Pizza Talk

Will  Grant burst on the culinary scene about 4 years ago when he started winning competitions with pizzas made on his 100% sourdough crust, whose starter was cultivated at his pizzeria, That’s a’ Some Pizza, on Bainbridge Island, Washington. The starter is a family legacy and Will is one of several pizza influencers, such as Anthony Mangieri, Dan Richer, Anthony Falco, and others whom we’ve featured here on Pizza Talk,…Read More…

Pizza Quest and Pizza Talk have always been about more than pizza. On our home page we write about, “Celebrating artisanship wherever we find it,” because artisans are our real community of kindred spirits, of which pizza is but one spoke (albeit, a very large spoke!). But another big spoke is, of course, the bread baking community and, in that branch of our family there is one name that towers…Read More…

This week Scott Wiener takes us, via his pizza box collection, to two north of the border pizzerias that both evoke Brooklyn, NY as their ethos and as part of their brand names. So what is it about Brooklyn pizza that gives it its iconic status as a cultural reference point? It seems, as you will see, that a pizza box truly can open the door to deep (or not…Read More…

A few years ago we featured a series of webisodes on Pizza Quest.com with Anthony Mangieri, the legendary pizzaiolo and founder of Una Pizza Napoletana (UPN for short) when it was located in San Francisco. You can revisit those videos by starting here, where I dubbed him “the Chopin of pizza.” (You’ll have to watch the video to know why I call him that.) Anthony is a no-compromise kind of…Read More…

Sandor Katz, aka Sandorkraut, is the most popular go-to guy in the world when it comes to all things fermentation, whether applied to dough, beer, wine, spirit beverages, kombucha, and, especially, pickles and sauerkraut. His book, The Art of Fermentation: An In-Depth Exploration of Essential Concepts and Processes from Around the World, is the “bible” of the fermento universe. Sandor’s work began as a study to determine the extent to…Read More…

Yes, in Westland and Livonia Michigan there is a pizzeria group called Slice of the ’80’s, and Scott Wiener takes us there via this new box, recently added to his world record collection. No only do we get to enjoy their wonderful box art, with it’s nostalgic look back to an era many of either lived through or can’t remember that we lived through, but Scott calls them on the…Read More…

The first rule of Pizza School NYC is that you don’t talk about Pizza School. Actually, that’s not true, we’re happy to talk about it, especially with its founders, Mark and Jenny Bello, who have taught thousands (perhaps even 50,000, according to their reckoning) of household cooks how to make great pizza at their Lower East Side pizza school during the past 10 years. We’ll hear all about their journey,…Read More…

Sarah Minnick has emerged as one of the important new voices in the artisan pizza movement. She brings a chef’s sensitivities, an artist’s insight (she originally went to Rhode Island School of Design), and a down to earth perspective to everything she makes at her destination restaurant, Lovely’s 50-50, where she has grown a passionate following. In this interview you’ll learn more about her and her vision for pizza and…Read More…

Floriana Pastore, as I learned from Scott this week, is an Italian pizzaiola superstar. She has now opened a mobile pizzeria, Signora Pizza, in Las Vegas, where she makes award winning Neapolitan pizza (you can check out her Facebook page here). Scott recently added her new box to his world record collection, and it’s a good 0ne, full of thoughtful elements (such as an inside the box reflective panel to…Read More…

Just in time for Halloween, a whole show devoted to exploring the real zombies in our midst. Dr. Athena Aktipis is a professor at Arizona State University, the founder of the Zombie Apocalypse Medicine Show, and she knows what she’s talking about. You will learn how little you know about real zombies in our midst when you watch this fascinating conversation. I’ll say no more (a zombie is trying to…Read More…