PIZZA MEMOIRS: Artisan Pizza Recipes Inspired by Family, Friends and Hospice Patients' Favorite Foods.
A work in progress, Pizza Memoirs invites the reader on a journey through cherished memories revealed to me by family, friends and hospice patients as they reminisced about their all time favorite foods. The original artisan pizza recipes in this book have been carefully crafted so as to replicate tastes of each remembered dish or meal; yet are immortalized in new form. The humorous, sometimes poignant vignettes introducing each recipe unveil insightful clips of personal histories. Pizza Memoirs is infinitely more than a pizza cookbook. It is a collection of memories entrusted to me for safekeeping, now lovingly played forward as pizzas.
A bit of background information: I am a Licensed Professional Counselor and, for eighteen years, worked with hospice patients and their families in coping with death, dying and grief. In the course of this work, I made two significant discoveries; humor heals and food is a universal language. I found that even the most unreceptive patients can be reached with my 'secret weapon' question -"What was your favorite food when you were a kid?" This question consistently breaks through the barrier of silence and facilitates reminiscences rife with personal history. This work informed my decision to begin creating pizzas from favorite foods of family and friends.
Pizza Memoirs will appeal to everyone who has a memory of a special meal with family or friends. From chaotic holiday 'crazy meal' to intimate dinner for two, all will identify on some level.
Check back for stories and fantastic pizza recipes. Linda
Great start. I can smell the freash pizzas cooking on the grill
ReplyDeleteI'll bet you can! Thank you for being my number one personal taste tester and critic.
ReplyDeleteCan you post photos of your pizzas?
ReplyDeleteYes, I will begin doing that next week as I publish some recipes.
ReplyDeleteWelcome to the blogosphere! Now Pizza Memoirs can be enjoyed by those around the world. :)
ReplyDeleteCongrats Linda!! I will send this to all my "foodie" friends! xoxo
ReplyDeleteThanks a million. I can't wait to begin posting recipes and pictures!
ReplyDeleteI thought I would share an excerpt from my book to show you how I came to be the person I am today.
ReplyDeleteFood, glorious food...I can't remember a time in my life that I was not completely captivated by its heavenly aromas, textures, tastes and the feelings which were evoked when consuming anything from the simplest snack to the most elaborate meal prepared with love.
Watching my mother's every move, I was always underfoot in the kitchen; spending countless hours peering over the edge of the chrome trimmed, bright yellow Formica countertop trying to get a glimpse at what she was doing. My mother's cooking was something of a sacred secret to her; a secret that was not willingly shared with many. She would occasionally shoo me away when I got too close to the knife or the hot pot of gravy (tomato sauce) bubbling on the front stove burner, but I was relentless. I learned to cook through observation as mom was a woman of few words when she was frantically preparing meals while simultaneously doing laundry, other household chores and, keeping an eye on my three sisters. I always wanted to tell her how lucky she was that she didn't have to be concerned with my whereabouts when meals were being prepared, but the time never seemed right! Mom didn't appreciate my sense of humor, even in the early days. On some level, I believe my mother understood my love of food; but she worried that it was, at times, the single most important thing in my life. As though to convince herself that it was really nothing to worry about, she would say to me, "I should have known; you were even born at dinner time!"
Throught my childhood, I was painfully shy and over time, I unwittingly developed two coping mechanisms. The first was that I became what teachers lovingly refer to as the class clown; the more anxious I felt, the funnier I became. The second was that I became a really good cook at an early age which allowed me to reach out to people and express my love and caring through the foods I prepared for them. Nothing gave me more pleasure. So why didn't I become a professional chef? Honestly, it never occurred to me because I equated cooking with love, not work or money.
It is funny how things work out in life though. A dear friend died of cancer in the late 80s, an event which prompted me to become involved with a local hospice program. This work eventually became my second career (the first being a Spanish teacher, yes there were a few class clowns with whom I had to contend) and I worked as a hospice pastoral counselor and grief therapist for the next eighteen years. I considered this more of a calling than a job. I truly believed that my patients were living, not dying and I treated them as such. They enjoyed laughing as well as crying with me and the true blessing is that I learned more from the dying than I have ever learned from any living person on this earth.
Two things I brought with me from my youth that helped me to connect on an intimate level with most of my patients were my sense of humor and my love of food. While at Hospice, life review was one of my favorite exercises to do with my end of life patients. This is a simple exercise that basically consists of reminiscing about ones life in an attempt to resolve any unfinished business that needs finishing and healing. Over time I found that simply asking a patient what his or her favorite food was when he or she was a kid was all I needed to do to facilitate the healing process.
It is my wish that you will be inspired to begin a journey of your own, talk to family and friends about their favorite foods, discover who they really are and celebrate their lives.
Hopefully, you now have some insight into who I am and how I came to write a pizza cookbook based on favorite foods.
It is becoming painfully obvious that I may have chosen the wrong site on which to begin my Pizza Memoirs blog. I can find no way back to controls for the site, nor can I find ways to do simple things like check spelling,italicize an item, etc. There must be ways to do these things, but I think I will look for a more user friendly site before I begin posting photos and recipes. Someone recommended WordPress and I am about to check it out. Let me know if you have any suggestions, and please hang in there with me until I figure things out. I guess if all else fails, I could go to the computer guy and get him to set something up for me. Thanks for your patience.
ReplyDeleteWhat a great idea to start a blog. I can't wait to share this with my friends. They have been so jealous that I've been able to taste some of your wonderful pizzas!
ReplyDeletedo you send your pizzas fed ex?
ReplyDeleteOh Yummmmmmy, I can smell the pizzas here in Connecticut and I can't wait to get my hands on that cookbook!!!!!!! Good luck Lin, you deserve "savory" success on this one!!!! Love you! K Quokanut
ReplyDeleteI hope to have it published while I can still fit into my clothes! Testing 90 some pizzas is tough work, but like I said, somebody has to do it!
ReplyDelete