Guest Columns

A long time ago, I took a trip with my high school buddy, Milan.  We went to Europe one winter to ski and roam around a little.  The two of us didn’t have any real plans, beyond hitting some key ski spots like Chamonix, Zermat, Davos, St Anton, and Kitzbuhel among many others.  We had a stop planned in a small farm town in Slovakia to visit his relatives but,…Read More…

On my last couple of visits to Minnesota, I had been hearing about a unique and must see‚ pizza place in Stockholm, Wisconsin, about 90 minutes from the Twin Cities. So this year, during our annual summer visit to see my wife’s family, we decided it was time to make the trip out there.  On our 14th wedding anniversary, my wife, Julie, and I packed up the car with our…Read More…

My love for Pizza Napoletana started the first time I ever tasted a pizza straight from a wood burning oven in Napoli. I had only been in Italy a couple of days and was not prepared for what I was about to eat. These were the early 90’s, before food blogs or the internet. While I knew that Italy was the birthplace of pizza, I was uneducated when it came…Read More…

Family, Food and Friends Why is pizza such a popular food all across the world?  One reason may be that it is the perfect food to share.  As I was recently writing and posting photos for my Mother’s Day Pizza pictorial, I had to search back through some old photos from a trip I took with my family to Vancouver, BC. I remembered taking some pictures in the Creperie that…Read More…

Recently I returned from a “pizza quest” to Southern Italy and would like to share my thoughts on where and what I think is the perfect or best pizza. I have been making dough for over forty years and pizzas for over twenty; it was only after a spell working at London’s most famous pizzeria, Franco Manca, that I felt capable of making a real pizza. The owner, Guisseppe Mascoli,…Read More…

Lately I’ve been thinking about Roger Bannister. No, Bannister is not the latest hot shot artisan pizza maker. For those of you too young to remember, Roger Bannister was a British track & field athlete who on May 6, 1954 became the first person to run a sub 4 minute mile. Roger, who was later knighted for his efforts, broke what was considered by the general public to be an…Read More…

  Lately I’ve been thinking about pizza and mythology. Certainly the history of Italy is punctuated by myths and legends, from the time of the Etruscans right up to the exploits of the current Prime Minister. So why wouldn’t the subject of pizza be any different? The plain fact is there are a lot of myths and fables (some true and some not so much), but also misinformation, and even…Read More…

Lately I’ve been thinking about barbecue pizza. My favorite local purveyor of pies recently had a daily special he called, “BBQ Pizza.”  I could not order it.  I have little doubt that it was a delicious nosh, but the name just rubbed me the wrong way, and I shared my thoughts, which follow here, with the pizziaolo. Topping a pizza with some combination of meat and barbecue sauce—regardless of quality—does…Read More…

Lately I’ve been thinking about “counterfeiters.”  More specifically, I’ve been thinking about a Latin saying that dates back to the early 1500’s, Caveat Emptor, or, “Let the buyer beware.” In this era, more than any other, it has become crucial that we understand what is truly behind the labels on the products that we buy. Unfortunately this is especially true of Italian products.  With global awareness creating unprecedented demand for…Read More…

A couple days ago, I was doing some work on my laptop at a little cafe in Boulder.  Taking a sip from my Cafe Americano, I looked up to realize I was surrounded by people who seemed completely hypnotized by the light of their computers.  Then a group of high school students came through the line, texting and talking away.  With a quick swipe of a credit card the baristas…Read More…