Oven Baked Pizza

Erika did some research and discovered a great idea…baking pizza in the wood stove. We decided to give it a try. She ordered the stand and pan on the internet.

 We have been baking bread for almost a year and the bread maker does an excellent job making pizza dough. 

The flour we are using is from Hokkaido. I find that Hokkaido flour rises a lot more than the other brands I have been using. After the dough was finished in the bread maker, Erika let the dough rise. Then she tossed the dough like a pizza chef (She wouldn’t let me take a picture) and added all the toppings. 

I placed the stand in the oven along with the pizza. 

A few minutes later…pizza!! 

I’ll be trying to bake sourdough bread in the near future. Stay tuned.    George

Let's get on with it!

Today marks our fifth year in Japan. That’s saying a lot considering how many people had doubts that we were making the right decision to move here. Rather than write a long and drawn out summary of my past five years in Japan, I’ve decided to keep it brief. I love it here!

Okay, maybe not that brief, but really it has been the greatest experience of my life…so far. We often have visitors come to Home Sweet Home. Many of them express the same feeling I have, “It’s like living a dream here.” What they don’t realize is all the hard work that has been done to reach this point. The devoted readers of this blog have a pretty good idea of what has been going on behind the scenes. This post is dedicated to you. Thank you for hanging in there. I have not revealed why this blog is called “Home Sweet Home” other than for the obvious reason, Japan is our home. Next year (hopefully), the main reason will become apparent.

In the near future, I will be exploring some of my hobbies that I haven’t had time for because of the remodel. Stained glass and intarsia will be required to give our home that personal touch it needs. Stay tuned for that. I’ll also be exploring astrophotography and sharing some of the images I’ve taken with the observatory. I’m really excited to get Tsukahara Observatory up and running. The weather has been nothing but one typhoon after another. I need three clear nights to finish calibrating the telescope, dome, and mount. The stars aren’t going anywhere, so I can be patient.

I feel that the next five years will be as satisfying (if not more) than the previous years. However, deep inside I know that all good things must come to an end. The dogs probably won’t be around (you never know) and some of my very old friends will not be either. A great wall of sadness is slowly approaching and all I can do is accept the fact. Sorry for the brief moment of depression. Okay…enough of that. Let’s get on with it, shall we?    George