Pizza Quest Homepage

Michael Kalanty was my faculty colleague when I taught at the California Culinary Academy back in the 1990’s. Since then, he and I have been on parallel tracks, both as educators, bread authors, and as product developers. In this episode, Michael shares his long and winding road from pastry chef, bread expert and educator, product developer for major food companies, and even how he became a “Certified Master Taster.” All…Read More…

I just wanted to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving from all of us here at Pizza Quest. I just had another round of left-overs for lunch.  We did our Thanksgiving up north with our in-laws on Wednesday because we had to be back in town this weekend for our daughter’s Softball Tournament.  It turns out that the rains came and today’s games were cancelled.  So, instead of being out in…Read More…

There is a new app in development that will help any traveler track down the best artisan pizzerias wherever they go, at least in the USA (for now — maybe they’ll cover the whole world if it succeeds). The developers have just launched an Indiegogo campaign to raise the funds they need to complete the project. They have figured out a method to limit the recommendations to only highly rated…Read More…

Hi All, Just a quick announcement.  I just heard from Craftsy that they are running a Memorial Weekend Sale and will be donating a portion from each sale to various veterans groups.  Some of the courses are as much as 60% off.  To check out their courses go to: http://www.craftsy.com/ext/PeterReinhart_holiday This sale ends at midnight Monday.  BTW, the free Mini-Pizza Course now has over 37,000 people enrolled — I’m blown…Read More…

Hi Everybody, A quick announcement: I mentioned in my previous posting that Craftsy.com will be creating a free pizza mini-course with me soon (as a follow-up to my longer artisan breads course, which has just passed the 2,500 mark in sign-ups), but I just learned that they are also running a special holiday sale through Monday night (midnight), Nov. 26th. Not only is my course on sale but every course…Read More…

Hi Everyone, Tonight at midnight is the celebration of Eastern Orthodox Easter (Pascha — yes, it’s one week later this year than the Western Easter, as they only fall on the same dates about once every 4 years) so I don’t have my Part 2 of last week’s blog ready yet. I’ll be working on it in a couple of days and get it posted as soon as I can….Read More…

Hi Everyone, A quick update to let you know that the IACP (International Association of Culinary Professionals) opened voting today to the general public to vote for your favorite food blog as well as cook book and a couple of other categories. We’d love your vote — Pizza Quest is already a nominee in the judges category but the People’s Choice Award would be even more meaningful. So please pass…Read More…

Usually, I post a new Peter’s Blog on Tuesdays but this week we received such a great Guest Column from our friend and frequent contributor, John Arena, that I wanted to post it ASAP, so I’m switching places with him (see below) and I’ll be back at the end of the week with my regular Peter’s Blog. In addition, Brad is currently in NYC on a filming project and is…Read More…

We’re taking a Thanksgiving break this week, questing for the perfect turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and cranberry sauce.  I will, however, be doing some test baking this week with sprouted wheat flour crusts for the new pizza cafe project we’re opening here in Charlotte soon, so it won’t be a totally pizza free week. More on that in upcoming weeks. Meanwhile, this would be a great time for newcomers to…Read More…

Things get back to normal this week now that we’ve reported on our whirlwind trip to Denver and are settling back in. Our usual schedule is: Tuesday: Peter’s Blog Wednesday: Instructional or Recipes Thursday: Webisode or other videos Friday: Guest Column We don’t always have something every week for each of these sections, and we’re putting together our content now for this week, so keep checking back to see what’s…Read More…