making mama's recipe for
'pizza' di ricotta
I decided to try out my mother’s
Pizza di Ricotta recipe. It was soo frustrating, but in retrospect pretty
funny.
First of all as soon as I mentioned
it, my mother (who is 91) tottered out to the kitchen. I said “Let
me do it.” She ignored me as her body seemed to expand blocking
me from the counter. (She’s 4' 10 and weighs about 110 pounds.)
I planned to make half her recipe
which is for two pies. She started scooping out the ricotta from its
two pound container into a bowl. I told her we only needed to use 1
1/2 pounds. She stopped, thought, then put back much less than a quarter.
The ricotta was watery. I asked quietly don’t you need to drain
it?
“No.”
When she finally allowed me to wiggle
past her, I made the dough in my Cuisinart. It wouldn’t hold together.
So I said quietly, “Maybe it needs water.
“No.”
But I did it anyway.
The dough was sticky no matter what
she did, and she kneaded, and kneaded and kept adding flour. I said
quietly that maybe we should chill it.
“No.”
She wouldn't let ME do it! She said,
“I never had so much trouble.” I believed her.
I remembered that I forgot the
sugar . . . She remembered that we forgot the baking powder. Baking
powder in a pie crust???
So we worked these into the still
recalcitrant dough. Finally it became a ball, which she rolled out between
two sheets of waxed paper. Then we couldn't pull the paper away. “Shall
we put it in the refrigerator to chill?” I asked, quietly.
“No.”
But I did it anyway.
It took forever to get the crust
hard enough to pull off the paper, sliver by sliver. But we did. I squeezed
the Second half (which I had sneaked into the freezer) past her, and
rolled it out swiftly, easily . . .
It lacked something. My husband
loved it but compared to my memories it did not measure up. The ricotta
seemed grainy, but my husband commented the pizza tasted even better
the next day.
My mother said, “Really? I
wouldn't know. Mine was never left over.”
Some time I’ll make it again,
when my mother’s watching “Murder, She Wrote.”
©
