Now and again it becomes painfully obvious that I shouldn’t be allowed around food. Or I shouldn’t be responsible for food that people expect to eat. Or I shouldn’t have dropped the lovingly hand-crafted gluten-free pizza dough that I had carefully topped with homemade pesto (not so lovingly prepared–more like panicked pesto since the basil took a turn for the worse after I got it from the South of the James Market), chicken, mozzarella, and tomato onto the oven floor.

Pizza from Aziza’s is much better than mine, but you knew that already.

Good thing friends who like blackened chicken showed up soon after because we had some. Blackened oven, too. Blackened mozzarella just hasn’t caught on yet.

I could not get a job at Aziza’s, where Greg Boone makes some of my favorite pizza ever. Lucky for me, I’ll get to taste some next Saturday when we do our next Shockoe Bottom/Church Hill food tour. It works out much better for all concerned–especially the people eating–if I’m allowed around food only when talented people prepare and serve it. Otherwise things get a little messy.

I spilled milk every night of my childhood and though that isn’t a crying shame, I think it set the tone for my relationship with food and drink. I’m a kitchen clutz.