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The first thing I have to say is that the pizza party was a big success. All five pizza recipes worked well; two were surprise standout hits.

My grand plan for stress-free preparation was only a partial success. I had decided to manage this dinner party like I manage software development projects: break down each task into small pieces, assign time estimates to each, add up the time estimates to make a schedule, then work backwards from the due date to ensure that everything is finished when it is needed.

But just like most of my software development projects, this took about 20% longer than we figured.

The problem was that the schedule didn’t account for everything we had to get done. Interim cleanup is one example: had we not washed any dishes during the prep, the kitchen would have become unworkable, with every surface covered in stacks of used knives, cutting boards, bowls, saute pans, etc. We didn’t allow time for cleaning dishes, but it had to get done.

Otherwise, things ran pretty smoothly. Specifically, having a schedule for the ovens was a big help; the oven-roasted toppings were done on time, and the pizza stones had time to come up to temperature without delaying dinner.

The dough, mixed previously, had to be scaled before rising. This requires a dough scraper, a kitchen scale, a sheet pan, parchment paper, spray oil, white flour, semolina flour, water spritzer, counter space, and a clean plastic garbage bag. Each of the dough balls is rolled tightly and placed on the parchment (sprayed with oil, dusted with semolina), which sits on a sheetpan, which goes into a plastic bag that is misted inside with water. There the dough sits for two hours to rise. During this time, the gluten relaxes to such a great degree that shaping the pizza crusts takes only a few easy tugs.

I didn’t take any other photos of the prep — another task we didn’t put into the schedule was “shoot pictures (10 minutes).”

We had only one recipe mishap. The “Manchu Spicy Garlic Chicken” pizza called for carmelized onions sauteed with a brown sugar and vinegar glaze. The glaze, after cooling for 45 minutes, turned brittle. When it came time to spread the onions on the dough, I was surprised to pick up a rigid chunk of what was essentially carmelized onion candy. At first I began crumbling it onto the pizza, but then I thought better and tossed it in the trash. We served the pizza without onions, and nobody missed them.

Sullivan Street Potato Pizza, made with Yukon Gold potatoes and sweet yellow onions, was one of the group favorites. The recipe (as was noted previously) is from Artisan Baking. Because it’s a (vegan) cheeseless pizza, it can be easily served at room temperature, which is useful for pacing a five-pie meal with the limitations of a two-oven kitchen.

Smoked salmon pizza with creme fraiche, red onion, corn, and mint, was the bold experiment of the evening, and it turned out wonderfully. (It looks a little funky, but it tasted great.) We invented our own process for this pizza, based on a Wolfgang Puck recipe and a description of the salmon/corn/mint combination in an old food-section article in the newspaper. The individual flavors are surprisingly complementary. This was my personal favorite.

Within this five-pie feast I was running a dough experiment; the second batch had barely been kneaded, in an effort to make a crunchier crust. The results were clear: the fully kneaded dough was superior. The experiment didn’t yield a crunchy crust, but an overly-chewy one.

We closed the meal with Millenium Midnight Mousse Cake, which most guests ate with whipped cream. I was entertained by this because the pie itself is self-consciously vegan (made with tofu rather than butter/cream/eggs).

And then later I knocked back a tablespoon of fresh-ground flax meal in a shot of orange juice, a little fiber treat for my overwrought intestines. Good luck with that cheese, boys!