Pizza Quest Globe

Final Webisode, Tony Gemignani, Respect the Craft

Written By Peter Reinhart
Saturday, 17 December 2011 Webisodes

It’s fitting that we wrap up our first year of PizzaQuest.com with the final segment of our series with World Champion pizzaiolo, Tony Gemignani. We did it in grand fashion, climbing to the top of a hill above the Golden Gate Bridge, looking back on Tony’s new “kingdom.” It looks almost like the Emerald City in The Wizard of Oz, and the view was truly majestic, as you will see (you can see Angel Island and a hint of Alcatraz off in the distance too). But it also gave us a chance to reflect back on some of the key life lessons that Tony shared with us during our time with him. His catchphrase at the restaurant is “Respect the Craft,” and he elaborates a bit in this segment about what he thinks are the keys to success for anyone getting into the pizza game (for those who were with us way back when we launched, you may recall Tony’s guest column — still available in the archives of the Guest Columns section — in which he writes about his strong feelings regarding respect for the craft).

Perhaps his most valuable parting advice in this segment, which sums up so perfectly what we’ve discovered in all our encounters with artisans everywhere that we traveled during our first year of Pizza Quest, and a great place to end the year, is this: “You have to be in love with it.”

Comments

ben_

what’s the name/song of that brasilian singer you have for background music?

cheers

brad

Isn’t she great?!!

Her name is Maria Debarros. She is the wife of a friend of ours. I love her music! She was very kind to let us use it. So, visit her site and spread the word!

http://mariadebarros.com/

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Pizza Quest is a site dedicated to the exploration of artisanship in all forms, wherever we find it, but especially through the literal and metaphorical image of pizza. As we share our own quest for the perfect pizza we invite all of you to join us and share your journeys too. We have discovered that you never know what engaging roads and side paths will reveal themselves on this quest, but we do know that there are many kindred spirits out there, passionate artisans, doing all sorts of amazing things. These are the stories we want to discover, and we invite you to jump on the proverbial bus and join us on this, our never ending pizza quest.

Peter’s Books

American Pie
Artisan Breads Every Day
The Bread Bakers Apprentice
Brother Junipers Bread Book
Crust and Crumb
Whole Grain Breads

...and other books by Peter Reinhart, available on Amazon.com