Sausage-Topped White Pizza

The week of the baby. Tara is thirty weeks Sunday and the doctor moved her appointment to weekly check-ins. She is fine. Cole is not fine. Cole is the kind of unfine that is part of preparing to be a father, which is a kind of unfine I have not yet experienced and that I am observing in him with the curiosity of a man who studies his older brother to learn what to expect, except I do not yet have a what-to-expect because I am not in line for the same expectation. I am going to be an uncle. The uncle is a different role and one I am going to be very good at, I think. I have been an uncle in my head for nine months. I am ready.

Patrick had a strange day Tuesday. Confused. He thought it was 1992. He was in the kitchen and called Mom by her sister's name and asked Mom about the calf they had lost in the spring blizzard, a calf they had lost in 1992 — Mom remembers — and Mom answered him as if he was talking about now, and they had a fifteen-minute conversation about a dead calf from thirty-three years ago that Patrick was apparently revisiting. He came back to himself by lunch. He did not remember the conversation. Mom told me about it Tuesday night after dinner. She was not crying but she was close. The Parkinson's does not, the doctors have said, usually involve cognitive issues, but it can, and we are watching for it, and the Tuesday morning was, possibly, a sign or, possibly, a one-off. We do not know. We will not know for a while.

I told Mom we should call the neurologist. She said, We can wait until next month's appointment. I said, Mom. She said, Ryan. She said, He came back. He is fine now. I said, Okay. We will watch. We will tell the doctor next month. We will call sooner if it happens again. She nodded. She washed dishes. We were in the kitchen alone, the woodstove ticking, Patrick already in bed at nine, Mom sixty-six and tired in ways no one is going to be able to fix, me thirty and unable to fix any of it, the kitchen warm and small and the sky outside black and the cold pressed against the windows. She said, Ryan. I said, Yeah. She said, I do not know how long. I said, I know, Mom. She said, I am tired. I said, I know. We did not say more. The kitchen was the place. The kitchen has always been the place. I do not know what other women do when their husbands are sick. I know what my mother does. She washes dishes and tells me one true sentence and goes to bed.

Three farrier days. Eight degrees Tuesday morning. The hands. The horses. The work. I will not describe it again. It is what it is in February. I do it. I drive home. I eat. I sleep.

Cooked Sunday a fish chowder. The first chowder I have made in three years. Cole had brought me a salmon fillet from the Bozeman fish market — flash-frozen, from Alaska, not local but excellent — and I made the chowder Mom's grandmother used to make, which is the New England chowder Mom's family brought west in 1903 and that has been made in this kitchen by three generations of women and one Air Force veteran (Mom said Patrick made the chowder for her once in 1972 and she still talks about it). The chowder is potatoes and onions and bacon and milk and cream and salmon and a bay leaf and a sprinkle of paprika at the end. It is white and rich and warming and exactly the food for a February Sunday in Montana when the sun went down at five thirty and the wind is coming from the north and Patrick is sitting in the kitchen with a confused look in his eyes that has come back twice this week now. The chowder warmed him. He had three bowls. He came back to himself during the second bowl. Food does that sometimes. Food is the bridge back.

Saturday cookout was eight men. Marcus made one hundred fifty days. We had pulled pork. The fire was big. The stars were big. The fire helps. The chowder helps. Mom is tired. The baby is two weeks. The award is on the shelf. I am thirty and seven years sober and one bull elk in the freezer and one calf alive and Patrick confused once a week and Mom at the sink saying I do not know how long. I do not know how long either. I am going to keep cooking. I am going to keep showing up. I am going to keep breaking the ice on the trough at five-thirty in the morning. The work is the work.

The pulled pork was Marcus’s night, and that was right — it was his night, his 150 days, his fire. But there have been Saturdays since then where I wanted to feed people something hot and filling without making it a production, something I could pull together after a week of eight-degree mornings and hard conversations at the sink. This sausage white pizza is that thing. No red sauce, no fuss — just cream and sausage and good cheese on a crust, the kind of food that warms a room and keeps men at the table a little longer than they planned to stay.

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 20 min | Total Time: 35 min | Servings: 4–6

Ingredients

1 lb prepared pizza dough (store-bought or homemade), room temperature
3/4 lb bulk Italian sausage (mild or hot)
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup ricotta cheese
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 1/2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes (optional)
Salt and black pepper to taste
Fresh parsley, chopped, for garnish

Instructions

Preheat oven. Set oven to 450°F. If using a pizza stone, place it in the oven now to heat. Otherwise, lightly grease a large baking sheet or round pizza pan.
Cook the sausage. In a skillet over medium heat, brown the Italian sausage, breaking it into small crumbles as it cooks, about 6–8 minutes. Drain excess fat and set aside.
Make the white sauce. In the same skillet over low heat, warm the olive oil and garlic together for 1 minute until fragrant. Stir in the ricotta and heavy cream. Season with salt, pepper, and oregano. Stir until smooth and combined, about 2 minutes. Remove from heat.
Shape the dough. On a lightly floured surface, stretch or roll the pizza dough to your preferred thickness — about 12 inches round or a rough rectangle to fit your pan. Transfer to the prepared pan.
Assemble the pizza. Spread the white sauce evenly over the dough, leaving a 3/4-inch border for the crust. Scatter the cooked sausage evenly over the sauce. Top with shredded mozzarella and Parmesan. Add red pepper flakes if using.
Bake. Bake for 15–20 minutes, until the crust is golden and the cheese is bubbly and beginning to brown at the edges.
Rest and serve. Let the pizza rest for 5 minutes before slicing. Garnish with fresh parsley and serve hot.

Nutrition (per serving)

Sausage-Topped White Pizza — Something Hot for the Men Who Show Up