Crafting

I don't consider myself to be an artist by any measure of the word. The stuff I create is more craft than art. And my crafting arises from being so particular about how I like to have things. Take pizza, for instance. I've eaten a lot of pizza from the cheapest frozen brand heated in barely functioning dive-bar toaster ovens to some of the finest handmade, woodfire-oven-baked pizzas created by superb chefs of the art form. But I like the pizzas I create most of all.

None of them ever tastes as good as ones I've crafted from scratch using my own homegrown ingredients on a hand-stretched disk of paper-thin dough shaped with plenty of crust around the circumference for scattering dribbles of sauce, bits of chives and chunks of cheese all baked to perfection. It must have just the right amount of char on some of the surface materials, the crust crunchy on the outside while precisely, subtly soft on the inside with imbedded air bubbles galore. Toppings, of course, must be sliced to precise thickness.

Viewed from any angle it practically screams to be eaten as soon as it's out of the oven.

Then comes destruction of the carefully crafted thing. While it's still hot. First on the board.

Then in the belly.