Facebook just IPO’d and I expect Mark Zuckerberg is probably just a little bit shitters right now. I hope he is anyway – I would be. It’s not too long ago that he refused an offer from Yahoo for $1Bn and everyone thought he was arrogant and deluded. Now Facebook has a $100Bn market capitalisation. Over a thousand FB millionaires were created today and Mark Zuckerberg is worth over $20B. News like this used to make me jealous – now I just love it. And while it’s a little disconcerting that a twenty-something in a hoodie runs one of the largest businesses in the world that has deeply personal information about over 900 million people, it’s just amazing to think that all this can have been over the course of 8 years. We do live in exciting times.

As an aside – if I ever use the phrase serial entrepreneur in any circumstance apart from the next paragraph please kill me immediately. Put me out of my misery as quickly as you can. The only time it is ever acceptable to use such a phrase is if you build a business empire from the ground up selling a new form of coco-pops that actually have some nutritional value. And even then you would have to spell it differently. I mean honestly – what does it even mean? You were an entrepreneur, and then you became an entrepreneur, and after that you were an entrepreneur? How about just calling yourself an entrepreneur (which, let’s be honest, is pretty wanky on its own without the serial bit)? People don’t call themselves serial bank managers, or serial mechanics, or serial hairdressers, even if they manage more than one bank, fix cars in more than one garage or cut hair in more than one salon, so why the fuck should anyone call themselves a serial entrepreneur? Seriously.

Semolina.
As it turns out, that’s the trick to a getting a really good crispy pizza base. That and rolling the pizza dough out very thinly. and putting it into a really, bastardly hot oven.

So this is what you do: Make a strong white bread dough as normal, but add a good handful of finely ground semolina. Divide it into balls that are about the size of oranges, wrap them individually in cling film and stick them in the fridge. Leave them in there until you want to make your pizza. I’ve left them in there for up to a week and they’ve been fine (and as the yeast gets to work expanding the dough within the cling film, they turn into something looking not too dissimilar to rather substantial breast implants – great fun to play with). Now when you roll out the dough, instead of flouring the surface, use semolina again, and remember to roll it very very thinly.

For the tomato base, I get a tin of tomatoes, a clove of garlic, a chopped onion and handful of oregano or basil and whizz them together in a blender along with plenty of seasoning.

Now get your oven hotter than hot, stick your rolled-out pizza dough on a large baking tray and chuck a bunch of tasty things on top.

This time I used a few spoonfuls of the tomato base along with some torn mozzarella and olive oil, whacked it in the oven for 5 mins, brought it out and added a pack of good prosciutto, scrunched up a little over the top of the pizza and whacked it in again for another 5 mins. Then I took it out, covered it in rocket, more olive oil and a little more seasoning. Perfect.