Pletzel Pizza? Okay, Lazy Man Pizza...Yiddish Style

Yes, yes, I know – Im a lazy, good-for-nothing. I've blogged about that before.

But that’s only during the summer, I promise. You know, once the weather cools off, I’m back in the kitchen cooking and baking and becoming a whirling dervish of food.  Strange, though, how the summer, while ostensibly offering the greatest seasonal pleasures that the garden has to offer, also makes me want to do nothing but stay in an air-conditioned apartment or move to San Francisco, only one of which is really possible. Oh well; that’s just me. Actually, I secretly long for those two months a year (September and October) when the summer produce bounty is still real AND I feel like cooking. Whatever.

Of course, there is still some cooking to be done. After all, Significant Eater needs to eat... and so do I.  Indeed, I always make breakfast and I even make lunch, once in a while, on the weekends.  

But, I take shortcuts. Lots of ‘em.  And just last week when I stopped by one of my local bakeries,  a bakery that I sometimes slam about their eponymous product, but which I nevertheless love in general... 

I picked up some goodies for the weekend and I had a brilliant idea (at the same time, no less)...how about a pletzel pizza?

Okay, okay – I know what most of you are saying… “What’s a pletzel?” Much less a pletzel pizza.

Literally, translated from Yiddish (thanks to Arthur Schwartz), a pletzel is a small town square; a piazza perhaps. In Paris, the heart of the 13^th century Jewish quarter (in the Marais) was known in Yiddish as the Pletzl, according to jewishvirtuallibrary.org.

Would it help if I told you a pletzel is an onion board? I thought not. Well then, let’s go to the wiki for their definition of a pletzel. Wiki says it’s: 

…a traditional Jewish specialty…an onion and seed covered, focaccia-like flatbread. The dough for pletzel resembles challah dough, but it is rolled very thin and is not allowed to rise.

Wait! So it’s actually nothing like a pizza. Made with a totally different dough, with seeds on it and everything; oy. But it still sorta looks like a pizza, doesn’t it? Go ahead, use your imagination…

See...I thought so...thanks. Anyway, I brushed that pletzel with a bit of olive oil, topped it with sliced heirloom tomatoes (summer!) and a bit of gruyere I had in the fridge and threw it into the toaster oven...

And whaddya know? Pletzel pizza, that’s what. And while it’s nothing like the real deal, it is  a real lazy pizza man’s way out. Sig Eater liked it, or so she said. Well, at least until the fall...