Pizza Quest with Peter Reinhart

This is a beautiful pizza!  I can’t take credit for the recipe…only my efforts to create one here at home in my Primavera wood fired oven.  And, as you can see, I think I did well! There is a local Italian restaurant here in LA called Eatalian Cafe.  The cafe is in an industrial district in Gardena and, when you go inside, it’s like a food processing warehouse that is…Read More…

Hi Everyone, I still have a number of posts to bring you, including interviews, Part Two of my NYC pan pizza tour, the International Symposium on Bread wrap-up, and more videos and recipes but things have been a little bit busy. This is the final week of school at Johnson & Wales University, so my Introduction to Baking class is about to take their final exams, and we’re still wrapping…Read More…

Hi Everyone, I’m a little behind on posting, as I’ve been immersed in the second annual International Symposium on Bread (nicknamed, “On the Rise 2”). I just received the photo files from our photographer today and haven’t had time to write up a recap, but that all will be coming soon, so please check back in a few days. Also, this weekend is the 14th Annual Asheville Bread Festival, this…Read More…

We just received notice that one of our beloved Pizza Quest stars, Jim Ruddell, of Ruddell’s Smokehouse in Cayucos, CA, passed away. We featured Jim during our first season, and he also makes a short appearance in our highlight webisode, Pizza as Obsession, which is always found at the top of the Home Page. As Brad English reminded me, the smoked salmon fish taco he had when we filmed with…Read More…

I’ve been home for over three weeks now but am still enjoying flashbacks from Pizza Expo 2018. With over 8,000 people attending everyday, and hundreds of booths, there are probably over 8,000 versions of what Pizza Expo means to the attendees and vendors. For sure, plenty of pizza to taste, ingredients to sample, equipment to test drive, seminars and workshops to attend, and numerous competitions, there are just too many…Read More…

Note from Peter: I’m still working on my recap of the recent Pizza Expo in Las Vegas so, in the meantime, I wanted to share this very insightful post from guest columnist Joseph Calcagno, on the venerable tomato pie. Some of you may recall a series of columns we ran a few years ago by another one of our columnists, Bob Radcliffe, on the same subject (if not, you can…Read More…

Hi Everyone, Once again, here is John Arena, the legendary pizzaiolo from Las Vegas, Nevada, mentoring us all in the craft and history of pizza, with a little help from me, as we make a pizza in reverse, so to speak. You’ll see what I mean when you watch and, who knows, it may give you some ideas to play with on your own. Note: I just returned from the…Read More…

Since I am about to moderate a panel discussion with Nancy Silverton and Brian Spangler at the 2018 Pizza Expo (and expect to see many of you there on March 21st at 9:45), I wanted to bring back this terrific video interview we did with Nancy a few years ago as a way to prime the pump. Between this webisode and the interview I posted a few days ago with…Read More…

Note from Peter: I first met Brian Spangler about 18 years ago, when he owned a small mountain top artisan bread bakery outside of Portland, Oregon. He was hosting a meeting of the Board of Directors for the Bread Bakers Guild of America, and told me he someday hoped to open a place where he could also serve barbecue and pizza. Then, a couple of years later I saw him…Read More…

I know, I know–we are living in the Golden Age of Pizza. The very best exponents of our craft, Tony Gemignani, Anthony Falco, and of course Chris Bianco are turning out pizzas of unsurpassed quality. In fact, I’ve long maintained that today’s amateur pizzaiolo knows as much or more about the science of pizza making than many pro’s did in the past. Big improvements in technique, formulas, dough science and…Read More…