I’m not sure I’ve eaten anything this weekend.

Well… I’m not sure I’ve eaten anything beyond chips, gummy bears, coffee, and gin.

I definitely didn’t eat this gorgeous breakfast pizza.

Really, it’s no one’s fault but my own.

There was arugula on this breakfast pizza.

Ps.  That totes makes this vegetables for breakfast.  Get into it!

You’ve seen the small picture.

Now… here’s the BIG picture.

Cooking with friends.  And cheese.  And cameras.

Can I tell you why I made a breakfast pizza and ate gummy bears and drank gin?

Tracy and I, along with a bunch of other people from Homefries threw a weekend retreat in Palm Springs.

It was major.  Thirty of us hung out, ate Tracy’s salad, had cookies and milk, painted our nails.

People took pictures of me taking pictures of pizza.

It was totally meta.

We talked about photography.  We cooked brunch together.  We made friendship bracelets.  We learned about wine.  We drank gin.  We learned things about each other.

Ps.  If you’re not hip on Homefries, get on this.  We’ll be throwing another retreat in the Spring.  Real.

This about sums up the weekend.

Yea.  Welcome to this.

Laughs and breakfast pizza.  All dang weekend.

This is the end.  This is the end of my day.  This is the end of the week.  This is the end of a pizza bagel before it meets my belly.

The end looks like a toasted bagel with fresh, seasoned tomatoes, salami, melted fresh mozzarella, and lemon pepper arugula.

The end.  The end tastes toasty, fresh, salty, and melty.  The end also has Project Runway reruns.  The end is pretty good lookin’.

This is the beginning.  The beginning of my day.  The beginning of my natural and unrelenting carb cravings.  The is the beginning of a bagel pizza.

Now…. just to clear the air:  Yes.  Yes… I come to you with bagel pizza pictures.  This has to be ok, because this is how I live.  If you don’t crave pizza bagels on a daily basis then… I don’t even know you anymore.  I just don’t.

I love bagels… but I sometimes take the soft inside bits out.  More room for good filling.  Fresh, unevenly sliced tomatoes.  Go!

Salt and pepper are totally necessary.  This already looks good.  It’s just tomato and bread.

Tomato and bread and meat and cheese.

It’s just like a best friend party!

These loaded bagels get placed on parchment paper and put under the broiler.  They’ll get toasted and melty.

What could go wrong?

Um… I’ll tell you what could go wrong!!!!!!!

If you put parchment paper under the broiler, it will catch on fire and you’ll burn your house down.

I’m not joking.  I know this to be true… because I totally almost burned my house down.

That’s an exaggeration, but I really need you to understand.  No parchment paper under the broiler.  Don’t be like me.

Ok… don’t burn your house down like me… but you should totally eat like me.

Make yummy choices that include things that melt.

Top those melty things with arugula that’s been sprinkled with fresh lemon juice, salt, and pepper.

My neighbor walked by my house extra extra slow as I was taking pictures of these little bagel darlings.  It looked like he might have even combed his hair and buttoned his shirt up past his belly button this time.  Well played, neighbor sir.  I look nice, but I’m not sharing.

Oh!  There’s no traditional recipe for this bagel creation.  It’s all you!  Grab a bagel, tomato, salami, cheese and greens.  Make delicious!

A good while back I found myself half way through a bottle of wine on a Saturday night, sitting alone on my patio watching cute cat videos on YouTube.

Wait… should I be embarrassed about revealing this to you?  Just wait… it gets better.

I was feeling pretty content with my Saturday night of wine and kittens, except, I didn’t really want to be alone.  Sometime after my last glass of wine, and before I started eating frozen yogurt straight from the container, I found myself filling out one of those online dating service profiles.  Yea… I was totally having that moment in my life.

Because there’s no shame in my game, I won’t even hesitate in telling you that filling out one of those profiles is a complex mixture of fun, excitement and nausea.  So many questions to answer.  So many clever quips to whip up.  So many ways to try and say that I’m weird and cool, and I spend a lot of time in my kitchen, and I kinda have a thing for kitten videos and wine and frozen yogurt…. without saying anything about kittens and wine and frozen yogurt.  That, after all, might come across as too weird.

What I really wanted to say was something like.. “Hey!  You’re cool.  I’m cool.  Let’s get to know each other.  I’ll make us pizza.  I’ll make us salad, but I won’t be mad if you don’t really want to eat it.  Cookies.  I can make those too.  Also… I like Star Wars, except I might call ‘Storm Troopers’ ‘Star Troopers’ on accident.  And… your Mom is going to love me, and I’m going to think she’s pretty rad too.  Let’s do this!”

It all worked out.  I think I may have had that profile up for about a month before I realized it wasn’t really my scene.  I have someone pretty awesome to make pizza for now.  He knows all about the wine and kitten videos and frozen yogurt.  He likes all those things too… plus Star Wars.  That feels pretty nice.

I suppose that was all just the long way of saying that I think you should make dinner this weekend.  Something down to earth and comforting like pizza and salad, with cookies for dessert.  If you also wanted to drink wine and watch kitten videos, you’d totally have the thumbs up from me!

Pepperoni and Black Olive Pizza

Homemade Caesar Salad

Chocolate Brownie Cookies

Sometimes what I need from the world manifests itself in the strangest ways.

Truth be told, I think I might need a hug. I know… that phrase has tinges of lame and needy all over it. I could easily go find a hug, that’s not the issue. I’m looking for a very specific hug.

I need to kind of hug that I imagine comes from the husband I don’t yet have. The kind of hug that you can completely relax into. The kind of hug where you are exactly who you are without any self conscious discomfort. The kind of hug that I imagine comes with familiar husband neck smells, synchronized breathing, and maybe a whisper in the ear. The kind of hug that softens everything in the world- that’s the kind of hug I need.

Since I don’t exactly have that soul changing hug at my everyday disposal, I decided to take to get in my kitchen and make myself exactly what my soul wanted to eat. Ironically enough, my soul didn’t wax on about chocolate, or pudding or fresh doughnuts. All my insides wanted was a big, fresh, home-crafted Caesar Salad.

Funny how that works.

If you’ve never made a homemade Caesar Salad, consider this your formal invitation. There is something unbelievably satisfying about grinding garlic and anchovies into a paste, then working the dressing into the most luscious salad topper with egg yolks and olive oil. It’s lovely. It feels like the salt of the earth, like I imagine those husband hugs.

Oh! This salad is perfect with homemade pizza. Now that’s good lovin’.