P. I. Z. Z. A.

This post needs no explanation, but I will give it one because I love the subject so very much.

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To define what pizza means to me would be impossible. I can come close by providing a short list of words that describe how pizza makes me feel:

• elated
• high
• fulfilled
• rainbows
• dreamy

Pizza just makes me happy to be alive. When I began researching the Specific Carbohydrate Diet, I became intimidated and fearful when I realized that I may never eat real pizza again. I’ll save you the sob story and skip right to the best part: Eleven months after that terrible realization, I have developed a recipe for great tasting pizza.

Note: deliciousness of this product was evaluated by someone who does not eat according to the paleo diet or the SCD.

Deliciousness was approved.

Kara Marsh, my taste tester and best friend, was just as obsessed with this pizza as I was.

Now, enough chatter and onto the recipe.

Ingredients for the crust:

• 2 eggs
• 1 head of cauliflower
• 4 tbsp. almond flower
• 1/4 cup parmesan cheese
• 1/8 tsp. baking soda
• salt
• pepper

Materials:

• pizza pan or baking sheet
• kitchen towel
• potato masher or, more preferably, food processor
• parchment paper

Steps:

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees
2. Wash and cut cauliflower into 1-inch chunks
3. Steam cauliflower for 5-8 minutes, or until slightly tender (you can wiggle a fork in it)
4. Allow the cauliflower to cool and whiz it in a food processor until it resembles rice
5. Place the veggie into a dish towel and squeeze the heck out of it, ensuring as much water is removed as possible
6. Combine eggs, drained cauliflower, almond flower, cheese, baking soda and salt and pepper
7. Take half the mixture and place it on a baking sheet topped with parchment paper. Push the mixture down until it resembles a rolled out pizza dough. You are looking for a thin, even pizza crust
8. Bake for about 30 minutes, but check up on it to make sure it is not burning. It should be beautiful and golden brown when you add toppings
9. Remove pizza, flip it over, and add whatever toppings you like. Pop it back into the oven and remove it when the cheese (if you are using cheese) is brown and bubbly

 Keep tinkering around with this recipe until it becomes your own. Change toppings, add herbs to the crust. Be creative.

Until next time, my lovely readers!

Back to Reality

Looking back at my experience in Berlin feels like trying to recall a dream. I search for memories of Berlin, but they come back to me out of order. I’ll suddenly have a flashback of the Reichstag followed by a walk through Tiergarten. But that’s not the way it happened.

My mind merges my flights to Germany with my flights back to the States. It confuses flavors and sounds and sights.

All those thoughts make me wish I was back, though, so I could remember what it was all like again in the same surreal vividness and vibrancy that first captivated me.

When I returned home from Berlin, I was hurtled into the real world once again. In Berlin my mind and body were both at peace. But just two days back in the United States, my stomach was a wreck. I had to return to Gainesville with my mother because I was so weak and sick.

Since I began with the SCD I never really broke the rules. I would occasionally eat a few bites of pasta or a few potato chips, but other than that I stuck with it. I realized that this diet does not control my disease, but when I am not in a flare up it helps. So I stuck with it for the most part in Berlin and when I arrived home too.

I was very sick all throughout June and July. Now that school has started I finally feel better, but my perspective on this diet has changed. Now I will allow myself to have soy sauce. I’ll indulge in plantains and maple syrup (not together of course). I should have let myself eat the ice cream at the TV Tower on our last night in Berlin.

I am eternally grateful that I felt perfectly healthy whilst in Germany. I wouldn’t have had the spectacular time I did if I wasn’t feeling well. I wish I could go back and eat a lamb sausage at Prater Garten. But I’m back in Gainesville, which means that Berlin is far away and reminders of it come when I see a fellow classmate or my professor who led the trip.

For you, dear reader, while I sadly sit in Florida and not Berlin, you can be happy because this can only mean one thing for you: MORE AWESOME RECIPES.