Saturday, November 15, 2014

A Review of The Pizza Bible by Tony Gemignani

Pizza...it's like a religion in my house.

My husband is Italian American...and it's all about pizza for him...pasta too but mostly pizza. We call him the pizza connoisseur, the God of Pizza. So when I spotted this book...The Pizza Bible (of all things), I knew it was a must have.

Oh the pizzas in this book...my stomach starts growling with anticipation just flipping through the pages to try and decide which recipe to tackle.

Deep dish, thin crust, cracker thin-thin crust, assorted flavors, toppings, gourmet wonders, traditional and wild...it's all there to be explored, to be tried...and most of all... to be tasted.

Look at this Table of Contents- which would you choose first?

Respect the Craft    
The Master Class   
Gearing Up  
Master Class Shopping List  
Part One: Theory  
Ingredients  
Part Two: Practice  
Day One   
Day Two 
Day Three  
Regional American   
Master Dough with Starter 
Tiga and Poolish Starters   
Master Dough Without Starter 
New Yorker  
New York–New Jersey Tomato Sauce
Sweet Fennel Sausage    
Calabrese Honey Sausage   
Casing Sausage 
New Haven with Clams  
New Jersey Tomato Pie 
Detroit Red Top  
St. Louis   
Chicago  
Chicago Deep-Dish Dough 
Chicago Stuffed Dough  
Deep-Dish Tomato Sauce  
Chicago Deep-Dish with Calabrese and 
Fennel Sausages   
Chicago Deep Dish with Spinach and Ricotta  
Fully Stuffed   
Cast-Iron Skillet   
Cracker-Thin Dough  
Cracker-Thin with Fennel Sausage  
Cracker-Thin Tomato Sauce  
Frank Nitti   
Italian Stallion
Italian Beef   
Italian Beef Sandwich  
Chicago-Inspired Cocktails  
Sicilian   
Sicilian Dough with Starter
Sicilian Dough Without Starter   
Parbaking Sicilian Dough 
The Brooklyn   
Sicilian Tomato Sauce  
Pepperoni and Sausage  
Burratina di Margherita    
Purple Potato and Pancetta  
La Regina  
Grandma
Early Girl Tomato Sauce  
Quattro Forni  
California Style   
Cal-Italia   
Multigrain Dough   
Honey Pie 
Eddie Muenster
Guanciale and Quail Egg  
Campari
Organic Three Cheese  
Eggplant and Olive  
Fig, Almond, and Monterey Jack 
Organic Dough    
Khorasan Dough  
Einkorn Dough   
Sprouted Wheat Dough   
Napoletana   
Napoletana Dough   
Napoletana Tomato Sauce  
Handmade Mozzarella   
Wood-Fired Pizza Basics   
Wood-Fired Oven Baking   
Home-Oven Broiler Method   
Margherita   
Margherita Extra   
Marinara   
Mastunicola   
Regional Italian 
Lucca   
Rimini   
Calabrese “Diavola”  
Quattro Anchovy   
Sardinia  
Pizza Romana  
Romana Dough 
Global   
Barcelona 
München   
Dubliner    
Parisian   
Greco  
Grilled   
Dough for Grilling 
Grilled Pizza Master Recipe  
Steak Lover’s   
Insalata   
St-Germain BBQ Chicken   
Wrapped and Rolled   
Calzone with Meatballs or Spinach  
Mortadella and Cheese Calzonewich  
The Bow Tie  
Pepperoli Sausage Rol  
Two Cool Things to Do with Leftover Dough  
Meatballs  
Focaccia and Bread   
Focaccia   
Focaccina   
Ciabatta   
After-School Ciabatta Pizza   
Baker’s Percentages Chart   
Measurement Conversion Charts

Napoletana for us (of course, it's close to our family name and the region my husband's family comes from) unfortunately we can't do the traditional style because we don't have a wood stove but we can do the altered version.

Then we will try Sicilian.

And then I dont know, there's so much....I see a future of fun pizza experimentation in my household.




The Pizza Bible

The World's Favorite Pizza Styles, from Neapolitan, Deep-Dish, Wood-Fired, Sicilian, Calzones and Focaccia to New York, New Haven, Detroit, and more

Written by Tony Gemignani

About the Book:

A comprehensive guide to making pizza, covering nine different regional styles--including standards like Neapolitan, Roman, and Chicago, as well as renowned pizza sub-specialties like St. Louis and Californian--from chef, 11-time world Pizza Champion Tony Gemignani.

Everyone loves pizza! From fluffy Sicilian pan pizza to classic Neapolitan margherita with authentic charred edges, and from Chicago deep-dish to cracker-thin, the pizza spectrum is wide and wonderful, with something to suit every mood and occasion. And with so many fabulous types of pie, why commit to just one style? The Pizza Bible is a complete master class in making delicious, perfect, pizzeria-style pizza at home, with more than seventy-five recipes covering every style you know and love, as well as those you’ve yet to fall in love with. Pizzaiolo and eleven-time world pizza champion Tony Gemignani shares all his insider secrets for making amazing pizza inhome kitchens. With The Pizza Bible, you’ll learn the ins and outs of starters, making dough, assembly, toppings, and baking, how to rig your home oven to make pizza like the pros, and all the tips and tricks that elevate home pizza-making into a craft.


Available at Amazon and Other Retailers

RESPECT THE CRAFT

Pizza is simple. It’s dough, tomato, cheese, and toppings. But as someone who has devoted more than half of my life to it, I can tell you that, like all really great, really simple things, pizza is infinite. I’m still learning, still refining, still trying to make it even better every single day. And what I can tell you for sure is that pizza doesn’t come down to just recipes or formulas. It’s a craft. 

That one word—that’s why I wanted to write this book. There are hundreds of pizza books, blogs, and websites filled with thousands of recipes out there. Do we really need another one? I thought about this a lot, and here’s where I ended up: when I teach home cooks and certify chefs and pizzaiolos, it’s less about recipes and more about inspiring people to master the craft of pizza—the techniques, the reasons to choose one ingredient over another, the art of “reading” the dough as you mix, shape, top, and bake it. 

Anyone can hand you a pizza recipe, and if that recipe is halfway decent, chances are you can make yourself a perfectly good pizza for dinner tonight in your own kitchen with no special equipment and not much preparation. But that’s not where I want to take you. 

I want to get you all the way to five-star, killer-pizzeria-quality pizza. I want you to master any style you love—whether it’s Chicago deep-dish or cracker-thin, a big, fluffy Sicilian pan pizza or a classic Neapolitan margherita with that authentic char blistering the edges—right in your own kitchen with whatever oven you’ve got. 

Is that really possible? Can you actually do all that without a real pizza oven? That’s the question I get asked most often. Believe it or not, you can. It’s not your oven. It’s the ingredients and the techniques you use, and I’m going to give you every piece of ingredient and technique advice you’ll need to succeed. 

But if you truly want to get all the way to rocking restaurant-style pizza at home, there’s one thing I’m going to ask you to commit to. It’s the motto that runs across the front of my menu, and the three words etched on the door of my restaurants. Hey, I even had it tattooed right onto my hands. Respect the craft.

Craft is the difference between good and great. It takes a few extra steps, the right equipment, a little more time, and a fair amount of practice. But if you’re up for it, the payoff is golden. 

So I’m going to start by asking you to try something a little unusual for a cookbook. I want you to read all the way through page 19 before you try a single recipe. And then I’m inviting you to take a Master Class where we make your first pizza together—and maybe even take that class a few more times before you graduate to trying all the great stuff in the rest of the book and eventually coming up with your own variations and improvisations. 

That’s what I mean by respecting the craft and getting a handle on the whys and hows behind it. It might sound a little back-to-schooly. But trust me, it’ll be fun. And you get to eat the final exam.

Want more information and inspiration? Check out my blog at ThePizzaBible.com
   

About the Author:

TONY GEMIGNANI is the chef and owner of seven restaurants: Tony's Pizza Napoletana, Capo's, and Tony's Coal-Fired Pizza in San Francisco, Pizza Rock in Sacramento and Las Vegas, Tony's of North Beach and Slice House by Tony Gemignani in Rohnert Park. He's also the co-owner of the International School of Pizza in San Francisco. Gemignani has been making pizza for over 20 years and holds an impressive set of awards.

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