Pizza Quest with Peter Reinhart

In bread baking, it is the simple baguette that is held as the benchmark of a baker’s skills. A Mexican restaurant better make a killer salsa or I’m out of there. Any ice cream artiste can make fanciful flavors but it is their vanilla or chocolate that proves if they have the golden touch.  For Neapolitan pizzas, it is the Margherita, for sure, but also the lesser known (in the…Read More…

Happy New Year Everyone! I want to start off 2016 by telling you all about my meeting yesterday with author Simran Sethi, who’s recently published book, “Bread, Wine, Chocolate: The Slow Loss of Foods We Love,” is destined to join the books of Michael Pollan and Dan Barber as must-reads for anyone interested in biodiversity and sustainability. Her book, loaded with important information about the fragility of our ecosystem and…Read More…

I make a lot of pizza. In an attempt to keep things interesting, I do a fair bit of experimenting. I’m often inspired by an ingredient I got my hands on at Whole Foods, or another local market. I was lucky enough to bring home some beautiful Prosciutto and Nduja provided by La Quercia for the Forno Bravo Wood Fired Expo back in September. With a product like this in…Read More…

Note from Peter: This month, our regular guest columnist, John Arena, continues his exploration of pizza authenticity in its broader context. As you read the description of his recent “Dream Team” experience in Naples, if you are at all like me (and many of you are), you will wish you could have been there with him. If you’d like to meet John in person, come to the Global Pizza Summit…Read More…

Just a quick posting here to let everyone know about the Global Pizza Summit, to be held in NYC on Jan. 11th and 12th. As part of the Summit there will also be the 2nd Annual Caputo Cup Competition for both Neapolitan (wood-fired) and American-style pizzas. I’ll be heading to NYC for the Summit, as will regular guest columnist John Arena and a whole pantheon of pizza superstars, many of…Read More…

Welcome back to our “Master Class” series from Peppe Miele. In each of these segments we’ve learned another golden nugget of pizza wisdom and this one is no exception. For instance, he mentions (so quickly that I almost missed it) that the”official” Vera Pizza Napoletana (VPN) Margherita Pizza is supposed to use a sprinkle of only Pecorino (sheep’s milk) cheese, even though most places (even his) now use mostly Parmesan….Read More…

It’s funny how ideas come together.  About a year ago, I came up with the idea to cook up a burger patty and wrap it in a pizza dough and throw it in the oven. I love burgers and I love pizza. Why not? I’d have a fresh baked bun literally wrapped around my burger. It turned out to be more of a puff ball of dough that blew up…Read More…

Note from Peter: Over the next few weeks I will continue to share my thoughts and memories about the Forno Bravo Expo held in September in Salinas, CA. We left off on  Friday,the day before the Expo was opened to the public, as we gathered with the Forno Bravo folks, our Pizza Quest team, our hosts at Talbott Vineyards, and a growing cast of heroes. We pick up the story…Read More…

Note from Peter: Here is the first of what we hope will be many new guest columns from John Arena. If you haven’t already seen the interview piece we did with him a few weeks ago, scroll down and catch up. In this column he addresses, in his inimical way, the matter of authenticity. I have a feeling this isn’t the last time he’ll have something to say on the…Read More…

We continue our exploration of Vera Pizza Napoletana with our Naples guru Peppe Miele. In this installment we turn to the wood-fired oven that is absolutely essential if you want to get certified as a real deal, verace pizza guy. It’s hard to believe, but important to recall, that only a few years ago in the United States a wood-fired oven siting was a rare and exciting discovery. Little by…Read More…