Thrift store pizza

This isn't about a receipe, but the inspiration something simple can bring.

This morning there was the final SBMA women's board meeting of the year and sat next to my friend Lois. We were talking about her trip to Ravello for a wedding last year when she started on Pizzas. Neapolitan pizzas, Roman pizzas, any pizza, it was what she craved from day one of her trip. This is a woman who really watches what she eats and pizza was a once-a-month treat. She said that there wasn't enough great pizza!

Naturally, my internal food clock was turned on and my chemo brain was replaced by pizza brain, a much better place to be if you really want to know, but now all I was thinking of was Italy, pizza and a good Sangiovese.

On the way home from Santa Barbara one of my favorite things to do is to stop in at a certain thrift store. It's rare that I don't find some treasure or piece of junk that I can't live without. Old kitchen utensils, books, furniture and even artwork that was once someone else's junk becomes a treasure for a while in my home. Most goodies end up on Ebay or at a garage sale. Today was no different with my mind focused on being in Italy in 22 days and on Lois' pizza extravaganza. There were 2 things that were just sitting there waiting for me. I  walked by one item and made the cruise around the room and as I circled back another shopper stopped and looked at MY treasure. How dare she! I couldn't wait untill she was out of my way and I could grab it.

What did I find? A small, delicate, strange, marriage of a table. Too tall for a converted footstool, too short for a piano stool. A marriage of different centuries and my imagination hasn't stopped since. Where did this come from? Why did someone make it? Why did it end up in the donation heap? 100's of questions raced through my head. Now here it was in my living room.

Then there was the sweet little hand-colored, tourist litho of Florence, dinner was going to have to be pizza and Sangiovese. No other options.

Fast-forward to being in the sun in the garden cleaning mia piccola tavola.

Why did someone cut an ivory-inlaid, Rennaisance panel and think to attach it to a table top? With that question running through my mind I ran inside and pulled out the flour and all the rest to make a pizza. The result was a wonderful baked  pomodoro, peperoni and salsicce pizza. Not to forget the accompanying wine choice, I dug into my cellar and pulled out a Santa Barbara Winery, 2006, Stolpman Vineyard, Santa Ynez Valley,  Sangiovese, mmmmmmmmmmm. say no more. Meaty, round, full of fruit, a wine to chew on with my pizza. Thank goodness for Bruce McGuire and SB Winery!!!! http://www.sbwinery.com/

OK, so the wine is taking me away for my story. Who made this table? There was a lot of thought that went into it. I turned it over to see if there were any marks, just two butterfly screws made of an old metal, iron-like, with screwheads that have an old embossed makers mark and the initials AI carved in the frame. The legs are beautiful, delicate cabriolets and instead of metal protectors on the bottom, it's carved wood.

There was something else, a hand-colored litho of a city view of Florence. Now the day could no longer be in the real world. My mind moved me to Italy, it's 1898, to a small house of a furniture maker with four children who were being sent to the new world to seek their fortune at the turn of the century. The furniture maker took a table, a family heirloom, passed down for centuries and cut the top in half, then quarters. He gently rubbed the edges to a soft shine, putting all his love and emotion in perfecting the edges of this, his final gift to his children. One quarter, inlaid with the finest Asian ivory, delicatly inlaid in garlands of flowers, a masters art, given to each child to slip into their bags to  accompany them with their new dreams in America.....

All this because of Lois' pizza, shame on her.

Enjoy dreaming........qui si mangia bene.