Pizza Quest with Peter Reinhart

When trying to pick the great pizza cities of the world there are a few places that I call the “usual suspects.” Naples, for many reasons, is often considered number 1, followed by a chorus of voices shouting about New York, Chicago and, for the real pizza fans, New Haven. All of these places can make a legitimate claim to pizza supremacy but if you are serious about pizza you…Read More…

Hi Everyone, I’m taking shameless advantage of this platform to let you know that a caption I submitted was chosen as a finalist in the weekly New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest.  It is only the second time I’ve ever tried entering and, frankly, I usually find it hard to come up with anything funny or clever, so I often pass. But this time it came to me in a flash,…Read More…

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…