Fresh Veggie Pizza — The Simplest Perfect Meal, Carried a Little Further

The Damiano Center crowd has shifted. Gerald is still there, the soup steady. New faces too — younger, more women, more children. The need does not decrease. The need shape-shifts. The soup does not stop. The soup is the only constant the people who come into that basement get to count on, and we keep it constant. Astrid had a fall. She is fine. The Twin Cities sister-call club is now its own small intervention. Karin and I take turns calling Astrid. Astrid resents the calls. We make them anyway. The resentment is the love filtered through Astrid's particular Scandinavian self-sufficiency. We do not mind being resented. We mind, far more, the alternative. Erik turned seventy. We had a small party at his house. He grilled. He drank one beer (his quota, a quota set by his doctor, observed religiously). He was quiet and happy. He looked like Pappa around the eyes. I had not noticed before. I notice now. The resemblance has deepened with age. Erik is becoming Pappa in the slow gentle way that men become their fathers if they live long enough. I cooked Sweet corn and butter this week. Corn from the farmers' market in late August. Boiled five minutes. Eaten with butter and salt and nothing else. The simplest perfect meal. The Damiano Center: the regular Thursday. The soup is the soup. The conversations are the conversations. The week is held by the Thursday. I do not know what I would do without the Thursday. The Thursday is the structural element of the week. The structural element does not collapse if the rest of the week goes sideways. The Thursday holds. The lake was iron gray. The kind of gray Paul loved. He used to say: "That is the gray that means weather is coming." He was always right. I miss being told. I miss being told what the lake means by a man who knew what the lake meant. I have learned to read the lake on my own. I am, at this point, an adequate reader. I am not as good as Paul was. I am better than I would have been if I had not had to learn. It is enough. Paul is not here. Mamma is not here. Pappa is not here. Erik is not here. They are all here in the kitchen, in the smell, in the taste, in the wooden spoon and the bread pans and the marble slab. The dead are not where the body went. The dead are in the kitchen. The phone rings less than it used to. Not because fewer people are calling, but because the people who call are mostly the family, and the family has settled into a rhythm — Peter daily, Anna twice a week, Sophie weekly, Elsa biweekly, Karin Sundays, Astrid Sundays. The phone rings predictably. I pick up predictably. The predictability is the love at this stage of life. The lake from the kitchen window has been doing what the lake does for as long as there has been a lake. The lake has carried fish and ships and the bodies of drowned sailors and the names of Ojibwe villages and the granite-cold of melted glaciers. The lake does not notice the lives along its shore. The lives notice the lake. That is the deal. That has always been the deal. It is enough.

The corn lasted three days—five minutes in boiling water, butter, salt, nothing else—and then it was gone, the way the best things in August always go. I still wanted that feeling: produce that tastes like itself, a meal that doesn’t ask anything complicated of you. A fresh veggie pizza from the same farmers’ market haul turned out to be exactly that, the same quiet pleasure in a different shape. It is the kind of food that holds a Thursday together, that makes the kitchen feel like the kitchen is supposed to feel.

Fresh Veggie Pizza

Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cook Time: 15 minutes | Total Time: 30 minutes | Servings: 4

Ingredients

• 1 lb pizza dough, store-bought or homemade, at room temperature
• 1/2 cup pizza sauce or crushed tomatoes
• 1 1/2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
• 1/2 cup fresh corn kernels (cut from 1 ear of sweet corn)
• 1/2 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
• 1/2 cup thinly sliced zucchini
• 1/4 cup thinly sliced red onion
• 1/4 cup sliced bell pepper (any color)
• 2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
• 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
• Salt and black pepper to taste
• Fresh basil leaves, for serving

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven. Place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 450°F. If you have a pizza stone, place it in the oven now to heat through.
2. Prep the dough. Lightly flour a clean surface and stretch or roll the pizza dough into a 12-inch round or rectangle. Transfer to a parchment-lined baking sheet or a lightly oiled pan.
3. Brush and sauce. Brush the outer edge of the dough with 1 tablespoon of the olive oil. Spread the pizza sauce evenly over the surface, leaving a 1/2-inch border around the edge.
4. Add the cheese. Scatter the shredded mozzarella evenly over the sauce.
5. Top with vegetables. Arrange the corn kernels, cherry tomatoes, zucchini, red onion, and bell pepper over the cheese. Drizzle with the remaining tablespoon of olive oil. Season with dried oregano, salt, and black pepper.
6. Bake. Transfer to the oven and bake for 13 to 15 minutes, until the crust is golden at the edges and the cheese is bubbling and lightly browned in spots.
7. Finish and serve. Remove from the oven and let rest for 2 minutes. Scatter fresh basil leaves over the top, slice, and serve immediately.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 390 | Protein: 15g | Fat: 14g | Carbs: 52g | Fiber: 3g | Sodium: 620mg