Pizza Quest with Peter Reinhart

Here’s another in the extremely informative sessions we had with Tony Gemignani at his landmark restaurant, Tony’s Pizza Napoletana in North Beach, San Francisco. In this websode, Tony shows us the difference between what he calls a “traditional Italian pizza” and the Napoletana/Neapolitan pizzas he made in previous segments. I think we might also more accurately think of this as “traditional Italian-American” pizza. This style is baked in a gas…Read More…

Lately I’ve been thinking about New Orleans. The Crescent City has a huge Sicilian heritage yet it has never been known as a great pizza city. We will explore why at a later date because right now let’s think about something New Orleans is famous for and how it relates to pizza — music. Back in the early 1900’s there was a legendary jazz musician named Freddie Keppard. People who…Read More…

I’m home, Halloween has passed (we got a record number of kids this year), and I’ve started a serious diet after last week’s blow-out in San Francisco. I’ll be back later today with more details on that, but wanted to let you know what else we have on tap for this week in addition to the recap of last week. On Wed. we’ll have a new recipe from Brad, who…Read More…

Today is the last day of our photo shoot and we have only three shots left to take but time is running out, so I can’t elaborate on last night’s blow out at Tony’s Pizza Napoletana (how could we not go there after spending the last two months in webisode world with all those Tony’s videos?). However, I’ll post more later this weekend, when things settle down. We were in…Read More…

In this webisode, Tony Gemignani shows us his take on a classic Sicilian-style pizza, such as found at only a few places in New York City, Brooklyn, and other east coast cities, and now at Tony’s Pizza Napoletana in San Francisco. This type of pizza, in which he first bakes the crust to set it and then tops it with sauce, cheese, pepperoni, and sausage for a final bake, is…Read More…

Wed. We’re halfway through the photo shoot and have come with some great shots and lots of product to bring to Omnivore tonight at 6 PM. There’s always something going into or coming out of the oven, eventually being styled by Karen Shinto into a composition that Leo can assess and light for the camera. The rest of us gather around and offer suggestions or ooohhs and aahhh’s and then…Read More…

How do you celebrate, or explore a new ingredient you are looking to use?  If your ingredient is a can of Bianco DiNapoli Organic Tomatoes you got your hands on, you don’t need to look too much further than Tony Gemignani’s Orginal Tomato Pie with Cheese.  I remembered this pizza and thought it would be the perfect platform for these tomatoes to shine.  I was on a tomato quest after…Read More…

Here I am in San Francisco, shooting the photos for the upcoming book on Gluten-Free baking. I took a few photos of our team, hard at work, baking, shooting and tweaking the book photos (the “beauty shots” as they’re called), and matching the copy to the photos. We’re having a ball! Last night we had dinner at one of my favorite SF attractions, The Ferry Terminal Market (more on that…Read More…

  Lately I’ve been thinking about the student teacher relationship. For the past few weeks I have been training a friend who wants to open an authentic New York style pizzeria in Seoul. James Yu is not your average pizza guy. A native of South Korea, he graduated from Auburn with a degree in Chemical Engineering and worked in the US for several years. Along the way James fell in…Read More…

As a special welcome to The Fire Within, our newest sponsor, here is a video we shot last October at an oven owners conference hosted by Joseph Pergolizzi, the owner and founder of The Fire Within.  We shot a number of these instructional videos at the end of the conference with various attendees, asking each of the oven owners what kind of pizza they wanted to make, and Joseph chose…Read More…