Pizza making a go-go

On my 40th birthday bash we fired up the pizza oven and did our best to make a few pizzas. A lot was going on, I was pulled in ten different directions, we had the grill going; it perhaps was not the best time to craft a fine pizza. That being said, we turned out a couple of OK, not so bad pizzas. Even though we got it fired up pretty hot, we never got it to the extreme heat we needed it at. (Sorry, no pictures)

The second firing, I definitely got it up to a huge heat, too huge. I could barely get the pizza in and off the paddle. It was charred almost before it came off the paddle. I singed my arms, but the pizzas were pretty yummy. (Again no photos)
Third firing, getting better. (Sorry no pics)

Meanwhile, I had been studying and reading about pizza-making. Purchased and perused, Pizza, A Slice of Heaven , very interesting history of pizzas. Also took a nice research lunch at Mozza, amazing pizzas, great wine, wonderful atmosphere, what our pizzas want to be... and came pretty close to at ....

Our fourth and latest pizza making night.
Yummy. yummy, yummy



Nice fire, hot, oven heat in the 900's F, oven floor at around 650F- 750F.
Pizzas took between 2 to 4 minutes to cook.
I can barely remember the various types of pizzas we made, busy tending to the fire and the turning and moving the pizzas.



Click to enlarge this photo and then check out the pizza. These were pretty close to perfect. By the way all this experimenting, great for the soul and taste buds, not so great for losing weight. Oh well, can't have it all.


Sondra, a fabulous guest.

Old, great friend Terrell and me


Max and me.



Charles and Sondra


Guests from Tokyo, amazing friend and filmmaker Deborah and new friend Taka.

Dog gone!!! No really lost dog, dog is gone!!

LOST DOG, PLEASE HELP

When it happened, I mean I was in full party mode. There were around 100 people over the course of the day. When Cindy told me Diego was missing, I figured he was hiding, like dogs do on Fourth of July, you know the fireworks freak them out, but they come back after a day or so.

Where's our friend, Diego?

Or maybe he jumped in someone's bag and they'd give us a call and we'd pick him up or something. But we've recently gotten a couple of e-mails from him, and now I'm concerned....


1st E:mail

I am lost.


We respond:

 Where are you?? We've been so worried!? It's so
good to know you're alive (are you still?)? Please
come home to us... Anyone with information regarding
our dearly beloved puppy - PLEASE RETURN HER TO
US!!!

2cnd E:mail

Hitched a ride tonight. Not sure where I am.

We respond:

Baby you must demand to be let free - you're showing signs of stockholm syndrome - and felipe and pepe miss you so much... dearest diego, please come back for the sake of our family -

3rd, final and latest e:mail:

This looks nice.



Meanwhile Pepe and Felipe scour the "Lost and Found" in the paper.



They can't believe he's really gone. They are heart broken.



P.S. They both agreed you can have your center spot back and they're willing to call you Jefe, if you would just come back.

Skye's off to sleepaway camp; Camp Hollywoodland

Skye was off to camp Monday, a week-long sleep-over camp. Wow, what an adventure. She was incredibly nervous. But of course, once we got there after dramas here and there she was good to go. Originally her friend Amandla was to be her "cabin buddy" , but at the last minute Amandla ended up in Denmark, no seriously she is in Denmark, that's where father Tom is from. Anyway at our pizza-making party it is discovered, revealed, what have you that Tru is also off to Camp Hollywoodland. She being a year older and camp veteran makes for the perfect mentor as we, Cindy, Skye, myself and Tru head out to Camp. Well, here they are, with picture-perfect good-byes.

What to blog about? Where in the world IS Jon?

My 40th birthday was to be an apex of sorts. It took place on a pretty awesome date as far as numbers go 7-7-7, pretty cool. I had just finished a pretty rigourous traveling tour. (Left me wanting more.) Skye's first year of homeschooling would be coming to a close. The mammoth backyard project was to be completed. (It wasn't and like any and all homes, the projects and upkeep never end.) I had decided to officially and forever end my quest for a college degree.(That has only opened up my mad and crazed desire to learn, and turned me into a starving student with ADD, starving for knowledge and ADD because there are so many things to learn and now with the internet, cable, a billion magazines, etc, there are countless ways to find info and learning stuff.)

Anyway, blah, blah, blah, blog blog blog, point being, after a day or so, more like a few hours of chillin and relaxing, I am back in the whirlwind. I will be writing(hopefully) more and more often, linking, exploring. Where in the world is Jon? refers not only to the physical where but also the mental and emotional where.

So where am I these days?

Cooking
Have always loved cooking and entertaining, and now with the new outdoor cooking Xanadu I've created with a wood fire pizza oven, (it cooks all sorts of things, but so far this is it, much experimenting to come), a commercial quality, kick-ass grill, with rotisserie,(again have used grill for basics, still haven't installed or experimented with rotisserie attachment) and then fresh herbs growing all over practically begging to be used. And it's summer. So come over and cook or eat

Gardening
Finally, it's mostly all planted, it's a matter of tweaking and rotating stuff in the beds. Right now all sorts and manners of thyme, basil and mints. Again come over pick stuff or just wander about picking a sprig and crushing it with you fingers and smelling and just let scent one of our underused and under appreciated senses get some exercise.

Music
Right now kind of in a wierd eclectic, hip-hop, pop, lots of covers kind of mood, open for recommendations and comments. Listening to Brother Ali, Feist, MIA, and then so many covers that I have been collecting for a while now.

Tour de France
Lance is out, retired. A lot of others are out; doping or alleged doping. Leaving a wide open race.

Basketball
Really it's about the Lakers and so goes the question, Kobe what the f--k is up? And I plan to dunk withing 6 months, mark my words.

Traveling
I have Nicaragua to tend to and that's cool. I mean I love spending time down there. But investment-wise, Mammoth is beginning to really call to me, but Croatia has my heart and Turkey intrigues the heck out of me.
Then there are the new Seven World Wonders

THE NEW 7 WONDERS OF THE WORLD
The New7Wonders organization is happy to announce the following 7 candidates have been elected to represent global heritage throughout history. The listing is in random order, as announced at the Declaration Ceremony on 07.07.07. All the New 7 Wonders are equal and are presented as a group without any ranking.
The Great Wall, China	Petra, Jordan	Christ Redeemer, Brazil	Machu Picchu, Peru
Chichén Itzá, Mexico	The Roman Colosseum, Italy	The Taj Mahal, India

Homeschooling
School may be out but I am so intrigued about learning, education, homeschooling, the politics, the way we learn, how we grow, etc. It's help mold my world outlook, which was already way out of the box.

Misc stuff; AKA what life throws at you
Currently, Steve(17) and Patrick(20), sons to my very good friend from Miami, Florida, starting way back on True Lies, and Speed 2 and GI Jane and more, Michael Calabrese are staying with us looking at SoCal as where they'll end up because this is the skimboarding mecca. Yeah so I learned about skimboarding and it looks pretty cool. So you learn and get introduced to all kinds of things if you leave it open

Let the pictures tell the story

The Guests arrive

Richard and Jackie brought along the possibility of a double birthday.

And more pics and guests..........

40th Party Pre and First Guests

I was up late creating these flower arrangements and then up in the morning doing some final touches. Not the best equation for making it through a party that was supposed to start at noon and go into the night. Oh well, I've overextended myself on more than one occasion.











And then the guests started arriving and helping out in last minute party prep and presentation. Thanks Rusty.

And some guests coordinated perfectly with the decor.

One Final Goodbye to Paris

We had almost crossed off every "must see" in our "relaxing" vacation, two weeks of museum immersion and had Sunday and Monday left. What to do? Relax, sit at a cafe or park or race around and check some more things off the "must see" list. Off to the Paris Opera
another absolutely amazing sight, and another one that we breezed through all to quickly. But not to quickly to miss out on some unique moments. Like when a group of American tourist entered, and one exclaimed, "Oh my goodness, it looks just like the one in Las Vegas." For me personally, one amazing discovery was turning a corner and coming upon this bronze statue. Years ago when I was on the set dressing crew of Coppola's Dracula the sculptors on the show had made a duplicate of this in green foam and then the scenics had of course worked their magic on it. Stuffed in a shoe box somewhere is a photo of it that I had taken. I was in my early twenties when I was on that show and it had left an impression, particularly that statue. So many years later seeing it in Paris brought a lot of memories of youth back.


Then off to the Natural History Museum of Paris
which was other worldly and by the time we made it there we could barely walk. And there was a lot of walking and many stairs and we saw the space and we walked around, but we could barely appreciate it.



We started our Paris adventure having a wonderful dinner with a Randa, friend from Los Angeles who has relocated to Paris. So it was a perfect bookend to have one of our last meals with her. We had an amazing dinner at an Algerian restaurant. It was crowded. There was a long line to wait for a table. A fight almost broke out with a group of Japanese who were also vying for the same table. They would end up at the second half of the table minutes later and Skye being the diplomat she is had the whole table taking pictures of each other. We didn't end up sharing one another's food, but our conversations ended up intertwining in a lovely and organic way.

All in all it was a perfect ending for our Paris experience.

The next day was all about shopping and after buying a beautiful chef's coat, we headed down to E.Dehillerin.
It's an amazing kitchen utensil shop with shelves and shelves of pots and pans and all sorts of amazing cookware that has been around since 1820. I was in heaven, and bought or should I say brought a little bit home with me. And finally a dinner in a cafe around the corner from where we were staying, just the three of us.



Photo by Skye

I'M 40!!!!!!! CRISIS AVERTED

THE PARTY

"But then they danced down the street like dingledodies, and I shambled after as I've been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes, " Awww!" On the Road Jack Kerouac

I read that line when I was 15. It has stuck with me since. I carried around on a index card for years, folded and refolded shoved in my pocket. It's posted on my bulletin board at 2 o'clock from computer screen. And last night, forty years into what has become an almost magical journey, I "shambled after" and with my "mad" friends, some who have been there with me since I read that in high school, which is amazing to be able to say and some I met just last night. Some are older, some are younger; some are married, some single; some with kids; some without. But all were essential for the recipe that made my fortieth birthday, my most special and beloved to date. My "crisis" has always been that I am "desirous of everything at the same time". And several times at the party as things; people, conversations, kids, food, drink, fun, were swirling around like whirling dervishes, I felt at peace, in the eye of the hurricane, my perfect storm. At one point I looked out over the balcony, first down by the pool, my high school buddies kids swimming with my daughter, I saw all the plants and stones I planted and placed, then turned and looked as another longtime friend went back and forth between the grill with bratwurst cooking and then the wood fired oven, never been tested up til now, trying to stoke a fire up to 900 degrees. And then I glanced over to where another high school buddy and his pregnant(as in due any moment) wife sat reconnected with other old friends and my lovely wife. And scanned all the people that make my life so rich, and smiled and realized how I had "everything at the same time."