Kingfisher

Kingfisher / Oil on black canvas / 5x7 / $68 including shipping

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WHEN PETER WAS ALIVE, he would make pizza usually about once a week. 

When I say "make," I mean that he would take frozen gluten-free pizza, usually Udi's, and doctor it up, adding a variety of items, depending on what we had in the icebox and what he felt like making. 

Usually, it was regular pizza-type pizza, with pepperoni or soupi or sausage added, but often it was more exotic. Pesto and garlic and artichokes. Cheeseburger pizza. Taco pizza. Bacon and ham pizza. 

It was always delicious and always wonderful, but the thing about it was that it always took him FOREVER, absolutely forever, to make these pizzas - often upwards of 90 minutes from start to finish. 

Honestly, I never knew what took him so long, and now, will never know. Few people outside of me were ever treated to these pizzas, but on the rare occasions when he invited people in, they and I would wait in the living room, not very patiently, rolling our eyes and laughing at him while great pizza smells drifted in from the kitchen. 

I bought a frozen pizza last week, and last night, doctored it up and cooked it. The whole process took about 20 minutes, 18 of which were the pizza cooking in the oven. It smelled good, and looked good, but it tasted like cardboard. Tasted like loss and sadness, nothing fun, nothing delicious. I had one slice and threw the rest of it away. 

I have another one in the freezer, and I thought of throwing it away, too, and maybe I will - but maybe I will keep it and try it again in six months or so, and see if I can conjure up the memory of my sweet, deliberate, careful husband and our delightful and delicious and inexplicably slow pizza nights. I'll let you know. 

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Thought for Today

Fleas

Adam had'em. 

- Ogden Nash