I had this week’s recipient in the books for weeks.  Literally. I made a date with a good friend, mentor, former professor and neighbor of mine that I hadn’t seen in years.  I was so excited to get to see her, to exchange the latest chapters in our stories, and to just enjoy her company again. I also wanted to deliver her some bread of course.

The thing is, everything went wrong.  At first, I had planned to give her just a simple boule of multi-grain bread.  But it just seemed to not want to cooperate from the get-go. Then, when I went to bake it, it completely stuck to my hands, it went into the pot wonky and my beautiful floured rings were all lopsided.  I couldn’t even get the cuts on the top right. When the loaf came out, it smelled amazing, and honestly, it looked pretty good too, but I could still see some of its flaws. It leaned slightly to one side and the cuts didn’t open the way I wanted them to.  I definitely did not look on this loaf of bread with a mother’s love.

Listen, I would love to tell you that I resemble a Disney princess in the kitchen,  that birds (totally safe, clean and sanitized birds) pull my utensils out of my drawers, tie my apron strings on, and bring me my ingredients all the while I sing to them in perfect harmony.  No spills happen, and all is beautiful and lovely. But I think that would be a terrible disservice.

First, and my kids can tell you this, there is no such thing as clean feathers.  When they were little they would continually try to show me cool feathers they found and I would slap it out of their hands and scream about germs.  And I am not a germ-a-phobe about pretty much anything else. Later it became a fun game to torture mom.

But secondly, and this is much more important, sometimes I less resemble a Disney princess than a salty sailor.  Sometimes my apron is crooked, flour spills, dough tumbles into a scorching hot pot a little wonky, and even sometimes the things that come out of my mouth are less harmonizing and more, well, salty.  That is the real unvarnished story. I am a work in progress.

So with my lopsided-not-even-a-mother-could-totally-love-it bread staring at me, I decided I needed to switch gears.  I knew I wanted to do a give away of a flatbread, so I would simply switch to that. I still had plenty of time to change over, as I still had a full day to work with.  I settled on a beautiful Roman style, Pizza Bianca. It translates to white pizza, but I saw a description that said naked pizza was more apt, and I totally agree. It is essentially a simple pizza dough that is topped with the barest whisper of rosemary, a little bit more olive oil, and some good finishing salt liberally sprinkled over the top.  It is elegant in its simplicity. I knew this was the right choice, so I got to work making the dough

And here is where things get a little off track again.  I am usually a sucker for trying and retrying recipes BEFORE I give them away.  I like to think that these loaves are not just the single investment in time and caring for my recipient, but they are receiving something that I cared enough about to put some thought and planning into.  But as I looked at several different recipes, I realized that the dough proportions were very similar to my every day pizza dough and so I decided I would just bake off a small amount to taste while making the giveaway at the same time.  And then I forgot. So I baked off the pizza, wrapped it up, and delivered it.

I had a wonderful time catching up with my friend.  We talked for hours, we nibbled on crackers and cheese, I got a tour of her beautiful new home, and we caught up.  I drove home feeling so happy and content that I had gotten to reconnect with her. Nothing could burst my connected with an old friend bubble.

Sadly, the story doesn’t end there.  As I got home that night, my son asked how the pizza looked when it was done.  I said it turned out great. His response? Oh good, I snagged a bit of the dough when it was rising, boy was it salty!  GASP. Say what kid? Why did you tell me this AFTER I gifted the pizza?!? It was as if he had slapped me in the face with a nasty feather.  I sat down and dashed off a thank you email to my friend for the lovely time and a note to please let me know if I tried to kill her with salt.  

The good news is that my gracious friend got back to me and let me know it was actually amazing, and not at all too salty.  And since I had delivered a whole pizza to just her tiny self, she would share some and let me know if anyone thought it was too salty.  I have amazing friends I tell you! And as it happens, no one did think it too salty. I dodged that bullet.

So why am I spilling all this behind the scenes mess?  Because again, I think it is a terrible disservice to anyone to think that all is perfect when I cook, or when someone else does their thing, whatever it is.  Creating, making, living, doing is messy. And sometimes we are messy too. But the bottom line was, it wasn’t about me, it wasn’t about my mess. I still got to care for my friend and deliver her bread, and I still had an amazing time with her.  That was the gem I was overlooking in all the wonky bread, over-salted noise. The connection and the caring.  And that, my friends, will always be a solid recipe.