Puppies And Pizza

The puppies peer over the door in the puppy room downstairs. They are full of energy and love to play when they're not devouring puppy biscuits.

Our friends in Illinois, Tom and Harriett, have five dogs at home and currently are caring for five puppies (not to mention six kittens) until they are old enough to be adopted out. The puppies are a mixed breed and are just adorable. They arrived when they were four weeks old, and now they're eight weeks; Harriet says it'll be about another week or so before they're ready to find new homes and she's confident that they will be adopted quickly.

Harriett in her and Tom's fabulous new kitchen. The pizza oven is in the back on the left.

Friday night was pizza night at Tom's and Harriett's place. They recently remodeled their kitchen to expand it and include a wood-fired pizza/bread oven.

Tom built a fire and got the oven up to around 1,000 degrees. He makes his own sourdough pizza dough and prepared three pizzas for our dinner. One was a marguerita style, one had potatoes and a white sauce, and the third was tomato and herb. Amazingly good!

The first two pizzas bake in the oven. As you might imagine, they cook very quickly.

While we sat at the kitchen bar and sipped wine, we watched as Tom built the fire, prepared the dough and the pizzas, and baked each one to perfection.

Tom's third pizza, with cheese and yellow and red tomatoes and herbs from their garden.

There's an Illini football home game this afternoon (against Ohio) and Harriett is working a booth. We'll be preparing our suitcases for tomorrow's drive to Chicago and our flight home to France. It's been an amazing tour this past month and we've really enjoyed seeing everyone.

This last stop has been wonderful, seeing Harriett and Tom, hanging out with the dogs, and enjoying gourmet pizza. We'll be back online in a couple of days once we get settled in at home. We have jet lag to look forward to!