Muffin Top

white chocolate chunk cookies, originally uploaded by c(h)ristine.

I needed some cheering up today. So I made a big batch of white chocolate chunk cookies. It worked! I used the same recipe as for chocolate chunk cookies, except with white chocolate chunks (valrhona, lindt, and ghirardelli). I also added some walnuts (I had some lying around) in the last half of this batch.

Since they cheered me up–I thought I’d share. Maybe they’ll cheer you up too.

An experiment: fried egg pizza, originally uploaded by c(h)ristine.

We went to Gioia’s pizza in Berkeley for a slice of pizza. There really is no better New York Style pizza in the near East Bay (or maybe the entire San Francisco Bay Area) than the crispy thin pies at Gioia’s Pizzeria in North Berkeley. They even, most days, have one pizza topping option that would satisfy the “California pizza” lovers out here (like asparagus). But my favorites are the more traditional cheese, and anchovy pizzas.

I ordered my usual slice of New York style cheese pizza and then spotted this thing waaay behind, in the back. “What is that? Is that an experiment?” It looked like a pizza slice with a fried egg on top of it. The employees smiled. “Nope, not an experiment, it’s just someone who’s crazy around here.” They pointed to the guy who was busy making pizza dough.

Then they gave me the slice. For free. (”Want to try?” they asked. I nodded, because I HAD to try–after all, I also had “cheese bibimbap” when I encountered it on a menu in Tokyo). They refused to take money for it–was that a sign? Was this pizza not worth the price? I said I’d tip them for the courtesy; they heartily accepted.

They stuck the slice in the oven to warm it up, and when it came out the egg that had been “easy over” with a yolk just a millimeter away from running out all over the pizza was considerably cooked. “It’s a little spicy,” they said; they didn’t need to say it, I could smell the spice from inches away. It smelled like salsa–the pizza’s toppings included chilis and ham and onions and tomatoes and a spicy salsa. This, I thought, would be like huevos rancheros on pizza.

It wasn’t bad. It wasn’t great. But it wasn’t bad.

I later got home and googled “egg pizza”–apparently, this isn’t so uncommon! On flickr itself, a search for egg pizza yielded lots of pictures of delicious looking egg pizza (better than this one I took of my slice–sorry, all I had was a cameraphone!). If you are so inclined, you can also make an egg pizza yourself–The Food Network has an egg pizza recipe in its database. Wowee.

Anyway. Consensus: It wasn’t bad. It wasn’t great. But it wasn’t bad. Maybe I was really hungry.