Guns and Pizza
Saturday October 14, 2006 • Howard Tayler
Today was the Elders' Quorum annual "Guns & Pizza" event. This year, because of budget restructuring, we only had about $40 to work with for pizza, which does not buy pies sufficient to feed 20 guys. No problem. I volunteered to make double-decker dutch-over pizzas for all. The ingredients hit our budget for $35, and this morning I loaded up five dutch ovens with the help of Cort, Will, and Brian. I wish we'd taken pictures. We made straight pepperoni, BBQ chicken, ham & pineapple, supreme, and pizzagna pizzas, and it turns out that five dutch ovens is exactly how many will fit in TurboSchlock's trunk. The pies were assembled between 8:30 and 9:30, but we didn't start cooking them until about 11:30. That means they had time to rise. Sure enough, three of them rose enough that during cooking they brushed the tops of the ovens -- which I had thoughtfully brushed with olive oil against just such a possibility. We had a good crowd show up, and they managed to eat 80% of the pizza (mostly by overeating - each of these pies will feed eight). I was quite pleased with everything except the pizzagna. SOMEBODY (we'll name no names) forgot to add basil, even after talking about how important spices would be on this most experimental of pies. It turned out kind of bland. Maybe somebody should have added a little salt, too. Oh, and the guns -- Mostly we shot skeet. I was exhausted after eating, so I headed home before they headed up to the pistol and rifle range. I hit maybe half of what I shot at, which stinks, but at least I nailed the very first skeet I drew a bead on. After close to two years of no practice, that felt really good.
