Webisodes

We continue our exploration of Vera Pizza Napoletana with our Naples guru Peppe Miele. In this installment we turn to the wood-fired oven that is absolutely essential if you want to get certified as a real deal, verace pizza guy. It’s hard to believe, but important to recall, that only a few years ago in the United States a wood-fired oven siting was a rare and exciting discovery. Little by…Read More…

Peppe Miele, our Virgil of the Vera Pizza Napoletana universe, continues his guided tour in this segment, turning his attention to one of my favorite subjects, dough fermentation. We receive a lot of e-mails asking about how long dough should be fermented before making the pizzas, and the answers are nearly infinite and weighted with lots of theories and opinions. But Peppe cuts right to the chase as to the…Read More…

In this short segment we discuss with Peppe the use of Italian -00- (Double Zero) flour, which he defines as a balance between the fineness of the grind (ground very fine and, in my words, extracted from the pure endosperm with all the fiber sifted out) and the protein content (he doesn’t specify the amount but it’s probably between 10%-11.5%).  An important take-away form this conversation is the ideal fermentation…Read More…

Welcome Back! We have 10 webisodes in this interview series with Peppe Miele, so we’ll be covering a lot in the coming weeks. In this segment, Peppe explains a little more about the Vera Pizza Napoletana school of thought, focusing on the famous tomatoes from San Marzano. As you will see, the sauce made from these tomatoes is beautiful (and it tastes as good as it looks, with a fresh,…Read More…

We’re back with a new series of webisodes featuring a fascinating conversation with Peppe Miele, the first restaurateur to open a certified Vera Pizza Napoletana pizzeria in the United States. We did this interview a couple of years ago, before he closed his beautiful cafe, Antica Pizzeria, in Marina del Rey, California, due to a massive rent increase (it wasn’t far from the LA Airport — listen carefully and you…Read More…

So we come to the end of the story, at least this story that began with Kelly Whitaker and I challenging Patrick Rue to make a beer inspired by a pizza. If you’ve been following it from the start this finale segment is kind of a denouement, as we, sated and satisfied, drift off into the Denver sunset, having our own Pizza Quest version of a Rocky Mountain high. If…Read More…

So, if you’ve been following our webisode series, we’ve been building up to the moment when the pizza, created by Kelly Whitaker and Alan Henkin of Basta, along with me and the Pizza Quest team — who came up with the Germainia Malted Dough — finally meet the beer created by Patrick Rue and his Bruery team. In the previous segment, we showed the Bruery guys two different pizzas and…Read More…

In our previous webisode we made two different pizzas for Patrick Rue and his team and challenged them to create a beer inspired by one of them. In this segment, you will see the choice that Patrick and his head brewer Tyler made, as well as an interesting discussion on the thinking behind all the choices. The red pizza was made with spiced pork jowl (guanciale), local pistachios, Mimolette cheese,…Read More…

When Kelly Whitaker and Al Henkin, of Boulder’s wonderful brick oven restaurant, Basta, collaborated with me and our Pizza Quest team to create two pizzas, one red and one white, to challenge Patrick Rue and his Bruery team, we came up with a couple of very strong contenders. You can hear, as they explain the rationale and sourcing they put into each of their ingredients, how much thought went into…Read More…

The story unfolds (and if you are just joining us, you can see all the segments leading up to this one by going to the Webisodes section — see the button above — and catch up): So, here we are, the Basta team, our Pizza Quest team, and Patrick Rue, the owner and beermeister visionary of The Bruery, in Placentia, CA (Orange County). We threw down the gauntlet in our…Read More…