Time Dilatation - Losing the Hustle

Losing the Hustle mentality takes time.  Only after two years are the earmarks of my Hustle-loss beginning to manifest. Take for instance Pizza. In the Hustle days Pizza was "30 minutes or free".  And you can bet your boots that those Pizza folks were all about Hustle.  We played right along with them, challenging them to do the Hustle, hoping they would fail.  After all, who doesn't like free Pizza.  

Food, in the Hustle Culture, is only an means to an end.  Big Corps realized this in the forms of well stocked break rooms, and gourmet chef prepared "free lunches" [TANSTAFL].  The coveted Expense Account covered thinly veiled meetings held under the auspices of "working" lunches and dinners.  All food-based strategies to eek out a few more business minutes in an already taxed working environment.

Big projects are met with stacks of pizza boxes and cases of Red Bull and Mountain Dew.  Pizza becomes the fast food of Hustle convenience.  Then to add injury to insult, the fastest, most affordable, are the worst.  Ironically though, we all have our favorite pies.  The hand-tossed, fresh ingredient, baked just so with just the right tooth to the crust.  Yet all too often we settle for mediocre or even bad pizza.  All for the sake of the Hustle.

What does all the talk about Pizza have to do with Time Dilatation and Losing the Hustle?

Off and on over the years we have occasionally made our own pizzas.  Truth be told, it was a long drawn out process that rendered thin tough crusted disks with a splattering of sauce, a handful of sliced mushrooms, a few slice black olives, circles of pepperoni and mounds of shredded Mozz.  They ate well enough but ... it was just as easy to pick up a couple of pies on the way home from work.

Then I stopped going to work.  I stopped doing the Hustle.

I started making Pizza, at home, by hand..  Working from a simple recipe (see below) from a dog-eared and tattered copy of Betty Crocker's Cookbook I found that I could turn out a great pie.

Curiously, I noticed time both sped up and slowed down while I made Pizza.  Proofing the yeast takes a comfortable amount of time. Prepping veggies takes a short amount of time.  Letting the dough rest takes a deliberate amount of time.  Forming the crust takes a pliable amount of time.  Dressing the pie is done at a sprightly waltz tempo.  Baking takes almost forever.  Cutting the Pizza takes just a slice of time.  Waiting, so not to endure pizza mouth, takes an eternity.

In following the recipe, engaging in the process, it became clear that the Hustle was the cost-accounting, the measured bracketing of time and attention.  The Hustle would be doing something "important" and  allocating only a small specific slice of time for 'making pizza'.  The Hustle mandated, expected, demanded, that Pizza could only take up so much time.  If Pizza did not fit into it's appropriate time slot then its value was diminished.  Hustle waits for no pizza  Real Pizza, with a capital "P", without Hustle, happens in its own time.

Betty Crocker's Cookbook

Pizza Dough, yields 2 pizzas, 10 - 12 Inches.  (With personal additions.)

Preheat oven to 425 F

In a 2 1/2 Quart mixing bowl add

1 Cup of warm water (95 - 105 F)

1 teaspoon of sugar

2 1/2  teaspoons (1 packet) instant yeast

Mix thoroughly, allow to proof

Add

2 1/2 Cups Flour

1 Teaspoon Salt

2 Tablespoons Oil

(Personal additions 1/2 Teaspoon Garlic Powder, 1/2 Teaspoon Onion Powder, 1 Teaspoon Origano) 

Stir together briskly until dough comes away from the side of the bowl.

Turn out on a floured counter and knead for 1 - 2 minutes.  Cut the dough in half and form into balls. Let them rest for 5 minutes.