Pizza 1.0 (or, my first step towards becoming an eccentric)
A friend of mine, upon learning that I live by myself, made the claim that I either had to: a) lose some part of my sanity, b) develop a coping mechanism, or c) find some strange hobby, in exchange for my solitary living situation. He was of the mind that only eccentrics live by themselves, and that by choosing to live by myself, somewhere along the way I have unwittingly sacrificed a part of my facade of 'normal behaviour'.
Of course I denied everything, distancing myself from his crazy theory, particularly option A, as hastily as I could. That of course left me with options B and C which, if you stretch it, aren't really that far removed from option A.
Thinking about it though and looking back on the things that have happened since moving out (the first time), it turns out that the guy wasn't completely wrong.
Coping mechanisms developed:
- talking to myself
- singing out loud
- blogging more often
- watching Home and Away
- joining, using, Twitter
Hobbies developed:
- baking
- giving-up on baking
- bringing baking back into my life, but in a very reduced capacity
- renewing my guitar playing
- making meals, and having some pride when doing so
So with that last bullet point, I didn't actually develop cooking skills after moving out, but before that moment cooking always felt like a chore. Now though, it feels more like something I need to perfect; a skill I need to improve and which I really enjoy doing so. The dinner I made for myself tonight is one such example.
Motivated by the idea that I could never get everything I always wanted out of a pizza, or that if I could I'd have to fork-out extravagant amounts of money for it (OK, so pizzas aren't expensive, but the combination of all of the things I liked would have made a pizza more than I would be willing to pay for it), I decided to combine all of my favourite parts about the pizzas I have ever eaten, into 1 epic pizza:
- home-made base
- herbs in the dough
- thin base
- cheese-stuffed crust
- toppings all the way to the edge (or in this case, right up to the cheese-stuffed crust part)
Throughout the pizza-creation process, I read-aloud the pizza base instructions that I've pretty much already memorized, and sang-along to whatever music was playing through my TV/Xbox. And after putting the pizza into the oven, I was so excited about it that I told the world via Twitter.
(Unfortunately, in my haste to try-out my new creation, I forgot to take photos of it after it was cooked. Whoops.)
The verdict? I need to work on the cheese-stuffed crust part of it - I either didn't use enough cheese or the right kind of cheese because what I had inside the crusts melted and thinned-out, leaving a not-very-cheesy hollow crust - but everything else was exactly how I liked it.
A quick internet search has given me some ideas to try for Pizza 2.0 (use mozarella cheese, or cheese strings), but today has really illustrated just how right my friend was about what has happened to me since living on my own... and here I am blogging about it.
*sigh*