Pizza Quest Webisodes

We’re back with Part 3 of our wood-fired mini-class with the talented Brigit Binns, and her equally talented “Cinder-Fella,” husband Casey Biggs. Here, at the Forno Bravo Wood-fired Expo,  held at the beautiful Talbott Vineyards in Carmel Valley, CA,  they demonstrate their own colorful version of a Mediterranean-inspired chorizo-fennel pizza. Brigit always has lots of cooking tips for us, and Casey has figured out a few things, too, regarding how…Read More…

We’re back with Part Two of our wood-fired cooking session with Brigit Binns and her husband, Casey Biggs (aka “The Cinderfella”). If you recall, in Part One Brigit teased us with her inventive wood-fired chicken thighs, baked with Greek olives, capers, chorizo, artichoke hearts, and tomatoes (click here if you missed Part One).  As we finally get to taste the crispy skin and super tender and savory chicken and sauce…Read More…

This is the first of a series of webisodes featuring cooking teacher Brigit Binns, of Refugio in Paso Robles, California who, with her husband Casey, has created a fabulous retreat and conference center in the Central Coast Wine Country. Brigit is also a featured chef for Forno Bravo, who hosted this Wood-Fired Oven Expo in Salinas, CA, where I got to cook with Brigit and Casey and learn some of…Read More…

Danica Alvarado is a bright light. I had the pleasure of meeting her at the Forno Bravo Expo in Salinas, California, where hundreds of fellow fire-freaks gathered for a few days of food, wine, music, and wood-fire fun in the sun. Danica told me that, as a teenager, she was inspired by watching Nancy Silverton shape beautiful pizzas right here during our first season of Pizza Quest, so she spent…Read More…

Hi Everyone, Once again, here is John Arena, the legendary pizzaiolo from Las Vegas, Nevada, mentoring us all in the craft and history of pizza, with a little help from me, as we make a pizza in reverse, so to speak. You’ll see what I mean when you watch and, who knows, it may give you some ideas to play with on your own. Note: I just returned from the…Read More…

Since I am about to moderate a panel discussion with Nancy Silverton and Brian Spangler at the 2018 Pizza Expo (and expect to see many of you there on March 21st at 9:45), I wanted to bring back this terrific video interview we did with Nancy a few years ago as a way to prime the pump. Between this webisode and the interview I posted a few days ago with…Read More…

This was one of the most fun parts of the Forno Bravo Expo for me, because I got to jam with the great John Arena, who you’ve been watching in the previous webisodes. We created some fun topping here, for use in the next webisode (Part 2) when we’ll fire bake the doughs and then top them after they come out of the oven (or just tear them up and…Read More…

Hi Everyone, Here’s a great holiday treat for you: John Arena, who we’ve featured in the previous few webisodes, describes to the folks who gathered at the Forno Bravo Expo how the iconic pizzaiolo, Domenico (Dom) De Marco, founder, owner, and pretty much the only pizza maker for the past 60 years at Di Fara Pizza in Brooklyn, makes his legendary pizzas. Talk about the roots of “Slow Food!” You’ll see…Read More…

Hi Everyone, We’re back with another session featuring the great John Arena. In this segment, John gives us more common sense pizza philosophy and tips on wood vs. metal peels, as well as showing us how to make a simple tribute pizza to ancient Pompeii, destroyed (and preserved in volcanic ash) by the Mt. Vesuvius eruption about 2,000 years ago. As always, John always teaches us something we didn’t already…Read More…

This webisode is part of our ongoing series from the 2015 Forno Bravo Oven Expo, at Talbott Vineyards in Salinas, California. For three glorious, sunny days we had the opportunity to meet and cook with passionate, fellow “fire-freaks,” and work side-by-side with talented chefs, oven owners, growers, cheese and wine makers, and famous pizzaiolos like John Arena. John, as many of you already know, is a regular Guest Columnist here…Read More…