Oy.
Such a good word, right? It pretty much covers everything going on in my life right now: Major book deadline, oy. This past weekend was 100% devoted to the American Society of Journalists & Authors conference (which was well worth it, but oy am I scrambling to make up for the lost time). In less than two weeks I head to the BlogHer Food conference, where I’ll be speaking (and moderating) a panel on food blogging with a picky kid. (Think I’m qualified?) Oy! And yesterday I finally had to accept that the root-canal-requiring toothache I’ve been ignoring for the last week, which first reared its ugly head while I was pregnant with Harry, isn’t going away. And is, in fact, getting worse. Yes, in the midst of all this craziness, today I’ll be begging the dentist to convince the oral surgeon to give me an emergency appointment. Two sleeping pills, two Aleve, and two Tylenol were not enough to get me a good night’s sleep. I’m thrilled I got to enjoy another five years with the tooth in question, but this is bad timing, yo. Oy.
Buuuut, in all that, I do have some good news: Gourmet Live, the digital incarnation of the venerated food magazine, has invited me to join their crew of food bloggers, a group they call the Socialvores and describe as “a handpicked group of food enthusiasts selected to join us on our culinary adventures.” You’ll see their very pretty badge o’ bling on the lower right of this page. Today is my first official day as a Socialvore, and as such they’ve featured my Baked Apple French Toast in their Mother’s Day post. Oy, yes!
By way of introduction to you, my dear (and did I mention good-looking?) readers, Gourmet Live has given me a guest post which fits quite nicely with what we’re doing on this here blog. It’s all about a pizza recipe taste test they did with a group of kids. Who as we all know, can sometimes be hard to please. The results are surprising…
Gourmet Asks the Toughest Critics in the World to Test Pizza: Kids
By Maddie Donnelly, Gourmet Live
Photo by Chris Gentile
For parents who end up throwing a frozen pizza in the oven at least one night a week to feed the fam, we have some exciting news.
We put five of the pizza recipes from the new Gourmet Italian Kitchen magazine to the test. But rather than asking food critics or chefs for their ratings, we checked in with the tiny people whose opinions often matter most when it comes to home cooking: Kids. And the results astounded us.
The winning pizza, handily beating out even a classic mozzarella and tomato version–and given loads of “Awesome!” votes for taste—was Gourmet Italian’s Pizza with Fontina, Prosciutto, and Arugula.
The crispy, crunchy crust, soft, gooey fontina cheese, and thinly sliced prosciutto topping won our young audience over. Turns out, if you don’t tell the kids it’s fancy prosciutto, they assume it’s regular old lunch meat and go to town.
We went light on the greens but didn’t hear any complaints there either. As 7-year-old Franklin told us, “It’s awesome! And I didn’t even have to take anything off of it!“
“He’s only in his life ever had plain pizza,” one of the moms said, referring to her 6-year-old son, whom she has dubbed “Picky Eater Iain.” “We had a talk about trying new things last night, but I never thought he would. This is a big breakthrough.”
For a breakthrough of your own, and a nice Friday night activity with the kids, opt for Gourmet’s Italian Kitchen fast, healthy, hit pizza recipe. Best of all, it only takes 30 minutes to make from start to finish. That’s even less time than a deliveryman can guarantee.
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