Pizza Quest with Peter Reinhart

Quite literally, this dough truly is a brew in Germania!  I’m “working on” a keg of Firestone Double Barrel Ale.  I’ve had it a while and been too busy to use it up!  No time for friends to come help me get to the bottom of this keg. So, I thought I’d draw a pint or two and also use it in my Germania Flour blend from Central Milling. I…Read More…

In our previous webisode we made two different pizzas for Patrick Rue and his team and challenged them to create a beer inspired by one of them. In this segment, you will see the choice that Patrick and his head brewer Tyler made, as well as an interesting discussion on the thinking behind all the choices. The red pizza was made with spiced pork jowl (guanciale), local pistachios, Mimolette cheese,…Read More…

I decided to make up some clams for a friend’s going away party.  Mike is leaving again to go back to work on the TV show Grimm up in Portland, Oregon.  I don’t think of clams when I think of Mike.  I don’t think of food much either!  Let’s say he’s a little less adventurous than some of us. But, since we’re all gathering for a party, I decided that…Read More…

Here it is, as promised, a pictorial guide to the best steaks I’ve ever had, for a fraction of the cost of Morton’s, Peter Luger, Ruth’s Chris, and all the others.  Of course, you need the super high heat of a wood-fired oven, such as this sweet little Primavera 60 in my back driveway next to the garden. I made these for a dinner party for my wife Susan’s birthday;…Read More…

Welcome back and I hope you all had a wonderful Fourth of July! I’ve been getting requests to describe again how I do the 4 minute steaks in my Forno Bravo Primavera 60 wood-fired oven (of course, these can be made in any size W-F oven but I happen to have the 60). We are just a couple of days from putting on a steak dinner for my wife’s birthday…Read More…

What do you do with some Firestone Double Barrel Ale, Fire Roasted Western Honey-Mesquite Flour and a need for pizza? Well the answer is simple: you make some of my desert-inspired Mesquite Dough.  However, you not only sip on your beer while making it, but you make the dough with some of your beer! I set out to just make the dough, and took some pictures of the set-up because…Read More…

When Kelly Whitaker and Al Henkin, of Boulder’s wonderful brick oven restaurant, Basta, collaborated with me and our Pizza Quest team to create two pizzas, one red and one white, to challenge Patrick Rue and his Bruery team, we came up with a couple of very strong contenders. You can hear, as they explain the rationale and sourcing they put into each of their ingredients, how much thought went into…Read More…

There is a new app in development that will help any traveler track down the best artisan pizzerias wherever they go, at least in the USA (for now — maybe they’ll cover the whole world if it succeeds). The developers have just launched an Indiegogo campaign to raise the funds they need to complete the project. They have figured out a method to limit the recommendations to only highly rated…Read More…

(Note from Peter:  John O’Hanlon, a serious home baker and long time correspondent, sent me this story of his recent quest to make a killer vollkornbrot (translation: 100% whole grain, German style rye bread). His passion and determination inspired me to ask his permission to share his story and his recipe with you, so here it is. Let us know if you try making this bread — we’d love to…Read More…

Blog Post – Breakfast I’ve been gone from these pages a while!  I have been busy with my real life, not this fantasy pizza guy life.  I’ve been working out of town a bit and when available, racing around to my kid’s sporting events!  I thought life was busy when they were little!  It’s funny how your perspective changes to catch up to reality.  One day you look back and…Read More…