Webisodes

Okay, this is the webisode many of you have been waiting for, where Tony Gemignani shows us all four of his ovens and also, as a bonus, explains the difference between the various types of Double Zero flour — it’s a whirlwind of information and I think you will want to watch it more than once and take notes. One of the joys we’ve had in traveling and meeting all…Read More…

I was mistaken last week when I said the Margherita that Tony made was his World Championship version. Actually, this week is the version that won it all. As it turns out, last week’s pizza was made with Caputo flour and this week’s is made with San Felice flour. When Tony won the World Championship in Naples, which he’ll talk about a little in this week’s segment, he used the…Read More…

In this webisode, Tony teaches me (and you) how he makes the Margherita pizza that won him the world championship. You’ll notice a few great tips, things that aren’t commonly known even by professional pizza makers, such as: the traditional Napoletana way to load the pizza onto the peel; shaping the dough on the marble slab as opposed to lifting or spinning it; when to put the basil on; and…Read More…

I love North Beach, the legendary Little Italy of San Francisco, where the beatniks ruled during my youth, Carol Doda launched a whole new kind of soul baring, and some of the best Italian restaurants and espresso cafes have ruled for decades (and now lots of great Chinese and pretty much something from every ethnicity). It was especially fun to return just after local boy, Tony Gemignani, opened Tony’s Pizza…Read More…

You are about to see a big ol’ wedge of moist carroty goodness, the carrot cake from Morro Bay’s Taco Temple, made by their pastry queen, Donelle Pollard. This is a short little dessert of a video, a fun, happy transition piece between our visit to California’s Central Coast and our upcoming series in San Francisco with Tony Gemignani (which begins on September 1st). As I say on the video,…Read More…

So, how did we end up at The Cass House Inn? After all, it’s not a pizzeria, it’s far from big population centers, and we’re ending this series not with a pizza but with a fancy lamb dish and a plush wine. To answer this question let me reiterate what Pizza Quest is beyond the search for the perfect pizza: a celebration of artisans and artisanship (or, as noted in…Read More…

Traci Nixon and Christa Hozie had an idea and they went for it. Somehow, they have managed to make a style of cookies so tasty that, even hidden away in the small town of Cayucos, people from all over the country have found them. They told me that a lot of their business is by mail order, so feel free to check out their website and give them a shout….Read More…

One of the great joys in being on the quest for perfect pizza is that it truly is a discovery process. As Chef Jensen Lorenzen and I played in his outdoor kitchen at the Cass House Inn I think we both felt that we were stepping into exciting, new territory. He knows food and ingredients and how flavors come together; I know dough; he had a brand new wood-fired oven…Read More…

Okay, so we picked up our smoked albacore at Ruddell’s Smoke House and now what?  Time to make a pizza, of course. Chef Jensen is an inventive cook and has a great eye for presentation as well as a firm grasp on how to use fresh, locally sourced ingredients.  And I’m big on the use of acidity — this time in the form of both hot an cold heirloom tomatoes…Read More…

I love smoked fish of all types. As a child, nearly every Sunday morning in our family we had some kind of smoked fish platter for brunch, usually lox and bagels but often sturgeon, kippers (hot-smoked salmon as opposed to the cold-smoked Nova Scotia and belly lox), white fish, or whatever else my folks were able to find at the local deli. That’s probably where my fascination with smoked foods…Read More…