Something new a delicious which makes my life new and delicious

A few days ago my cousin posted a recipe for pizza dough on her FB.  I love to make pizza dough and I will brag, I can make damn good pizza dough.

I use flour, yeast, salt, olive oil.  I allow it rise once then punch it down and roll it into a round or square sheet upon which I place my own Pizza Sauce, green peppers, red onion, chopped tomatoes, a mix of pepperoni/salami slices, topped with parmesan cheese and mozzarella cheese.

THE NEW GIFT
YOU use self-raising flour.  (If you don't have self-raising flour just add some baking powder to your flour).

PLAIN GREEK YOGURT.   Mix the two together until you have nice dough consistency.

I use Greek Yogurt because I like the flavor and I use it in salad dressings, a side when Carrot Cake is served because it cuts the sweetness.  It works well with mixed grain cereals.

Put the yogurt in  a mixing bowl.  I was being leeeeery about the recipe so I put about a cup full of the yogurt in the bowl.  Started adding the flour and stirring with a fork.  It was rather wet so I added more flour and began using my hands to blend it.  It was bit dry so added a dessert spoon  of yogurt.  A dessert spoon is a bit bigger than a table spoon.  Kept working the dough.  Finally it "FELT RIGHT"

I kept kneading it because of the "feeling in my hands".  The yogurt is COLD.  If you make homemade dough it feels warm to the touch because of the yeast rising in a cup of warm water the dough mixture is room temperature.  Thus, this dough has a different feeling... chilly!

I rolled the dough into a round placed it on a pizza pan with baking paper.  Indented the dough (marks of real facoccia bread.)  Use your finger nail to make the dents.

Then brushed it with virgin olive oil. sea salt crystals, Italian Herbs, fresh rosemary from my garden.
Put in the oven at 180o. F.  (I have a fan oven here so things roast and bake faster.)  12 min. later I cracked the oven door.  PERFECTO!

Let it rest for about 5 min. then sprinkled  crumbled shaved parmesan cheese on the top.

It is all gone!  DELICIOUS!  Next I will use it to make a pizza.  It could pass for simply "flat bread without the yeast.)  I have friends that would probably sprinkle brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and crushed almonds on the top of it.  It still would be great.

Like everything else in life I CAN become set in my ways of cooking, baking, playing piano, writing...  then something from out of no where hits me with a gentle slap on my head that says:  "try it!  you might like it!"

Thank God for younger people than me!  I am a child of the 60's and 70's.  I can become so set in my listening to certain music, books, politics, philosophy, as well as judgments of so many things.

Young people re-connect me!  They remind me I was once THEM.
I have a a friend in Slovenia who is a "rodeeee for bands"  he sets up their equipment and so many other things.  (I wrote a blog about this very thing a few years ago as I watched the stage and lighting and sound equipment being set up by many young men and women for the QT New Years Celebration!)

Uri is maybe 23-25?  he  e mails me all kinds of new music!  Most of it is beautiful and OKAY!  My dear Whitney always shared NEW MUSIC with me... (I love Country and she damn well knows her country music!)  the list is endless.  Otherwise I may drowned in all the stuff of the 60's and 70's.

(NO I HAVE A DEEP UNDERSTANDING OF CLASSICAL MUSIC... it never changes.  It only becomes more meaningful as one ages and listens to it as well as with age you discover new and glorious things in a classical composition you missed the first time around!)  Every artist performs the classics in their own way!

Because of the internet I am able to experience so many THINGS!  New music, old music, knowledge about certain drugs, including prescriptions!  Recipes, how to do most and all things!  MAGIC!  (Can't wait till I get the "implant in the inside of my arm!)  It will monitor my BP, how many steps I take a day... my Blood Sugar, the list is quite endless!)  We are ETERNITY!

The new recipe for dough is gorgeous!

If you dare give it a try!

My time in Dunedin...

I am 1/4 Scottish.  The city of Dunedin is SCOTTISH more than any place except Scotland.  This city as well as NZ has more Bag Pipe Bands than any place on earth!  YEP!  I am NOT a lover of the sound of bag pipes.  They do have a haunting sound.  Almost a droning wailing cry to my ears.

At my father's grave side service we had a "Scottish Bag Pipe Player" play Amazing Grace and then he turned away from the grave site and began playing Auld Lang Sien.... as he walked away.  The effect was amazing!  My father's name was Elwood (very British)  his mother was a Manning, one cannot get more British than that!  His middle name Stuart (very Scottish after the Stuart Clan)  Johnston is a Scottish name...  his grandfather and grandmother were born in Scotland.

In NZ one of the biggest bus lines is:  JOHNSTON.  I was in CHCH years ago and saw a bill board advertising an up and coming show starring DAVID A. JOHNSTON!  That was my grandfather's name!

This past weekend we made a road trip to Dunedin to visit our Land Lady and take in some good restaurants, movies, shopping plus the RUGBY and the BAG PIPER'S COMPETITION was going on.  I love this city.  Old paint on doors that open into all kinds of places, ancient wavy glass in windows, hard wood floors, the University.  I spent nearly two hours in the City Art Gallery.  Then walked to the ARTIST'S Gallery where Jon Thom works and creates unbelievable art!  Well, it was closed!   He created the portrait of me that hangs in my restaurant!  (since those days he has evolved into one NZ's finest artist's.

The old used and rare book store in the Octagon that I LOVED IS GONE!  I did find where another sacred place is thriving.  I was looking for a book about a great restauranteur I met years ago in NZ.
FLEUR SULLIVAN.  (if someone has time to burn do a google search on her as well as Jon Thom.)

Could not find the book.  Next day I was walking in a Bird Refuge full of Tui and Bell Birds...  in the gift shop THERE WAS THE BOOK!

Our Land Lady is a great woman!  She owns a very special piano.  It is Vintage Piano and has Ivory keys.  Some of the keys look like teeth that have been chipped. I love this piano.  I think of Beethoven, Debussy, Schubert, Brahms... they played pianos exactly like this!  I developed a mad love affair with this piano.  I play it every time we visit Karen however, this time!  the piano reached out to me.  It shared it's secret "VOICE" with my inner voice...  It wept when I played the Chopin Preludes!  It laughed when I played Rags, it sighed and dreamed when I played Clair de lune.  It sang Bach's Preludes with intensity and love...  the years this piano has been starving for touch and harmony.  I took photos of it!  I swear the piano POSED for me!  It was so pleased to be loved and used it's voice once again!

If MUSIC IS THE FOOD OF LOVE... well... I do love food.  Ate at some of my favorite places and then Karen took us to a new place!  I love Sirloin Steak.  It lost favor in many American restaurants a few years ago.  It has a great flavor and dense texture.  I alway grill it with the side of fat on the meat.
This Sirloin was DIVINE!!!  If I could have found the chef that cooked the meal I would have kissed him or her!

In another life I know I lived in Dunedin or I will in the next life.  I will have my Gypsy Moon place full of art, music, exotic teas, used books, herbs, a little bit of that and a little bit of that!  The city is a replica of San Fransisco when I a little boy.  Houses on steep hills, a bay going out into the mighty ocean, cool temperatures all year... humidity.  (when I play "I Left My Heart In San Fransisco"  I live every lyric to the song as well as the melody.

The most beautiful thing about Dunedin is:  when I wander through the streets I sense the energy pulsating of so many people I love that have long crossed into the eternal energy of the universe.
I am now a old man that will soon join all those spirits and radiate joy and excitement to so many I leave behind!

Complexity... so many feelings, insights...

I just finished reading a book composed by one of my favorite writers.  He uses "words" like notes of music and creates, melody, harmony, heart beats, visions and most of all TRUTH!

His book:  "MY READING LIFE" Is a precious tomb for anyone who loves the written word and loves reading.  I could write line after line about this man's writing.  His books The Prince of Tides and Beach Music, are must re-reads for me every so many years.  I thank my lucky stars for the gift this man has given my life!

Every human being has their favorite authors of stories, composers of music, artists of great paintings and poets that break or mend the heart.

The last month has been a wonderful yet strange time in my life!  I have drifted from making music into painting only to turn around a enjoy taking photos or writing poetry?  I walk for hours and it seems as IF I am the 'observer' seeing and sensing things I have never felt so deeply inside my mind, heart and spirit.  Some things are too deep to put into words.

I will post a photo of the tribute to Falcon Scott.  The words are set on a huge rock in the QT Gardens.  To think a small group of men could sail through ICE, STORMS and yes!  find Antarctica.
They all perished on their return.

Years ago I studied the "FRANKLIN EXPEDITION".   Every class room should do a study on this event.  1846... (think about all the things that were happening in America!)  Some of the graves that were set in ICE have preserved the soft tissue of young sailors.  Canada found one of the ships a few years ago!  This event sets my mind spinning... could Falcon Scott and his crew be buried in the ice of Antarctica?  and be mummified?

I began playing Brahms again.   He is the most complex composer.  His hidden messages within his compositions haunt me.  If I could lay down at this moment and listen to my heart beating and then hear it quietly stop I would want to hear his 1st Symphony?  his intermezzos. His complex and touching CONCERTO for Piano???

He was a beautiful young man...  he played piano in brothels as a young boy and suffered all kinds of degrading moments sexually and mentally.  He rose to great fame and mystery within the Musical Capital of the world in his day.   I finally gave myself a break from Brahms and reached out to Beethoven.  (HE IS A GOD!)  I learned the "Tempest" Sonata in D minor when I was at university.
I never played it well.  (yes with speed and passion as all veil young people do!)  Beethoven was as complex as Brahms but he used his own "foot print"  "finger print"....  (we all do.  We are each one of a kind!)

Again, this month I delved into new recipes.  I LOVE FRENCH FOOD...  I adore CROQUE-MONSIEUR sandwiches.  I went on line... blah blah more blah... I finally put my own touch on this wonderful meal.

I will tell you it uses butter, flour, milk, nutmeg, slices of Sandwich sliced bread and remove the crusts.  Ham, Gruyere Cheese, parmesan cheese and DISHON MUSTARD.  Finally, I have it perfected "my way".  Yes, let's play Frank Sinatra's MY WAY!

Now comes the BIG MOMENT!  My body...  I am listening to it.  My heart is not as kind to me as it used to be?  (I've broken the priceless thing in half so many times!)  It loves me and keep beating to that rhythm only the universe understands.  BUT  I am slower on the treadmill, I stretch and ache a hell of a lot...  the list is endless.  I over worked this space suit for far too many years in gyms!  It is paying me back.  A knee replacement in about 2007?  Then Cancer? a year later... joints that need to be scraped clean of calcium build up?  Face that has gone to horror house for ever!  Hands that have weird things going on inside the bones?  I should have been a better boy and NOT BE SO DETERMINED TO BECOME  the body of a AMAZON?

As I said:  it has been a most interesting month!  AND THAT IS WHAT THE WHOLE THING IS ABOUT!  ADVENTURE!