I should have listened to a couple of comments I had last week, advising to let M and her friend A help put the pizza together.

Picked them up after school on Friday and did the usual rounds of butcher and supermarket. The girls were so helpful that I allowed them one bribe, err, treat of a Kinder Surprise each, then off home. They settled down to watch cartoons and I went to the kitchen to make the pizza base. Isn't kneading dough such a great pastime? All the frustrations of the day magically disappear as the dough comes together and gradually develops that springiness that says 'hey, time to let me rest.', then that meditative state as the yeast asserts itself and causes the dough to rise and expand. Only there was to be no meditation for this batch, as the girls were checking every five minutes or so as the alchemy unfolded.

The girls were on the computer by now, using a wonderful drawing program called Kahootz, so I retreated back to the kitchen with the by now well risen dough to finish dinner. One should always listen to inner feelings, last week I saw a pizza bianca (white pizza) for the first time and I recall thinking that would be good for fussy eaters.

And of course there were those comments.

Rolled the dough out to fit my rectangular tin, no need to have a round one yet as my dough twirling skills are non-existent. It's funny, I can still recall the first time I ever saw pizza dough being tossed as a child; a new pizza shop had opened on the high street, which was a novelty at the time, with a window looking straight in on the prep area. I'm sure that there was more dough tossing than was strictly necessary, for the pizza maker had an audience, as people lined up to take a peek at what was going on.

Fitted the rolled dough to the tin and laid the cheese out in thin slices, then slopped the tomato sauce over the top. I found this to be better than having the cheese on top of the sauce, for in my domestic oven, unlike a pizza oven, the heat comes from all around, rather than mostly from the bottom, and in an effort to simulate the right heat to cook the base properly, I turn the heat up to flat out, which tends to burn unprotected cheese.

When the girl's pizza was ready, I took it out to rest and cool and made a second one for myself and wife D, for when she came home later. Popped that one into the oven, sliced the first pizza and served it to the girls. A's first comment was 'yuk, I don't like tomato.' I knew she didn't like sausages from the last time she was over, but I don't recall she complained about the sauce on the hot dog. Perhaps the complaint about the sausage was sufficient in her mind and I should have known better. Sheesh, kids.

Well there was no convincing A to try any, but I kind of think maybe she wasn't hungry after a couple of glasses of Milo, as she didn't ask for anything else. The next morning there were muffins for breakfast and in an ironic touch, A helped herself to M's, whilst M helped herself to the leftover pizza.

Regular readers would recall that M has autism as does her friend. So what's it like when they get together? It's exactly like any other pair of young six year old girls that get together. They played dressups, watched a movie together, squabbled over computer time, didn't sleep for over an hour after they went to bed, talked about who was friends with who. Everything they did was so wonderfully ordinary.

Ordinary - it's such a great word.