Pizza Quest with Peter Reinhart

A few years ago, while exploring the Denver pizza scene (see our recent webisode series on Marco’s Coal-Fired Pizza), our friends at The Fire Within told us about a pizzaiolo who was using one of their mobile pizza units (made with a Forno Bravo oven, of course), who was parked right on the famous 16th Street Mall in downtown Denver, just at the base of the iconic clock tower on…Read More…

Welcome to Mid-Summer (unless you’re in the Southern Hemisphere in which case, welcome to Mid-Winter)! Interesting happenings here and there. Here are a couple for consideration: Our friend, Daniel Young, the author of the must have, “Where to Eat Pizza,” just sent out a note with the following message: When it comes to declaring which pizza rises above them all there is strength in numbers. I may be the author of WHERE…Read More…

In this final webisode in our series from Marco’s Coal-Fired Pizza (now known as Racca’s Pizzeria Napoletana), in Denver, CO, we turn our focus to one of their non-pizza signature dishes: wood-fired chicken wings glazed with house-made limoncello sauce. Samantha and Heather, who you’ve already met in the previous two segments, take us step by step through their process and, as a guy who loves oven-baked wings even more than…Read More…

Hi Folks, Hope you made or had some great pizza during this holiday weekend. I, on the other hand, doing my patriotic duty, opted for burgers, baking them in my Primavera 60 WFO oven at 1000 degrees F. in just under 2 minutes. Talk about fireworks!  Burgers just don’t get any better than firing them hot and fast. But that’s a story for another time. I just received this following…Read More…

The English Family pizza – the one we can always agree on when we’re out together, has always been basically a meat lovers pizza — and, for us it starts with meatballs.  This is a far under appreciated or used pizza topping.  We finish our family pizza with Canadian bacon, salami and/or sausage.  I fight for some green peppers once in a while, and get that through if the kids…Read More…

Ovens, ingredients, equipment, technique — these are vital components of the quest for great pizza. But, let’s face it, for most of us the real obsession, the “Golden Fleece,” and “Holy Grail” of pizza, is creating the perfect pizza crust. The world’s best pizza makers, amateur or professional, are never satisfied with their dough. Even the most stubborn, set in their ways old school pizza makers will lean in when…Read More…

When we last left Samantha Monterossa, Mark (Marco) Dym’s daughter, she walked us through their classic, VPN Margherita pizza. This time, she invites pizzaiola Heather Vetting to show us the Racca’s Abruzzo Pizza, a four-cheese beauty. (Note: if you read the intro to Part 1, you’ll recall that Marco’s is now called Racca’s, to avoid confusing it with a Florida pizza group also called Marco’s).  Because she says it rather…Read More…

Hi Everyone, This is an exciting week for me as, after months of preparation and a week of filming in Denver, my new Craftsy course, Artisan Bread Making: Ancient and Sprouted Grains,  is now up and running!  For those of you who aren’t familiar with Craftsy, it is a very dynamic, online streaming education company that has produced over a thousand video courses on subjects as diverse as quilting, sewing,…Read More…

Note from Peter: Teresa Greenway has contributed a number of guest columns here on PizzaQuest, and is a wonderful resource for all things related to sourdough. Her website, www.northwestsourdough.com/ should be in your bookmark section if it isn’t already. I’m very excited to hear how she’s moved into the video instructional world and, in addition to her reasonably priced course, she also offers a lot of information and downloads for…Read More…

Let me say up front that this won’t be the cheapest pizza you’ll make if you follow me into this rabbit hole, but I will say it will be a pizza you won’t soon forget! I love grilled lobster. The charring of the lobster “meat” gives it just a that much more flavor and even a slight textural difference that if it were just steamed. It also frankly just looks…Read More…