The grunt-work of mixing the dough is best done by a machine: a food processor, a bread machine on "dough" cycle, or (best of all) a KitchenAid Mixer, the holy grail of appliances. If none of these are available, roll up your sleeves and mix them in a large bowl by hand. Do the initial mix with the tail-end of a wooden spoon, or with a sturdy case knife. Then turn it out onto a floured board and knead until satiny smooth. In either case, allow one rising, then punch the dough down.

Once you have the dough punched, shape it into a pizza crust. Whether to bake on a stone or a lightly-oiled pan or baking sheet is a personal choice that I tend to take both sides on. Each have their charms; experiment and find which you enjoy most. Another decision: should the baking surface (the pan or stone) be preheated along with the oven, with the pizza slid onto it only as baking begins? Another matter of taste; neither answer is wrong. A preheated baking stone or metal pan will give you a crisper, more well-defined crust.

When shaping the crust, work the dough outward from the center. Optionally, you can make a circle of dough two inches wider than you actually want the pizza to be. Then, fold the outer rim under the pizza, taking up that slack inch around the edge. This "rolling" of the crust will give you a nice, breadlike crust that holds flavors well. Later on, we'll talk about seasoning it.

Notes: This recipe creates dough sufficient for a single pizza with a finished diameter of 12-13 inches. If you want a larger or smaller pie, multiply the desired diameter by itself, and divide the result by 72. That's the cups of flour you need (everything else scales proportionately). Thus, for a gigantic 20-inch pizza, you'd want about 5-1/2 cups of flour! I like to double the recipe given, and make two pizzas - one to eat, and one to slice up and freeze for bag lunches and so on later on.