Monday, September 8, 2008

End-of-summer meals (grilled pizza!)

I know a lot of friends feel that summer is ending too quickly, and who, like me, started teaching over three weeks ago, but I think there is still time to make a few good end-of-summer meals that only make sense when you can sit outside in the heat of the September indian summer. 

I find cooking just as creative and painting and sometimes spend too much time thinking about what too eat or what restaurant I try, though I readily admit that I fail just as often as I succeed. One dish that finally worked last night was grilled pizza--Noah and I attempted this last week but we managed to get one ball of dough stuck to saran wrap (forgot to use flour!) and ended up with one decent pizza, and another giant, thick ball of burned mush!

It finally turnoued out last night and I love that you can be really creative with ingredients. We used a bunch of different cheeses, fresh tomatoes, sauteed mushrooms, fresh basil and got some great ready-made dough at Whole Foods. The key is to precook the dough on the grill for about three minutes, poke the holes out of the dough, and then quickly flip over the dough and put on all your ingredients, close the grill and let everything cook through, 3-10 minutes. Such a simple way to make a great meal and the pizza went well with a little leftover rose. See link to grilled pizza under "Food and Recipes."

Welcome to Gunk Paint

Welcome to my blog, something I've been hesitant to start, as there is a reason why I am a painter and not a writer! But since this is a nice opportunity to share a few of my obessions with visual props such as photos and links, I thought it might be fun to use this as a forum for focusing on things that make life a bit more pleasant: art (with a focus on the LA art world and painting in particular), food, recipes and restaurants I want to try, art openings and museum shows, home and garden, fashion, and anything delicious...
I welcome feedback and any ideas on good art to see or food to try, and I admit that my direction for this blog might shift a bit--it most likley will be a mix of documenting my own failures and happy revelations in both art and life. Thanks for reading!