By: Hinata Derouin

​No matter how simple a grandmother’s recipe is, people have always said that they are filled with love. My grandmother, Patricia, was never much of a cook. My father made this clear many times throughout our lives, mentioning her simple fixes or take-out ventures. But if anything made her kids happier than children on Christmas day, it was the Saturdays she would make her homemade pizza. 

My father was six years old when my grandmother started making her classic recipe. It would always begin with the dough that she received from the school where she was working at part-time.  (She had only worked for a couple of hours in the day since her husband didn’t want her to work. The school was called Philemon Wright High School and it was located in Hull. Her role was to be a hall monitor during lunch, surveying the students for good conduct. The kids at the high school adored her, going as far as to call her "Mom" due to her popularity.) The rest of the ingredients would come from the store. She would grab cheese, pepperoni, green peppers and tomato sauce from a can. Every ingredient was hand-picked carefully; garnering the reviews of her six children and choosing what every kid liked. She would never get mushrooms for the pizza. Her daughter, Alana, despised mushrooms and insisted on her mother leaving them off of the recipe. 

For the baking, my Grandma had pizza pans, put into good use with the heavy dough. She would never only make one pizza. Whether it be from word of mouth or the aroma of gooey cheese and crispy crust wafting from the windows, people from all around the neighbourhood would flock to the Derouin household, itching to receive their slices of pizza. She would spend 30 minutes per pizza, crafting them skillfully to keep up with the demand. 

​The presentation of it was nothing special. Due to the lines of people waiting for their slice, it would be served right from the hot pan exiting the oven. Hands would fumble to grab their piece, the ingredients catered specifically to what the community enjoyed. Their fingers would itch from the prickling heat but no one cared when Patricia’s pizza made its way into their mouths.

I can tell that it meant a lot to my dad. The neighbourhood would gather around to eat his mother’s pizza. They would eat and laugh and bond with one another; whether they were eating with one of their siblings or the kind man next door. When everyone was eating Patricia’s pizza, it meant that any feuds or worries could be left behind. It was a time where the family and the neighbourhood would think of joy and of virtue. It was a moment in their small little bubble of Québec, where they could enjoy the company of one another and the taste of a pizza baked with love. ​

Ingredients

  • Dough 
  • Flour
  • Tomato Sauce
  • Cheese
  • Pepperoni
  • Green Peppers​

Tools

  • Knife & Cutting Board
  • Rolling Pin
  • Baking Sheet & Pan

The Recipe

  1. ​Prepare the green peppers by cutting them into slices with a knife. Gently use the knife to cut out the top, hollowing out the interior and then cutting it in half to easily slice into slivers.​
  2. Begin preparing the dough by generously scattering some flour on a baking sheet then kneading the dough flat with your hands. Eventually, you can begin using a rolling pin to even out the surface and create the signature circular shape of a pizza. 
  3. Next, you must spread your tomato sauce across the flat dough, creating a circle that leaves an area around the perimeter for the eventual crust. You can use a spoon to spread the sauce around the surface but any instrument would work. ​
  4. ​Retrieve your peppers from the first step in the process and distribute them evenly atop the sauce. Strategically place them in various spots to make sure that every slice has a pepper accounted for.
  5. ​Now, grab your cheese and disperse it over the sauce and peppers. Be as bountiful as you would like with the amount of cheese, as long as it covers the majority of the meal.
  6. ​Almost at the final step, grab your pepperoni and spread it on top of the pizza. Be aware of how many slices of pepperoni you set on each portion, remembering how they’ll distribute when you cut the pizza into slices. Additionally, you can sprinkle some cheese above the now added pepperoni if you want to make the end result even more cheesy.
  7. ​Finally, set your oven to 425°F and place your pizza in for around 20 minutes. Use your free time by sprucing up your cooking space, clearing away excess flour or returning your leftover ingredients to their proper places in the kitchen.
When the pizza looks done and crispy, you’re free to wrestle with the fidgeting fingers of your family and finally let them have their ferocious bites. Slice the pizza into divided chunks and let everyone go wild!