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Note from Peter:  I met Meathead Goldwyn a few weeks ago at the Decatur Book Festival, where he held the culinary stage immediately before I went on, so I had a chance to watch his presentation, which was on “Busting Myths About Barbecue and Cooking.”  It was a fun filled hour, full of great tips on temperature control, best brands for food thermometers, how to cook a steak to the…Read More…

For the past twelve years I have been a presenter at the annual Asheville Bread Festival. There are a lot of things I like about this festival, an event that celebrates bread,of course, but also something even deeper. In fact, it reminds me a lot of PizzaQuest, where pizza is just the tip of the iceberg as we explore what I often call, “a fire in the belly that drives…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…

Peppe Miele, our Virgil of the Vera Pizza Napoletana universe, continues his guided tour in this segment, turning his attention to one of my favorite subjects, dough fermentation. We receive a lot of e-mails asking about how long dough should be fermented before making the pizzas, and the answers are nearly infinite and weighted with lots of theories and opinions. But Peppe cuts right to the chase as to the…Read More…

Hi Everyone, I just got back from an amazing weekend at the Forno Bravo Expo, in Salinas, California (near Monterey) where we did demo’s, filmed hours of new material for Pizza Quest, and met a lot of great people, many who already own WFO’s (Wood-Fired Ovens), and even Fire Within ovens on wheels.  I’m still unpacking, so will write a longer post, with photos, in a few days after I…Read More…

Welcome Back! We have 10 webisodes in this interview series with Peppe Miele, so we’ll be covering a lot in the coming weeks. In this segment, Peppe explains a little more about the Vera Pizza Napoletana school of thought, focusing on the famous tomatoes from San Marzano. As you will see, the sauce made from these tomatoes is beautiful (and it tastes as good as it looks, with a fresh,…Read More…

First of all, if you haven’t watched the series, Chef’s Table, on Netflix stop reading and go watch it, especially the episode I’m about to describe. If you don’t have Netflix, sign up; this post will be here when you get back! There was a visual moment in the episode about the brilliant, iconoclastic chef, Francis Mallmann, that is never spoken about in the narration, no dialogue, but it jumped…Read More…

Hi Everyone, I received an e-mail from Maxwell Kessler, a film and television producer, letting me know about a new TV series that he and a friend have written. They are currently raising money through an IndieGoGo campaign to fund the pilot episode and are also making a different kind of request.  Here’s an excerpt from his email: Later this month, I am producing a sitcom pilot about the friends…Read More…

Hi Again, We’re starting to get things rolling here, with plans to post a whole new series of video webisodes, beginning Sept. 1st (the first series featuring an interview with Peppe Miele, the king of the VPN — Vera Pizza Napoletana), and regular posts from me, Brad, and our guest columnists. In the meantime, here’s a link to a fun and inspirational interview with Noel Brohner, a self-taught, one-time home…Read More…