Happy New Year, 2020!

That’s me with Brian Spangler of Apizza Scholls, and John Arena of Metro Pizza. We’ll be together again in March at Pizza Expo presenting our popular panel, “Tweaking Your Dough.” Hope to see you there!

Hi Everybody,

Mea culpa yet again! It’s been a crazy busy time and I haven’t posted anything for the past month or so, but wanted to get the ball going again and update you about a few things.

First, my upcoming Perfect Pan Pizza teaching tour in Texas at five Central Market Cooking Schools is coming up soon. Here are the dates and you can go to Central Market’s website if you want to register (see further on for the link): January 21, San Antonio; Jan. 22, Austin; Jan. 23, Houston; Jan. 24, Fort Worth; Jan. 25th, Dallas. It’s a fun (and tasty) class so I hope some of you can make it.  Here’s a link to the landing page for all the classes (Note: I just got a message from Central Market saying that the Austin class is already sold out, but the other classes still have a few seats left): https://centralmarket.com/cooking-school/

And, of course, I look forward to seeing many of you in Las Vegas at Pizza Expo at the end of March — more on that as we get closer!

But what I really want to write about today is my vision for Pizza Quest in 2020 and beyond. I’ll keep it short and sweet, since time is so precious for all of us these days. Yes, we’ll post new videos and recipes and guest columns as always but, this year and in the years to come, I want to focus more on the Quest part of Pizza Quest. We’ve always emphasized that pizza is just the tip of the iceberg (oops, how many metaphors can I squeeze in here?) and I’ve lost count of the number of times that my PQ co-founders Brad English and Jeff Michael or I have written that it’s more about the quest than it is the about the pizza. But, let’s face it, we all love pizza and we’ll always keep coming back to it because it is such an evocative metaphor as well as a delicious reality. But I’m sensing right now a yearning in the souls of many of us for a deeper connection — or re-connection — to the  part of life that provides meaning and fulfillment. Pizza Quest is really more about the reaching than the getting, but pizza, in this sense, is just an icon, a window into our souls. And, for those of you who have followed my various writings throughout the past 25 years, you know that I believe that everything (that is, every “thing”) is an image — which is what “icon” means: image — that serves as a metaphoric lens into a greater reality. It is a connector, a bridge, to something greater than ourselves, to the place where meaning is found. I have said in interviews that the plot of my various books may be about bread and pizza, but that the theme is always about an idea I call “connectedness.”  I believe that the meaning of life is found in this concept. In fact, this notion became an aha moment for me when I discovered, years after studying theology and religion, that the Latin word “Religio” has nothing to do with God or Deity, but that it literally means, “To be connected to.”  So, what I want to explore during this new Act Three stage of my life, is what it is we want or ought to be connected to, and how do we actualize it? That is, how does connectedness happen? And I invite you to be part of that exploration by sharing your own stories and journeys.

If you’d like to do so here on Pizza Quest, write to me at Peter@pizzaquest.com (I do better with emails than via chat response groups) and let me know. I’d love to publish your stories here, whether they’re related to pizza or not, as long as they further our exploration of “quest.” And, of course, we will not neglect pizza along the way. All I’m looking for is thoughtful, heartfelt storytelling and sharing. In some of our videos we referred to you, our Pizza Quest community, as members of a tribe, folks who gather around the fire to share our mutual journeys. I look forward to contributing new essays and stories of my own, but would love to hear yours. We already have identified our tribe, so let’s keep the fires burning.

Onward into 2020… and may your pizzas all be perfect!

Happy New Year, 2020!

Peter