There are a lot of ways to go pazzi and we Italian women, possessed of a lively temperament (anema e core, soul and heart), can go pazzi with rage, for example. That the best therapy for raging fury is to get working on a pizza is another thing that not everybody knows.

Take me as a case in point when a current romantic interest says something REALLY stupid about my new perfume before going off with a casual "see you at dinner" over his shoulder. OK, Sweetie, sure thing...Pizza for dinner, darling.

Kneading a pizza requires a good dose of pazzia. I pour about 9 oz. flour onto a a kneading board (pazza! I just finished cleaning...). Over it, I crumble 1/2 oz.+1 tsp. of live yeast, -measured with the maniacal precision of the pazzi,- and mix them with a tablespoon of extra-virgin olive oil. and 4 1/4 ounces warm water.

I thrust my fingers into the ball of dough with great satisfaction, as into a bowling ball. I slap it repeatedly on the tabletop. Kneading a pizza is a valid alternative to physical violence. Quite calmer now, I cover the dough with a clean, dry cloth and set in a warm place to rise. After an hour, I punch it down again and work it on the marble board. Quite clearly, I go at it as though I had him in my hands. I set the dough aside again and let it rise.

A lot of things can happen in a hour. Waiting for the pizza to rise gives you the time to contemplate whether to blow up the bed (not a sexual explosion) or his car (not yet insured). You can also let off a lot of steam in that time...get a grip on yourself. Making a pizza gives you time to think things over and rein in more radical impulses. Perhaps letting them disintegrate one at a time. Maybe you'll even change your mind.

When I'm ready to shape the pizza, the dough will have become tenable and elastic and the rolling pin is almost unnecessary. I've often asked myself why Neapolitans are pflegmatic, kindly, slow and pacific in nature. The answer is that they make pizza. They take their aggressions out on the pizza, disarming the most turbulent of emotions!

The ingredients of a true Neapolitan pizza are tossed artfully upon the round of dough on an oiled oven sheet. Away with passionate rage, light up the aesthetic fires instead --a pizza is a canvas for your creative urges. The red tones of the tomatoes are accented by silver slivers of anchovy and tiny green points of capers. Threads of olive oil capture the light. The hottest of ovens toasts it brown and slices of mozzarella added just before completion make a bright contrast.

In the meantime, HE'S arrived, roses in hand. The pizza's aroma in the stairwell drove him back down to the street to buy the bouquet, then pulled him up the stairs by the nose (elevators are a rarity in the old Trastevere district of Rome). This scent has proved far more appealing than my perfume (which, by the way, was a gift from him!) Well, now...it's the odor he adores and "che profumino!" He's pazzo, that is, crazy, about my pizza. And me. But then, who's surprised? A perfect pizza rounds out a happy end every time...