Pizza Quest with Peter Reinhart

Welcome back to Pizza Talk! Portland has recently been feted in the national press for being the best pizza city in America (hey, don’t kill the messenger, but I’ve long advocated for Portland as being the best, per capita, so count me in). And Ken’s Artisan Pizza is one of the reasons why. Ken Forkish made the leap from famous artisan bread baker to, now, famous artisan pizza maker by…Read More…

Welcome back to Pizza Talk! Today’s guest is the embodiment of the old adage: Think globally but act locally.  By that, I mean that Siler Chapman is a world pizza champion, a protege of Tony Gemignani, and is known well beyond the borders of this city, my city, our city, Charlotte, NC where we both live.  As you will learn in this fun conversation, I have been a fan of Siler’s…Read More…

Welcome back to Pizza Talk! Some background: Over 35 years ago, before I was a bread baker, I entertained the notion of becoming an artisan cheese maker — that is before I lost control of a batch of about 20 wheels of home made cheddar cheese and was greeted by a walk-in covered in blue mold, including all the produce my wife was counting on in her job as head cook…Read More…

Welcome back to Pizza Talk! One of the most enjoyable parts of interviewing the many pizza luminaries featured on Pizza Talk is hearing about their unique journeys to and through pizza. Some were born to it and others took the long and winding and unexpected road. No matter the route, the process of self-discovery is always fascinating and, while each person’s journey is unique to them, it also partakes of…Read More…

Welcome Back to Pizza Talk! In our never-ending quest for, and celebration of artisanship wherever we find it, whether in pizza or anything related to it (which means pretty much everything!), we inevitably cannot avoid the golden liquid that is olive oil. And who better to guide us than the “Master Miller” at Corto Olive Oil, David (pronounced Daveed) Garci-Aguirre, and Corto’s “Education Ambassador” Lisa Pollack. I think it is…Read More…

Welcome back to Pizza Talk! In the fall of 2020 I had the joy of meeting with London-based Thom Elliot over Zoom. Thom is one of the two self-named Pizza Pilgrims, the other being his brother James (who also dropped in for a brief cameo). Their recently released book, Pizza: History, Recipes, Stories, People, Places, Love is their chronicle of a global journey in search of great pizza and how to make…Read More…

It was a beautiful day and I had some dough resting in my fridge.  What more could anyone want?  I could feel my wood fired oven calling out to me as I left the beach. I stopped by my market on the way home and the first thing that caught my eye were the pineapples.  They were perfectly ripe, not too soft, not too hard and I thought immediately of…Read More…

Welcome back for another fascinating segment of Pizza Talk. This time around we tracked down one of the most unique operations in the country, not because it is a mobile pizzeria but because of how the owner, Luis Perez, makes it happen using 4 single unit RoccBox ovens mounted into a 3-wheeled Piaggio Ape van in Rochester, NY.  It basically looks like a rocket ship — I love it!! I won’t…Read More…

We’re back with another exciting episode, one that we’ve been holding onto for a number of months while gearing up for Season Two, featuring our beloved “Pizza “Yodi’s” (Brian Spangler and John Arena), joined by a major “Yoda” in his own right, Adam Kuban. Adam is not only an important long time voice and influencer in the pizza world (think Slice, and also Serious Eats, where he was THE voice) but…Read More…

Hi Everybody, Welcome back to Season Two of Pizza Talk!! We took a longer than expected break due to a crazy busy schedule and the reopening of commerce, so we’re going to kick off this new season with some episodes that were recorded in the fall of 2020, when things weren’t looking as hopeful as they do now, so you will hear references to pivoting and resilience, but these conversations…Read More…