[Shaun @ Tru6]

Originally Posted by LWJ

Update: I promised my dough recipe but Y'all really are bringing a better game than I. So I will reference a book that will pretty well address any questions: The Pizza Bible. It is good.

And, here is my letter to the Bride and Groom. I think it sort of hits the mark.



There is a story behind this gift. And it begins with our wedding back in 1991. We received a pizza peel and stone from someone. But, the tag fell off and we never knew who gave them to us. We spent far too much time trying to figure this out, perhaps the allure of a mystery made the pursuit better. However, we never did figure out who gave them to us.

Either way, the peel and stone got our attention. We were intrigued. As fans of eating pizza, we set out to learn the craft of pizza making. Our first attempts involved a box of Jiffy brand crust in a box. It was simply awful. We tried a few times and then the peel and stone were put away. A few years later, we somehow revisited the quest to make pizza and followed a recipe for homemade dough. It wasn’t much better. Again. The stone and peel were stashed somewhere out of the way and we abandoned pizza making for a number of years. And that was the pizza saga for perhaps 15 ish years. Failure. Disappointment. And let downs. One day, we went to my Cousin Lesli’s home where she made pizza on the grill. It was wonderful. We were re-invigorated with our pizza-quest and quickly followed her precise instructions. (Personal sized dough on the grill. Flip and put toppings on crust after one side is done.). Success! We were making pizza! We took this win for a number of years and didn’t deviate much. It worked in a satisfactory way. It was tasty. But being driven by a quest, we longed for more. Perhaps cooking a pizza inside during Winter? A larger pie? Who knows, we had pizza dreams that were not always addressed by making on the grill. And so we moved our pizza making back to the stone in our oven. New techniques. New crust. Change of toppings. At first, it was a little rough. We modified some things. Made small adjustments. And then? We were making pizza. Not the best pizza, but it was in fact pizza. This evolved for a number of years. We got some techniques mastered. We came up with some toppings that worked well. We gained confidence. Then Kate took a Foods class in High School. She came home with a crust recipe and a sauce recipe that were far better than what we had made previously. Our game was definitely improved. In fact, I will say that we can make some homemade pizza that is pretty darn good. I was going to tell you our recipe and coach you on how we do it when I happened to mention this to Cousins Gina and Tracy. They introduced me to The Pizza Bible. Which I have subsequently purchased for myself. I think you can do a quick read and advance your learning curve far ahead of mine in less than an hour. So enjoy.

But what I really like about our pizza quest? First. I do like pizza. A lot. (Duh.) But it is also somewhat metaphorical. The quest to make perfect pizza is akin to making a perfect relationship. There are starts. There are stops. There are advances and setbacks. And there are rewards.

We hope that you can succeed making pizza. But we really hope that you can succeed in marriage. Both are worth having.

Beautifully crafted and written, well done! I am sure the bride & groom will remember it forever.