Pizza Quest Globe

Harvesting Tomatoes with Tony

Written By Peter Reinhart
Thursday, 01 December 2011 Webisodes

This is one of my favorite webisodes of all time. Tony Gemignani took us on a field trip to Stanislaus County, to the town of Westley (near Modesto, CA), where we met Steve Rouse, the marketing director for the world famous Stanislaus Food Products company. We arrived just a week or so before the peak of the harvest, but found a few vines that were, nevertheless ripe and ready, as you will see. But more importantly, as you watch us in the field, the wind blowing, surrounded by acres and acres of low lying tomato vines, the smell of those tomatoes infusing the atmosphere with that distinctive tomato vine aroma (well, you had to be there for that part), there were a few indelible moments that I will never forget. First, for Tony, who we’ve been featuring for the past few months in this webisode series and whose talent is prodigious, this was not just a source for his tomato products but a place where, as he explains, he feels a deep connection to his own heritage, especially to his grandfather, a hardworking farmer and his personal hero, and this sense of connectedness clearly infuses and informs his own work. For Steve, as you will hear, there is a connection to his company’s own quest for quality, embodied in the values of the owner, Dino Cortopassi, to keep reaching for perfection. One of Dino’s sayings, and Steve shares it with us in this segment and I’m sure I’ll be stealing it many times in the future, is: “In the race for quality, there is no finish line.”

Even if you can’t smell the tomatoes the way we did that day, take it all in through these images and words. There are a lot of life lessons in this segment, transmitted through many generations of hard earned wisdom.

 

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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