We're feeling much better about this challenge! In my quest for the perfect homemade pizza my mentee and I reached out to a few more folks for their suggestions. He scoured some cooking blogs and I called some friends. We both got the advice to pre-heat the pizza stone for about an hour in the oven on 500 degrees before cooking the pizza. We were told this would make a delicious, crispy, restaurant style pizza crust- which has been our challenge all along! So.... back to the kitchen we go!
Browned the sausage
Made the sauce
This time we decided to do as the Italians do
and throw the pizza to shape it. This was my
son's idea (he read it in a blog) and it turned out
to be a lot easier to shape the pizza and it was more fun! :)
Their carnivore pizza- on parchment paper on the pre-heated pizza stone
My veggie- pesto pizza on a baking sheet with no parchment paper
And again!
So, a few changes were made during the challenge this week. The goal was to make a crispy restaurant style crust and by reaching out to family, friends, websites, blogs, pinterest and youtube videos, my mentee and I feel like we were successful. In the beginning I was overcome by all of the possibilities. How do I narrow it down to the perfect recipe when blogs all guarantee this is the best recipe ever and friends I'm talking to over Skype or face to face tell me the same thing? Choosing to the try recipes that had the highest numbers of positive comments and saves was a way to narrow it down. Not only does online collaboration give you ideas, tools, step by step directions, videos and photos to assist in whatever your endeavor may be, you also have the benefit of not making the same mistakes others before you have made. Recipes often need to be modified so I took the time to read over peoples' comments to see what worked and didn't work for them which saved me a lot of time with trial and error.
As I was perusing blogs of chefs I like to watch on tv, I took note of the professional digital identities they have created. Some have thousands of followers on their blogs, Twitter and Pinterest accounts. Quite impressive and I imagine they have some help to keep all of their accounts updated and accurate. Over the course of this challenge I've had some time to consider my digital identity as well. I am quite content being known by just my close friends and family but I also have to admit that I had fun creating this blog. It was a lot easier than I had expected and I only scratched the surface as far as what could be done to enhance the images and make it more appealing. I love to cook and wondered what it would be like to create a blog that got enough followers and attention to have advertising and bring in an income. How fun that would be!
My digital footprint has obviously increased now that I have created a blog. Before this learning challenge I also thought I was pretty savvy about internet searches and what was out there but I've learned much more through my research and even from my teenage mentee so I feel like I have a better understanding of the options available to me through online collaboration. For instance, I know that I prefer Google search engines over Explorer, I've learned how to better organize my online recipe collections and offer my own feedback when I try a new recipe. Since I now realize the value in sharing this information anonymously, I will take the time to be more of a contributor instead of a casual searcher. It's also clear to me now just how much time it takes these bloggers to post and share in the hopes that they will receive feedback from those that follow their blog. I can put myself if their shoes and see the importance of leaving a quick comment to show appreciation or pipe in on a conversation they have started. Without participation and feedback people would most likely not continue to make the effort. We need the audience in order to feel like what we're doing online matters.
Bloggers, Tweeters, and website contributors all share what they know or what they've experienced with their online followers. My blog is accessible to anyone and like countless other blogs, it adds to an online learning community. It's not one that I believe would really be worth sharing at the moment but I feel like the increased footprint has taught me the skills to possibly create a teaching blog that I would like to share with colleagues one day. Since we'll be living in Italy, it could certainly be one to share my personal and professional growth and adventures ( with pizza included of course)!
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