By Late October. Cody is on day two hundred and ninety-one of his sentence. The maple in the Hendersons’ yard is now full red, the kind of red that only happens for ten days a year before the leaves drop. Halloween is one week off.
The unit has started letting inmates do monthly fifteen-minute video calls with family on a kiosk in the visiting room, a program that started in October. Cody and I had our first video call on Saturday afternoon and we used the time, on a kind of impulse Cody had had a few days before, to carve a pumpkin together over the screen. He picked the design (a simple grin with two triangle eyes, the design we had carved together in 2014 when he was thirteen and I was twelve, the last year before Daddy left and everything else). I cut at the kitchen counter at home with the small kitchen knife and the orange pumpkin guts in a bowl. He watched on the screen. He told me when to angle differently. He laughed when I gave the pumpkin a slightly crooked tooth on the left.
The pumpkin is on the front porch now with a candle inside it. The pumpkin is lopsided in a different way than last year’s lopsided pumpkin, because Cody is the one who picked the design and not me, and Cody picks pumpkins to look slightly different than I would have. I want to write that on the page because the pumpkin on the porch this year is the pumpkin Cody and I carved together, even with him in a unit and me in our kitchen, and the technology is small but the result is real.
And the recipe Sunday was easy Italian cheese bread. The recipe is from Averie Cooks. A focaccia-style bread — olive-oil-rich dough, dimpled with fingertips before baking so the dimples hold pools of oil and topping — topped with garlic and fresh herbs and parmesan and mozzarella, baked at 400 for twenty minutes.
The math: a 16-oz refrigerated pizza dough $1.99, three tablespoons of olive oil, four cloves of garlic free, a tablespoon of fresh rosemary $0.30 worth, a quarter cup of parmesan $0.50, a half cup of shredded mozzarella $0.50, salt. Total: about $3.30 for a 9-by-13 pan that fed Mama and me for four meals as a side bread.
The technique is the dimple-and-top. You stretch the pizza dough into a 9-by-13 pan, pressing into the corners. You rest the dough for thirty minutes covered with a dish towel for a small second rise. You drizzle olive oil generously across the top. You press dimples into the dough with your fingertips, all the way down to the pan in spots so the oil and topping pool in the indentations. You scatter minced garlic, the fresh rosemary, salt, and the shredded mozzarella across the top, then a final dusting of parmesan. You bake at 400 for twenty minutes until the bread is golden and the cheese is bubbling.
You let it cool five minutes before cutting into squares. The bread is rich and chewy and herby, with crisp edges from the oil and the pan contact. Mama said, when she ate it Sunday night with her bowl of soup, baby, this is the bread that bakeries sell for eight dollars a loaf. Mine cost three thirty for the whole pan.
The recipe is below. The trick is the dimple-and-pool method — press hard with your fingertips so the dimples are real depressions, and let the oil and toppings collect in them.
Easy Italian Cheese Bread
Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 20 minutes | Total Time: 30 minutes | Servings: 8
Ingredients
- 1 loaf Italian or French bread, halved lengthwise
- 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
- 3 cloves garlic, minced (or 1 teaspoon garlic powder)
- 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
- 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes (optional)
- 1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
- 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
- 2 tablespoons fresh parsley, chopped (optional, for garnish)
Instructions
- Preheat. Heat your oven to 375°F. Line a large baking sheet with aluminum foil and set it aside.
- Make the garlic butter. In a small bowl, stir together the softened butter, minced garlic, Italian seasoning, and red pepper flakes (if using) until fully combined.
- Prep the bread. Place both halves of the bread cut-side up on the prepared baking sheet. Spread the garlic butter mixture evenly across both cut surfaces, going all the way to the edges.
- Add the cheese. Sprinkle the shredded mozzarella evenly over both halves, then finish with the grated Parmesan on top.
- Bake. Transfer the baking sheet to the oven and bake for 15 to 18 minutes, until the cheese is fully melted and beginning to bubble at the edges.
- Broil for color. Switch the oven to broil and cook for an additional 1 to 2 minutes, watching closely, until the top is golden and lightly spotted. Don’t walk away — it goes from golden to burned fast.
- Slice and serve. Remove from the oven, scatter chopped parsley over the top if using, and slice into individual pieces. Serve warm alongside your homemade pizza or on its own.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 215 | Protein: 8g | Fat: 10g | Carbs: 23g | Fiber: 1g | Sodium: 370mg