Splenda – the fruit and whipped cream are really the stars of the show; it’s just that it’s done in a different format.

What I liked: well, I like Pavlova anyway – just the sheer simplicity of it, even though you have to plan ahead one day. Love the whipped cream and fruit too. I think it’s the texture contrast that I like the best – the crispy meringue shell with the luscious whipped cream and then fresh fruit. It’s the same flavors and ingredients as my super-simple Meringue Mixed Berry Parfaits  (also called  Eton Mess) where I use Trader Joe’s ready-made meringue cookies, whipped cream and the berries (or other fruit) and vanilla ice cream. The Pavlova makes a very spectacular presentation – be sure to show guests how pretty it looks!

What I didn’t like: I guess the plan-ahead aspect – you do have to make the meringue many hours ahead, or the day before. The meringue shell is super-fragile too, but that can’t be helped.

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It was, most definitely, a cold salad kind of evening. In fact, it was still in the mid-80’s at 8 pm the other night after I fixed this. It was too hot to eat outside. But the recipe didn’t need me to heat the oven, although my DH did have to grill the peaches. That was the extent of the cooking. Right after dinner sat in the cool Jacuzzi for awhile, which was very refreshing.

My inbox on this particular day contained an email from one of the magazines I subscribe to – and it listed “25 peach recipes you can use today,” or some such advertising come-on. But I clicked over to look, and up popped this salad, which came from Southern Living in 2008. I had the fresh mozzarella. I had peaches. I had arugula. I had fresh cilantro. I was in business.

What intrigued me – besides the grilled peaches – was the salad dressing. It’s composed of a whole peach, the cilantro, honey (I used agave), lime zest and juice (and I augmented it with lemon juice since I didn’t have enough lime juice), ground cumin, chili powder, olive oil AND tequila. Tequila, I thought? Odd, but interesting.

There you can see the salad a little more clearly with the chicken around the edges. This salad did not include chicken in it, but I decided this should be a dinner entrée, so I used some of the leftover chicken from the perfect Roast Chicken I did a couple of nights ago. I whipped up the dressing in the food processor. Just know that you have to use the dressing in a couple of days. Cilantro, once it comes in constant contact with liquid, becomes a liquid. And not all that nice. I have a lot left over that I’m going to need to use asap. So you might try cutting down on the dressing quantity because I think it will dress a salad for more than 4 people. Next time I’ll make the dressing without the cilantro and just mince it up and add it as needed. That way I wouldn’t have a time limit on using it up.

What I liked: the freshness of it – the peaches were just perfect specimens – they looked beautiful on the plate – the dressing gave a distinct flavor to everything, including the fresh Mozzarella. A delightful summer salad for sure.

What I didn’t like: nothing, really. Just remember my suggestion about the dressing – use it up, or make a bit less of it as it doesn’t keep.

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Really, I thought I’d posted this recipe before. I searched all over my own website because I was certain I had. Nope. So, I’m rectifying that right now. I’ve made these several times (usually around Christmastime), maybe not in the last couple of years, though. They’re worth making. Not all that hard, either, although you might think so by looking at them.

First you make a rich pastry crust that is a cinch to press into the bottom of a 9×9 pan. Not the least bit difficult or time consuming. That shortbread layer is baked for 10 minutes and cooled. Then you spread a thin layer of apricot jam (I used blackberry preserves, actually, though really you want some kind of seedless variety or a stone fruit jam). Then you mix up a flourless chocolate mixture with a whole lot of walnuts in it, and spread that on top of the preserves. That gets baked for a short while and is allowed to cool. The chocolate icing is also cinchy-easy to make – some chocolate chips are melted, then you add a jot of corn syrup (for smoothing it out), a tiny jot of rum (or espresso), a tiny sprinkle of hot water and that’s done. Spread it on top of the cooled bars. Then press in 1/2 cup of chopped walnuts and kind of press them into the icing (otherwise they tend to fall off). That’s it. They don’t need refrigeration. If you have them more than a day or two I’d recommend you put them in an airtight container and freeze them. They keep in the freezer for a couple of months.

The recipe came from Maida Heatter’s book, The Book of Great Cookies. It’s out of print, unfortunately, but after looking online, I see that she’s got a new cookie book out – just out, actually, in March, 2011. (Do read the Amazon reviews – it appears there are some editing errors – recipes printed in wrong categories according to two commenters.) All the recipes come from her previous cookbooks. One reader suggested trying to find Heatter’s older books in used book stores instead – I’d recommend that too.  Maida Heatter is just the queen of cookies and desserts, more often chocolate. She’s authored several cookbooks. I’ve never had a failure with Maida Heatter’s recipes. Ever. That says something, although cookies are a little hard to bungle. I only own one of her cookbooks, a chocolate dessert one from 1983. And this recipe isn’t in it – I found it online at a couple of sources.

What I liked: the ease of making them; how pretty they look; and how deliciously chocolatey they are.

What I didn’t like: nothing at all. Just be a bit careful removing them from the pan – the pastry is very tender and will crumble easily – use a big spatula to get them out.

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The other day I got an email from one of the nice people at Freida’s Produce. They’ve contacted me a few times over the last couple of years, offering to send me some new or interesting produce to try, and hoping I’ll mention it here on my blog. I’ve always said yes, because I do like their products. Generally they offer me some unusual things, which I enjoy trying. This time it was potatoes. Really? Yup. I knew they were small potatoes, but that was about it.

They sent me two packages (1 1/2 pounds each) with the above being one of them. Called the “Terrific Trio,” because (pictured below) it had white, red skinned and purple potatoes in it. They come from a small producer in Canada, actually. A company called The Little Potato Company. Run by a WOMAN! Good for her!

What I liked about the first package I tried was the potatoes were already washed and ready to cook. All I had to do was clip open the bag and I was ready to go. This particular package I liked because of the variety of potatoes all in that one package contained – the yellow, white and the purple. There’s something fun about eating a purple potato, don’t you think? And I liked the small package size – just enough for a meal for 4. There are other packages from the same company – single potato types, not the mixture. They’re available at Ralphs during this potato season.

Down to brass tacks . . . did they taste different? No. But they’re uniformly small, and I liked the fact that I didn’t have to wash or scrub them. I ended up cutting them in half to make the below roasted potato mixture, because I like those cut edges with the crispy browning on them. I will seek these out – mostly because of the 3-potato variety all in one bag AND the fact that it’s a small package. I won’t have to buy 3 or 5 pounds of potatoes. According to their website, they also offer a product called Zingers – a small, microwaveable package with a seasoning packet inside – pop the package in the oven with the seasoning and you have potatoes in a matter of minutes.

So what did I make with them? Roasted potatoes, but with a little twist to them. What could be different about roasting potatoes, you ask? Well, just a little technique of roughening-up the potatoes a bit so they crisp up more in the oven. A great idea. One I’ll use again.

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Oh my, yes! Juicy. Tender. Perfectly cooked. Easy. Hooray for Cook’s Illustrated. They finally figured out how to do it and have given us the technique. I don’t know about you, but I never seem to be able to get a roast chicken to look or taste like the ones you can buy from the rotisserie at the grocery store, or Costco. Those always seem to be golden brown and juicy (unless they’ve been sitting there too long).

The recipe came from the most recent issue of the magazine (Sept/Oct 2011). Unless you are a subscriber to the online version (a different fee from being a hard-copy subscriber as I am) you can’t access this recipe online. So I’m going to have to give you a synopsis.

The short story is: heat a 12-inch frying pan in a 450° oven. Dry, oil, salt & pepper a whole chicken. Set chicken in the hot frying pan breast side UP with meat thermometer. When breast meat reaches 120° or thigh at 135°, turn oven OFF (yes, really). Leave in oven until breast meat registers 160° or thigh 175°. Remove from oven, tent lightly 20 minutes. Carve and serve.

Every time I read an article in Cook’s Illustrated I’m astounded at the creativity of the staff. They come up with innovative ideas to solve cooking problems that I certainly can’t. In this case it’s all about having the thigh meat get a jump-start in the cooking process, since it usually takes longer to reach 175° than it does to get the breast meat cooked to 160°. As we all know, if we wait until the thigh is done, usually, the breast meat is past its peak and dry. Why didn’t I think about putting the thigh meat in contact with a hot frying pan surface?

The preparation is SO simple. The baking is easy, as long as you have a good meat thermometer – one that will beep at you when something reaches temperature. You don’t want to go beyond the temps or you’ll end up with overcooked chicken. I had a really large chicken, so the approximate timing was a little longer in both parts of the baking process, but the results were fantastic. I’m so happy!

What I liked: how easy it was; hot delicious it was – tender, juicy. No question, this is going to be my new method of roasting a chicken. The leftover meat was tender as could be, both breast meat and thigh.

What I didn’t like: well, it wasn’t quite as golden brown as I’d hoped. But overall, it was fantastic, so I don’t want to complain that the skin wasn’t quite as brown as I’d have liked. We don’t eat the skin anyway.

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Will you just trust me on this one? Make it, please. Providing you like tomatoes. And cheese. And fresh corn. And pie crust. Oh, it’s so utterly delicious.

If you’ve been reading my blog for a long time, you may remember that I posted a similar pie two years ago. It was called a Savory Tomato & Gruyere Pie. And, in fact, this one is also savory, also full of tomatoes, and gruyere cheese. But after I made that pie in 2009 I also made another one – a Tomato & Corn Pie in a Biscuit Crust. I particularly liked the corn in the 2nd rendition. But I thought the first one had better taste. So this time I had both recipes handy and decided to make some changes. All for the better, I assure you! I think this recipe has all the best of both recipes in it. If you’d prefer to use the biscuit crust, by all means do so.

I made a short crust tart shell (you can either roll it out and place in the pie plate, or press it in if you’re piecrust-challenged) and put it into my 9-inch pie dish. I sautéed some onion, added the fresh corn cut off the cob, and a little bit of Sriracha sauce. After the pie shell baked for awhile, I spread the bottom of the crust with about 3 ounces of garlic-and-herb Boursin cheese. It’s a protective layer to keep the moist veggies from soaking into the tender, flaky piecrust. And I used Boursin because I didn’t have any cream cheese in the refrigerator. This worked just fine. The pie shell was still fairly warm, so the cheese really softened a lot. Then I poured in the onion-corn mixture and spread it around. Meanwhile, I’d cut up about 2 1/2 cups of fresh heirloom tomatoes. I cored the tomatoes, cut them in wedges, then squeezed the dickens out of them and put them on some paper towels. Then I squeezed them again to get almost all the juice out of them but still keep the pieces intact. Then I cut the tomatoes into pieces and placed them in the pie and sprinkled the top with a small handful of sliced basil. Then I mixed up the Gruyere cheese, mozzarella cheese and mayonnaise (sinful, I know) and dabbed little pieces all over the top of the tart. There isn’t enough to really spread; besides, the mixture is very sticky, so I used my hands and dropped little bits of it all over the top, then used a spatula to sort-of spread it more evenly. There will be a few holes here and there.

That’s it – bake for about 30 minutes – until the cheese is bubbling away. I let it sit for a few minutes (letting it rest for about 10 minutes would be best – it will cut better), slice and serve with a few more bits of fresh basil on top. I made a green salad with some soft butter lettuce and my latest Lemon Sherry Vinegar Salad Dressing. Perfection. My DH raved.  And raved. I cut us each one slice for dinner and it was all we could do to keep our forks out of the pie plate to have more. We were good. But I had it for lunch the next day, heated in the microwave for about 45 seconds. More perfection!

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If you’d like to try my short crust shell, this is the recipe I use most often (and that isn’t often because I rarely bake pies, but when I do, this is my go-to recipe). It’s one I got from a Joanne Weir cooking class eons ago (probably 10-15 years) and once I saw how easy this was (even for me who is sometimes piecrust-challenged) I’ve made it many, many times. Sometimes I roll it out, other times I use the press-in technique in the recipe.

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Every once in awhile we grill pineapple to serve with a dinner outdoors. To go with a pork roast, for instance, or pork chops, or grilled chicken. Or grilled fish. This time as I was flipping through recipes in my to-try pile (actually it’s in a 3-ring binder, 1 of 2 that I have, and recipes are slipped inside clear sleeves, maybe 3-4 to each side) this one sounded like it might be fun for a brunch. Indeed it was.

If you’re not familiar with Nutella, you should be. In writing this I went to Nutella’s website and found out a whole bunch of info about it. It was first developed in Piemonte (the NW region of Italy). It’s pronounced new-tell-uh. What’s available here in the U.S. of A. is manufactured in Canada. It’s gluten-free. And kosher. And peanut free. They’re meticulous about that. And they use non-hydrogenated palm oil to emulsify it. Each 13-ounce jar contains about 50+ hazelnuts, sugar, skim milk and a tiny bit of cocoa. It all got started in the 1940’s because Mr. Ferrero, a pastry maker, couldn’t afford to pay the high (war time) taxes on chocolate – and because hazelnuts grow in abundance in Piemonte, it was a natural for him to devise a new spread. In the 1960’s Ferrero’s son started marketing it to consumers. It’s quite similar to the guianduja (an Italian product that’s 50/50 hazelnuts and chocolate) which you often see as a gelato flavor (it’s my favorite gelato).  Its most popular use is spread on toast (sorry, I don’t care much for Nutella that way – it’s too sweet – but most consumers disagree with me there). One of Nutella’s benefits is that it should not be refrigerated, although you do want to use it up within soon time frame – there is a use-by date on each jar. If you want some other options for using up the Nutella, there’s a website devoted just to World Nutella Day (February 5th).

Originally this recipe came from Giada de Laurentiis way back in 2004. Then, I took liberties with the recipe, but it’s still generally Giada’s design. I think this would make a great dessert with a little scoop of vanilla ice cream in the middle. And if you want to make it Giada’s way (with mascarpone instead of the crème fraîche, and adding vanilla and some whipping cream) then click over to her version. Mine is just a bit simpler.

If you want to serve this as a dessert, you’ll likely use all of the Nutella mixture; but as a brunch side dish I didn’t overwhelm any of the pineapple slices with too much Nutella. So I ended up with leftover Nutella. Not a bad thing, but I don’t eat Nutella in other things. However, I will say when I was craving just a tiny sweet something after dinner the other night I stuck my spoon into the leftover Nutella mixture. Mmmmm, good.

What I liked: this was SO easy to make as long as you have a little tub of crème fraîche on hand and the Nutella, of course. It’s very pretty too.

What I didn’t like: not a thing, really, Just don’t use too much of the (sweet) Nutella mixture; you want to be able to taste the pineapple!

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I’ve been glued to the TV on Saturday mornings watching Ree Drummond on her Food Network 6-episode show, The Pioneer Woman. I’ve been a follower of Ree’s blog (also called The Pioneer Woman) for several years. She has such a verve for life, and has so many photo opps with her family on the hundreds of acres of land they farm. Talk about Kodak moments! She home schools her 4 children. She has numerous pets, including Charlie the Bassett Hound (who is also the subject of her children’s book recently published). Ree’s husband Ladd (he’s always referred to as Marlboro Man on her blog – now we know his name – and no, he doesn’t smoke – Ree is in love with his derriere and physique) and his family run a big cattle ranch in the hinterlands of NE Oklahoma. I recorded all the shows so far (3) and yesterday I even sat my DH in front of “my” TV with the Tivo attached, so he could watch the shows. He loved them. He really did. He was salivating over the chicken fried steak, cream gravy and mashed potatoes. And probably admiring the very pretty Ree!

Truly, I thought I’d laugh myself silly reading a blog piece she did a few days ago about the newest little kitten to join the menagerie. If you haven’t seen it, you just have to check out this post. It is SO funny. Ree is a very clever writer and has a delightful sense of humor.

So yesterday’s show was about a girl’s dinner she did for her geographically closest group of women friends and relatives. She did an easy goat cheese appetizer with fresh dill, and a fig and prosciutto pizza. With an arugula salad on top. Charlie got in on the act at the last moments too.

The pizza looked really good. It just so happened I had a package of prosciutto I’d bought a couple of days ago. It just so happened I had half a package of full-fat Mozzarella (not fresh, as Ree used). I didn’t have arugula, but I did have Romaine. I had a nice big flat of fresh figs too. Ree used fig jam. Nope, not me. Fig jam is not my thing. Just like Fig Newtons won’t ever cross my lips again. My dad used to adore them and he tried so hard to get me to like them too. Nope.

So I improvised. Here’s what I did: (1) I made a partly whole wheat pizza dough in my bread machine. That took 55 minutes and about 3-4 minutes to add the ingredients into the machine; (2) the fresh figs were roasted in a hot oven (see photo at right of raw figs top, roasted figs on the bottom). I cut them in half, oiled the cut surfaces, sprinkled them with dried thyme first; (3) when the dough was ready I used my rolling pin to help get the pizza into a big round shape. I used my pizza stone, though I didn’t preheat it; (4) pesto went onto the pizza first, then the roasted figs, then the slices of Mozzarella. It baked for about 20 minutes; (5) then I sprinkled little pieces of prosciutto all over the top of the hot pizza to let the heat warm up the cured meat; (6) meanwhile, I tossed a bit of Romaine lettuce with a little lime juice based vinaigrette and piled that all over the top of the hot pizza; (6) sliced it and served!

As it happened, yesterday was an odd weather day here in So Cal. First thing that happened was we had a huge thunderstorm. I mean huge. For us to have thunderstorms in September is just about unheard of. Here’s a photo of our jacuzzi during the middle of the downpour.

I don’t suppose that looks like much – but the uneven surface is because the pool is being plummeted with big, huge raindrops.

Within about 10 minutes of this picture we had a LOT more lightning and thunder and rain. So much so that our power went out. And no, this is not the power outage that hit Arizona, San Diego and southern Orange County two days before (that was operator error from some technician in Yuma, Arizona – this obviously was a lightning strike and a separate incident). We were without power for about 3 1/2 hours, but it was during daylight hours so it didn’t hamper our ability to do much except I couldn’t use a computer nor could we watch TV, obviously. I did some reading and some cleaning instead. Am finally moving most of my clothes back into my closet(s) from where they’ve been stored in our 3rd floor studio area, piled up on top of furniture there during our bathroom remodel.

Here’s another photo of the rainstorm. That’s a picture looking out our front door, up the steps and our driveway up to the road on the far right top. We share a steep driveway with our next door neighbors – that’s why there’s a wall there in the middle. And, I guess you really can’t tell, but it’s raining very hard in this picture!

The good news is that our drains all worked perfectly. Whew, is that ever a big relief!

All that was to tell you that because of the rainstorm, the weather yesterday was blessedly cool. I don’t think it even hit 75 all day. It was delightful. Today looks to be similar. We slept with blankets over us last night. Nice. So, I didn’t mind heating up the oven to 425° on a day like that. It barely warmed the kitchen air.

What I liked: the textures – the sweet from the figs – the crispy, light pizza crust – the crunchy of the salad on top. When I first had a salad on top of a pizza (at California Pizza Kitchen about 20 years ago) I thought it was such a GREAT idea. Still is.

What I didn’t like: I’m not crazy about thicker-crusted pizza – I like thin crust. I tried my best, but I still had some puffy edges. Dave ate them all, so I needn’t be concerned.

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